Bill Collings is admittedly building some of the finest acoustic guitars that have ever been built. When he decided to take on the challenge of building electric guitars, at the onset, this may have seemed an easier task. After all, electric guitars have no bracing, no acoustic waves to study, and acoustic players are known to be a finicky bunch when compared to our electric brethren. Well, 70 prototypes and a year later, he felt he had finally formulated the electric guitar he would want to build. In the process he conceptualized the iconic electric guitar in a new light, developing a new standard for fit, finish, innovation, and most importantly tone!
Like all of their electric models, the Collings 290 is named after a highway that runs through the Austin hill country and takes you to Collings workshop. Although it may look like a traditional model with it’s single “Spanish” cutaway and two humbuckers, look a little deeper and appreciate the features this guitar brings to the table.
The body is crafted from select piece of dense mahogany that has two well thought out ergonomic cuts on the back of the guitar, one for the area where the guitar rests & conforms to your ribcage (in the waist of the body), and the other in the lower bout to accommodate resting on your knew when sitting down. The leg cutout makes practicing or doing a session easy as it conforms to your leg, and the other, makes standing and playing a gig a pleasure as the guitar fits comfortably against your body.
The neck joint has been uniquely designed to join the body at an angle, allowing easier access to the upper frets. The neck joins at the 17th fret on the bass side, & at the 19th fret on the treble side. The neck is also crafted from select Mahogany that was typically used on what today are considered investment grade instruments of the 50’s and 60’s. This dense mahogany offers more mass, more rigidity & continuity from neck through the body. It responds better than any guitar you have may have ever played, and is extremely well balanced in your hands.
This Crimson Red 290 has two select Jason Lollar P-90 pickups. The P-90 is a single coil electric guitar pickup first produced by Gibson in 1946. They were introduced to replace the "bar pickup" (aka the Charlie Christian pickup) in models like the ES-150. Towards the end of the 40's P90's were the main pickup used on all models, including the Les Paul introduced in 1952. The P-90, in general, will be brighter and more transparent than a humbucker. They feature a boosted mid-range and some of the twang of Fender single coil pickups yet with more output and fullness. Typically P90's are clean at low volumes and have plenty of bite when pushed. One downside to the P90 is the 50 Hz / 60 Hz cycle "hum" which can be caused by external electrical and magnetic fields... not a problem with P90 makers such as Lollar, who offers a reverse wound version of the pickup, which doesn't hum when the guitar is kept the middle position.
Copied from Sean Costello's '53 Goldtop, these Lollar 50's Style P-90s have lower output, more delicate attack, less midrange and bass, and are "scatter wound" with a degaussed (or slightly weakened) Alnico 5 bar magnets. They have a fat P-90 tone with a smooth treble response, having more of an old p-90 sound, rather than a new pickup that sounds hard or harsh. Overall tone is brighter with less of a grind to the distortion quality and is slower to overdrive an amp than the stock P-90 set. Players have re-discovered their love of P90's for their creamy, rich tones and 6L6 amps do love a P90, and for good reason. Some of the best tones ever put to wax, that's right wax, were P90's!
To add to the straight ahead vintage tone and vibe of this 290, Collings has developed a custom Collings wraparound tailpiece that delivers unsurpassed dynamic range and tonal versatility with a very simple and classic design. This new tailpiece has intonation built in, actually "machined" in. It's difficult to see, even in person, but they have successfully intonated a true wrap-around bridge!
NOTE: This guitar is a deep, rich red color. The displayed color of the pictures may vary depending on your monitor calibration.
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Tags: 290, collings, crimson, cutaway, electric, lollar, mahogany, p90, red, wrap-around bridge
