Name: Powers Electric A-Type Select Cabernet Red PF42 Pickups With Softshell Case
Brand: Truetone Music
SKU: powers-electric-a-type-select-cabernet-red-pf42-pickups-with-softshell-case
Availability: InStock

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Powers Electric A-Type Select Cabernet Red PF42 Pickups With Softshell Case

The electric guitar has been around for decades, not too far from a century now. Over time, many have come and gone, with only a few having staying power. Even fewer have become iconic - everyone knows what those are. More often than not, new "ideas" are simple imitations or a mashup of well-known designs. It's rare for something entirely original to be birthed into the world.

This is why we are excited to present the new Powers Electric A-Type. To quote one of the first people we showed it to, "This is everything I like about a guitar and nothing like what I already have".

Powers Electric is a new line of electric guitars developed personally by Andy Powers, Taylor’s Chief Guitar Designer. But as the name suggests, this is not a Taylor-branded electric guitar, but an entirely new guitar design developed by Andy outside of Taylor’s design DNA. Think of it as his solo project outside of Taylor. As a pro-level electric player and builder, Andy has been tinkering for years on his dream electric guitar – Andy would say that this guitar is a lifetime in the making. Powers Electric is his creative outlet to continue indulging this longtime love of playing and building electric guitars. This is the electric guitar he always wanted as a player.

Truetone Music was selected to be one of just a few dealers in the U.S. to launch this new brand, and we couldn't be more proud. Read below for the full scoop, and come to Truetone to experience this amazing guitar in person.

The design was heavily influenced by the area where Andy Powers grew up: San Diego’s North County, close to the beach, where he was immersed in a vibrant cultural stew of surfing, skateboarding, auto craft, music, art and architecture — a rich mix of creative expression. Other than the tuners and strings on the guitar, everything was designed and made in-house. It's a boutique instrument, created by one of the modern masters of guitar design.

Serial # A382
Color: Cabernet Red
Pickups: PF42 (Partial Faraday)
Pickguard: White Pearl
Bridge: Ebony
Knobs: Neutral

The Body Style

Inspired by the lines of classic cars, hot rods and surfboard design, the guitar had to look good from every angle, Powers wanted an asymmetrical shape without sacrificing visual balance, and timeless styling with modern embellishments. This is a fully enclosed, trussed hollow body with two internal sound posts fitted into a braced, solid-wood top. This allows the top and back to move in tandem to maximize resonance, suppress feedback and create a lyrical sustain. Also, this guitar is LIGHT - it weighs in at just 6.2 lbs.

The Feel
Powers wanted the guitar to be lightweight and perfectly balanced whether standing or sitting. The body is hollow so you can hold it with ease; the contoured armrest and radiused body edges add to the playing comfort. The neck is a “just right” blend of not too big and not too slim, flowing smoothly into the unique fretboard geometry. The fretboard has a split radius, different from an end-to-end compound radius. It’s asymmetrical from the bass side to the treble side. The treble side is slightly flatter all the way from the first fret to the end of the board. This allows for maximum playability and easier, choke-free string bending.

The Sound

The pickups are a new design that blend modern magnetic structure with an old inspiration. It allows the strings to vibrate more naturally and produce both fidelity and colorful warmth – which often tend to be at odds with one another but beautifully complement each other within this design. Powers designed two variations of this pickup – one emphasizing clarity and warmth, the other with a firm, brighter response.

This particular guitar is loaded with the latter, called PF42 pickups. It’s a “Partial Faraday” cage made with 42-gauge wire. This creates a striking tone that will cut through the mix but still have a vintage warmth to it. And, the PF42 pickups visually features matching pickguard material. These are an all new pickup design, and it's obvious that Andy Powers has hit a home run.

The Trem / Vibrato

Powers stated that he loves the tactile expression of a pitch-shifting tail, but they notoriously go out of tune as the pitch changes. So, he engineered a “camshaft” tailpiece (“CamTail”) with string ramps compensated for tension and gauge. That way, when you dive on it, the strings move in pitch unison relative to each other. This is influenced by his playing of lap and pedal steel, and it’s similar to moving chords and maintaining relative pitch. It's machined in house. The CamTail also contains a locking mechanism that stops the vibrato back at its normal pitch and allows the player to bend notes without pitch droop. This is called a zero-point return. It can be easily adjusted to allow for a full floating vibrato.

The Knobs & Tips

The colorful knobs (and trem arm cap) are shop-crafted in-house from layers of surfboard resin, which originally was a byproduct of the surfboard glassing process. Because of this, no two resin knobs look exactly alike.