NGD Badlands GX-1

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stratjacket

stratjacket

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Badlands GX-1 in Old School options
This is a run that The Youtube guy The Tone King and Phil McKnight started, although Phil McKnight isn't apart any longer. Anyway, I liked their idea of created USA made custom type guitars based on 80's shredders. They do small runs of about 50 guitars at a time.

Not sure how it comes through the pictures, but this one has a vintage satin tinted neck and fretboard that is awesome. It's feels great to play, thin up around the 12th fret and thicker back towards the nut.
Usually I replace pickups in almost all my guitars, but these are really great. The neck is a true single coil, but really hot. They are covered, but they're passive pickups. The wired it up with a 250/500k pot so the neck sees 250k and the bridge sees 500k, no tone control. It's just the way I like it. I love the neck pickup so much I bought another one and put in one of my Caparison Horus guitars. The Bridge is strong and powerful and has good bite and girth, well rounded pickup.

Anyway, on to the porn:
GX1-1.jpeg

GX1-2.jpeg

GX1-3.jpeg
 
I really like the idea of the company, if they ever do something that isn't a super strat i'd be interested
 
It’s good quality, well built. Can definitely feel it. It feels substantial if that makes sense, but not heavy. This was the simple straight forward model without any custom graphics so it was cheaper. The red really pops though, in person it’s deep red.

I don’t know who they have that builds them, they don’t say. But he’s definitely a good builder. For a USA hand made (although I’m sure they use CNC) guitar for $2500 new I thought was a pretty good deal considering pricing these days.
 
It’s good quality, well built. Can definitely feel it. It feels substantial if that makes sense, but not heavy. This was the simple straight forward model without any custom graphics so it was cheaper. The red really pops though, in person it’s deep red.

I don’t know who they have that builds them, they don’t say. But he’s definitely a good builder. For a USA hand made (although I’m sure they use CNC) guitar for $2500 new I thought was a pretty good deal considering pricing these days.

Yeah I remember when they announced these I was stoked - I just wish they would do an explorer, star, V, literally anything except a superstrat
 
Yeah I remember when they announced these I was stoked - I just wish they would do an explorer, star, V, literally anything except a superstrat
I’m sure they will at some point. I kelly or killer guitars or star shape would be cool.

My guess is since it’s a small shop they’re constantly building so every model has the same body shape so far so they can just keep it going without having to retool and reprogram cnc. But total guesswork, no idea on how to run a guitar builders shop.
 
I’m sure they will at some point. I kelly or killer guitars or star shape would be cool.

My guess is since it’s a small shop they’re constantly building so every model has the same body shape so far so they can just keep it going without having to retool and reprogram cnc. But total guesswork, no idea on how to run a guitar builders shop.

I'm sure you're right - especially doing limited "runs" like this, they are married to one body shape at a time

It's just there's been a couple runs and they've all been superstrats, if I remember correctly

Which, I mean I'm stoked they're doing the 80s thing in general, it's just a selfish personal thing lol ?
 
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