Product Description

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Artist AT73 Black Paisley Burst Electric Guitar w/ Hand Made Pickups

The latest in our much-lauded range of TC-style guitars, the Artist AT73 is a sleek and modern take on the classic paisley designs of old, packed with a host of great features to bring you an instrument that straddles the line between innately familiar and excitingly new. With a matching headstock, and a classic-looking roasted maple neck finished with a comfortable satin feel, the high-grade locking tuners and rosewood fretboard (at a lightning-quick 14-inch radius), make for a guitar that is smooth and easy to play. 

Having tested untold amounts of pickup options, we settled on a set of high-end, hand-made single coils wound by the Laohao workshop, a small team producing low-quantity batches of custom pickups to a frankly unbelievable standard. Paired with 500k pots, the AT73 packs a massive punch, every bit as twangy and biting as you could expect from a TC-style guitar. Every detail has been pored over with this one - a bone nut, copper shielding, a wheeled string tree, locking strap buttons, and glow-in-the-dark side fret markers are among a host of modern features that will make this your new number one.

The Tech Features:

Brand: Artist

Model: AT73BP

Scale Length: 648 mm / 25.5 Inches

Body Wood: Mahogany

Machine Heads: Locking Machine Heads

Finish: Black Paisley Burst

Neck: Quarter-Sawn Roasted Maple 21-22mm thickness with Satin Finish; C-Shape Neck

Fretboard: Rosewood

Frets: 22 Stainless Steel Frets

Nut: 42mm Bone

Fingerboard Radius: 14" (350mm)

Bridge: Vintage Style Bridge With Brass Saddles

Pickups: Laohao Hand Made Alnico V Single Coil Pickups with Copper Foil Shielded Control Cavity

  • Neck: 6.8K
  • Bridge: 8K

Features: 3-way Switch, String-Through Body, Strap Locks, Stainless Steel Frets, Copper Foil Shielded Control Cavity

Weight: 3.2-3.6kg / 7-8.5lbs

Optional Hard Cases: REC300, REC350, EC500

Optional Gig Bags: HGBAGST, BAGST

(18088)


Reviews (1)

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Unplayable out of the box

By: on 30 April 2024
Nice looking guitar with excellent specs but poor QC issues straight out of the box. The paint job is sub-standard, with numerous pin holes in the paint revealing the white base layer, and large areas of the body edge were scuffed. The black paint was rippled/dimpled around the body edges and paint was missing around where the neck joins the body again revealing the white base layer. A Squire Bullet has a much more professional paint job than this. The main issue however was the neck. It was so badly back bowed (and hence unplayable), that I spent two days gradually winding the truss rod at least two full turns in total to get it straight. I don’t think I’ve ever needed to do much more than a 1/4 to 1/2 a turn on a truss rod before, so this much adjustment made me a bit nervous, especially on a “roasted” neck which is supposed to make the neck much more stable than unroasted. Looks like this much bowing occurred either before or during the roasting process and somehow passed by a factory QC inspection. Seems like Artist on-ships these guitars without opening and checking them first which would prevent guitars in unplayable condition ever reaching the customer. Would it be a bad idea for Artist to check each guitar (especially their highest tier models) and do a basic set-up before shipping, and add the extra cost to the final price? I suspect not. After getting the neck straight, I kept raising the action to remove excessive fret buzz on 4-5 strings. It got to the point that the action was getting too high for my preference and were not consistent with the neck radius. Adding a slight amount of neck relief to help reduce buzzing didn’t help much and I prefer a straight neck anyway. At this point, I’m either paying an unspecified amount to a guitar tech to sort the neck out or I return the guitar. I returned it. As with the pink tele, the string ferrule drill holes were not well aligned and the pick-ups not particularly tele sounding (lacked twang and bite), but they sound decent for single coils and were low hum. Despite the QC issues, this would potentially be a great value guitar with excellent features, but as it stands, I’d recommend a Squire Vibe or Sire T3 over this guitar despite those being much less well specced. As a long time customer and supporter of Artist Guitars. I wish them well with their future quality improvements.

Artist Guitars Response
Hi, Jimmy. Thanks for your honest review and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience. I can see that our team has reached out to you and escalated your concerns with our experts. Rest assured that we are doing our best to have this resolved for you. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

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