REVIEWED


Vintage Paradise VS100


VINTAGE Paradise VS100


Vintage raise the bar on the affordable single cutaway electric with this cheeky tribute to a certain famous guitarist… Words: Hayden Hewitt


Finding a lower cost alternative to a certain legendary single cut design has never been difficult and in recent years the sub £500 market has seen quantum leaps in terms of quality. However, every once in a while a manufacturer will stomp into the arena and hoist the bar higher. Could it be Vintage are the brand to score a bulls eye this time around?


Slash & burn At first glance there’s no denying that the Paradise is a bit of a looker. Its amber flamed maple top is teamed up with a pair of zebra coil humbucking pickups (made by Wilkinson as is the majority of the hardware on this guitar) and the


VINTAGE Paradise VS100


SRP £369.00


All prices include VAT CONT


ACT


JHS Ltd T:


W: 24 3pickup


01132 865 381 www.jhs.co.uk


overall impression is very convincing. The solid mahogany body feels appropriately substantial but the weight lends the Paradise a certain gravitas and is only the first of a few important features that reinforces the impression that the Paradise is a better quality guitar than it’s modest price might suggest. The neck features a comfortable modern carve that seems to mould itself to your hand. The neck binding and flattish 12-inch fingerboard radius also cause some serious déjà vu. Once again nothing feels ‘budget’ here. The frets are wonderfully finished and the rosewood board looks resplendent with its traditional trapezoidal inlays. As a playing interface it’s basically bang on. Hardware wise there’s nothing we


can really find fault with at all. The Tune-o-Matic bridge is as solid and comfortable as you would expect and the gold top hat knobs add an extra element of class whilst contrasting beautifully against the amber maple top. If I am going to be picky I suppose the tulip style tuning pegs do feel a little brittle and ‘plasticky’ but performance-wise these vintage style units are pretty much rock solid. On the strap the Paradise balances just as it should, encouraging you to adopt the archetypal rock pose every


time you crash out a big power chord. The lower cutaway actually seems a little deeper than you’d usually expect on this style of guitar, with the easier access to the upper frets encouraging even more gurning and posing as you wring out the wailing high notes!


Sounds


The pickups on the Paradise are a pair of Wilkinson WVHZ


Humbuckers. Often the pickups can be the Achilles heel on a cheaper instrument as they tend towards the woolly and characterless. Naturally being Wilkinson designed the WVHZ’s are nothing of the sort. These zebra units are reasonably low in output, as they should be given the guitar the Paradise is based on. Played clean the bridge humbucker sounds bright and alive but never brittle. Perhaps the complexity offered by some aftermarket pickups isn’t quite there but it’s certainly more than a serviceable tone offering a shimmering clean with just a hint of the mahogany mid-range honk you would expect. Moving to the neck pickup the rich tone see’s single notes bloom and grow after the initial attack whilst chords sound lush and full with plenty of body. Kicking in the overdrive, the bridge pickup snarls agreeably offering up


plenty of harmonics and no small amount of woody goodness. Grinding out rhythms delivers excellent note definition, and it screams when you get up the dusty end. Switching over to the neck things start to sound fluid and smooth. The plummy tones encourage you to really dig in, allowing you to be expressive in your phrasing and attack in a way that, sorry to keep banging on about this, you really wouldn’t expect given this guitar’s very competitive price. PM


SHOULD I BUY ONE?


This is a guitar which costs less than £400 yet feels like it could easily cost more (you even get strap locks thrown in!). Nobody would claim the Paradise can compete with a guitar costing around six times as much, and nobody would try and ignore the badge snobbery all of us guitarists suffer from to some degree. But what I will say is that the Vintage Paradise is a great guitar and in this instance that’s more than good enough.


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