Cult of Personality
Wildwoodians, we want to talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand: the new Vernon Reid Signature model from our friends at Reverend Guitars is AWESOME! Vernon Reid of Living Colour (and a bunch of other projects) is one of the coolest guitar players ever to lay finger to string, and this guitar is both a sonic powerhouse worthy of his fretboard-melting power and a delightful expression of his eclectic, worldly personality with its bold finish that blends symbols and art from American and African history. Let's dive a little deeper and see why the Wildwood staff is considering starting a Cult of Guitar around this spectacular signature model!
Love Rears Its Ugly Head
Love Rears Its Ugly Head is a killer Living Colour single, and it's also a great way to describe the multiplicity of tones hiding within the Vernon Reid Signature Railhammer humbuckers. They can sound lovely and sweet, but they also have a capacity for vicious, aggressive savagery. With the five-way switch and the bass contour knob, the Vernon Reid Signature can grab a vast array of tones. Since Vernon Reid loves James Brown, let's start by taking it to the bridge.
If this was a single-pickup guitar with just the bridge pickup, we'd be more than satisfied. It's hard to imagine a more ideal aggressive rock or metal tone: muscular with robust harmonic content, yet tight, punchy, and articulate with excellent note separation. Through a clean amp, it also has a lovely crystalline sparkle to it.
The middle pickup has a similar sonic profile, but it has more of an open sound and more mannered attack.
The neck position is beefy and expansive, and the attack has a pleasing grunt to it, but it remains quite clear--no mud in sight here! Played clean, it's quite warm and delicious, too. Rolling off the bass contour gives each pickup an almost P-90-like quality and increases both the chime and the sparkle quotient.
The in-between positions are also ridiculously fun. The neck and middle do the throaty Hendrixian thing, and the bridge and middle will help you go quack in time to the classic tones of yesteryear. The bass contour is also magic in these two positions, giving you two flavors of spank, chank, and funk.
Vernon Reid is a musical renaissance man, and this guitar's versatile electronics reflect that. It can handle a wide range of styles, and each tone is expressive enough to inspire you to reach new creative heights.
A Picture of a Guitarist's Mind
Vernon Reid's artistic perspective has always expanded beyond the borders of the guitar into visual art, literature, politics, history, and film, and his signature Reverend's thought-provoking cosmetic appointments weave the tale of his creative experience by referencing ideas from all over the place. The finishes themselves are Ai-Generated works inspired by the books Collective Unconsciousness by Carl Jung and The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell as well as the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Romare Beardon.
The inlays are a mixture of American and African historical imagery. The ones on the headstock and pickups are Ghanian Adinkra symbols (which are images that convey proverbs and traditional wisdom) while the fretboard inlays are symbols Depression-era hobos used to communicate messages to one another (the one on the seventh fret means "Hobos will be arrested"). Taken as a whole, it presents a compelling picture of the Vernon Reid's worldview and mind. What does that picture mean? That's up to you to interpret, but we've included an explainer from Reverend in the pictures to help.
Ask Not What Your Reverend Can Do For You
Of course, beneath that striking finish, all of Reverend's bullet-proofing is still there. They've kitted out the Vernon Reid Signature with a metric ton of appointments that enhance the player's experience and while making the instrument supremely reliable. The soft V neck profile is home to 22 0.110" wide x 0.050" high frets and a fingerboard with a 12" radius, a configuration well-suited to most techniques and playing styles. Also, it has pin-lock tuners and a Boneite nut to ensure excellent tuning stability, and it comes equipped with boutique-quality pots and caps and a Pure Tone jack for consistent sound. Finally, an angled six-bolt neck plate increases stability and resonance while allowing easy access to the upper frets.
We're proud to present the Vernon Reid Signature Reverend, and after careful consideration, we believe it deserves neon lights and a Nobel Prize for its excellence in the fields of versatility, tone, and playability.
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