This is the Fender Squier Paranormal Series Supersonic guitar. Reverse headstock and all certainly one of the more bizarre guitar shapes ever. Now you are going to love this design or hate it. I bought it, so it's obvious that I love it. It is pretty much a left handed guitar flipped around. And it's part of the Paranormal series, which is Fender's idea of guitars with a difference. For me this is a good thing as guitar design hasn't really moved on from the 1950's.
It looks good, it plays good and it sounds good as far as I'm concerned and it feels very different when I'm using it. It also has two things that add to that difference. It's a short scale guitar and it has a very narrow neck. I have small hands and fingers so that appeals to me. It also has no tone controls. The two knobs are volume controls for eack pickup.
Now I decided to give it a good workout by recording an album with it.
As you can hear I use a lot of effects, but there are some sections with a clean sound. I am somewhat different in how I approach electric guitar. I've been playing the instrument for 60 years. After all that time I've not developed any particular preferences. I am happy using a rosewood or maple neck, using humbuckers, P 90's or single coil pickups. I've used heavy and light guitars, Fenders, Gibsons, Gretch, Guild and even put together a 'Partscaster'. Using different types of guitars and pickups gives me different sounds, but when the pedals and effects get turned on, everything pretty much sounds the same.
I'm always amused when one those YouTube reviews talks about 'tones' they then switch on some fuzz/overdrive that completely obliterates any subtle differences. I'm afraid I'm one of those who thinks that wood in an electric guitars makes no difference whatsoever. This was further demonstrated to me by someone who made a strat type guitar out of concrete. It sounded exactly like a strat. I also don't think the pickups make much difference either, apart from volume and depth. Though that can be fixed by making a few adjustments on an amp or via a mixer. I would however like to make it clear that acoustic guitars are completely different. These are stand alone musical instruments and don't use the somewhat crude ways to get an electric guitar to make a sound.
As to the music, this is my take on fusion music, coming from a rock background rather than jazz. I also believe in total improvisation and have no idea what I'm going to do when I sit down to create some music. Hopefully some might find it interesting, however I am aware that some might consider it complete rubbish! I can understand that and I do acknowledge that it is an acquired taste!!!
A final word on the Supersonic. That is also an acquired taste and it certainly is an opinion splitter. If possible try one out and if you can't, buy it from dealer where you can return it. I'm going to have a lot of fun with mine, but that's my personal taste. Not everybody wants to use something that different.
