Sparrow Guitars Review : Primitive Boss (Semi-hollow)

Rather than just believing my eulogies about Sparrow Guitars, its always good to hear that my faith in them is confirmed by a professional player. 

So it was with great pleasure that a man by the name of Stanley Andrew came into the shop and asked to have a play around on the Sparrow Primitive Boss - a semi-hollow body designed guitar. Stanley Andrew is a seasoned session guitarist and has worked with the likes of George Michael,Aswad, Mary J Blige and is currently touring with none other than the mighty Billy Ocean. 

Sparrow Guitars are trying to build up their reputation in the UK, so its fantastic to hear that a UK based professional is right behind the name, and more importantly the sound and look of the guitar.  We didn't have one in stock to show Stanley but thanks to Music Force (the UK Sparrow Guitar distributor) we were able to get one in, just in time for Stanley to try it out and take on the next part of the Billy Ocean tour in Australia. 

Interestingly he bought his current guitar down to compare - an Epitone with Gibson pickups. So, he plugged the Primitive into a Fender amp and set the sound to be clean i.e. with no reverb or effects. This is a good way to start as you get to hear the guitar in its truest form. 

One of the main reasons Stanley was drawn to the Primitive was from the reviews about the Kent Armstrong pick-ups. I don't profess to be a guitar expert by any stretch of the imagination, so it was fascinating learning exercise to hear about the difference the pick-ups can make. 

The main thing to consider about pick-ups is to do with the magnets and the wire coil around the magnets. For those that no nothing about pick-ups, they are responsible for transferring the electric signal into the sound we hear - so a very important aspect really. The pick-ups vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. 

Not to get too technical on you, but professional guitarists are very particular about their pick-ups and for good reason -  they are a huge factor in determining the overall sound of the guitar. So bear with me on this one. Some pick-ups have one large magnet extending under all six strings whereas some will have separate magnets under each string. Added to this some of these magnets will have a single wire coil and others have a double wire coil (like the Sparrow Primitive Boss).  

So when Stanley compared the Sparrow with his current Epitone, there was quite a difference in the sound. His Epitone sounded warmer, but brittle. The Sparrow on the other hand was a lot brighter. This is the thing, when you're professional session guitarist like Stanley, you'll be playing in different bands that require

 different sounds. The Sparrow Primitive Boss gives a sound that will cut through the other competing sounds in a band. 

Anyway, the thing was the Sparrow had come straight from the factory and actually required to be set up properly. In this case the truss rod was slightly concave. This isn't unusual so don't worry. But it just goes to show that you should always play before you buy as the shop you buy from has a responsibility to set it up correctly. Never undertake this, unless you are experienced in this. The DIY method, whilst cheaper in the short term could end up in you permanently ruining your guitar. 

As soon as Stanley is back from his tour with Billy Ocean in Australia, I'll be interviewing him on his tour, the Sparrow Primitive Boss and they'll also be a video so you can hear for yourselves the quality of sound. 

Sparrow Rat Rod Review

We love Sparrow electric guitars. Its not just the way they're built and how they sound, but also the wonderful design. If you're looking at the Rat Rod range of Sparrow Guitars, look no further for an independent review written by Tim Slater in Playmusic Magazine.

Regular Playmusic readers – and we hope that you are – will recall our first memorable encounter with Sparrow guitars back in January (PMPU 70), which came in the shapely form of the Big Daddy hollow body. The Big Daddy is so tightly bound-up with the evocative image of classic 50s rock and roll and rockabilly that Sparrow are equally keen to demonstrate that they want to avoid being pigeonholed as rock and roll purists. Sparrow is passionate about all things retro–clothes, guitars, amps, motorbikes and vintage cars - but this obsession doesn’t mean that it is blinkered to the needs of guitarists for whom a quiff and a set of drainpipe trousers aren’t a prerequisite when it comes to rocking out. The Rat Rod is an interpretation of a much loved classic – sorry, but there is no prize for guessing which one – and like all Sparrow guitars the Rat Road began life as a basic body and neck ‘blank’ imported to Sparrow’s Canadian base from the far east. Sparrow’s mission statement is to offer what are effectively hand assembled custom guitars at prices normal players can afford and once inside Sparrow’s Vancouver HQ, each guitar is completely stripped down to the bare wood before being painstakingly hand assembled, refinished and fitted with new hardware and pickups.
Like most of its stable-mates, the Rat Rod is available with optional custom extras including an original Bigsby vibrato and hand-painted pinstripe artwork – we’ve seen a few examples and they look incredible – but this firmly traditional stop tailpiece model is no less stunning.


To Goldly Go… Sparrow’s superb paint jobs are one of their most important strengths, adding an extra dimension to what otherwise might be fairly described as another LP clone.


Our review Rat Rod’s all-over gold sparkle paint job is a subtle yet remarkably effective alternative to the traditional gold top. Unconventional it may be, but something about the gold finish mated with this particular style of guitar quickens the pulse and makes you want to get stuck in and start playing straight away – it just looks great. Fans of a certain popular single cutaway solid body guitar will doubtless approve of the Rat Rod’s traditional construction; consisting as it does of a heavy mahogany body capped with maple and mated with a robust mahogany neck. As soon as you pick up the Rat Rod and begin strumming you are instantly aware of the weight and generous neck dimensions; the Rat Rod feels exactly like a proper old-school solid body electric guitar should; its impressive physical presence lets you know in no uncertain terms that we are dealing with a serious beasty. Take the neck as an example: In an age where guitar necks have gradually become slimmer, the Rat Rod’s unashamedly mammoth vintage-style neck might come as a surprise, a shock, even.

The big 50s style profile feels like a chair leg when you first grab hold of it and definitely harks back to another era, when comfort and playability were more important than sheer speed. Starting with a fairly shallow depth around the first and second frets, the neck progressively thickens as you travel up the fingerboard -it’s a slightly odd feel if you are not used to it – which may not lend itself to ultra fast playing so easily as slimmer modern profiles but with so much timber to wrap your paw around, this big neck offers excellent leverage for string bends and vibrato.
While we are focusing on the neck, the quality of the frets fit and finish is very good, with the frets applied over the fingerboard binding, thus avoiding those nasty little ‘tangs’ where binding pokes up over the fret ends. The overall feeling of quality is actually pretty damn convincing and funnily enough the rather plain crown fingerboard inlays are one of the few major clues that we aren’t looking at a far more expensive guitar. Compared to a more up market model the Sparrow’s inlays look a bit understated and cloudy but that’s a minor detail which doesn’t affect either the guitar’s playability or its sound.

Gold Standard

The abundance of mahogany promises that the Rat Rod should have a meaty mid-range heavy tone with an impressive amount of natural sustain, which it does. But describing this fine-sounding guitar in those blunt terms feels like selling it a bit short. So what lies behind the Rat Rod’s appeal? The superb playability for one thing but if you are a fan of LP style guitars then you’ll probably already have a firm idea of the kind of tones you want and the Rat Rod ticks an impressive number of the right boxes. The twin chrome covered humbucking pickups are Korean made ‘Sky’ alnico units designed by US pickup guru Ken Armstrong and they feel and sound like the perfect match for the Rat Rod. The low key yet punchy vintage-style output is exactly the right type of balance between a muscular centre that sounds as plump and warm as an Eskimo’s duvet, with just enough glassy edge to avoid any mush and guarantee that you will cut through a band mix. Leaner and less openly aggressive than modern over-wound humbuckers, the Sky pickups sound smooth and surprisingly articulate – perhaps surprising is the wrong word considering that the pickups are designed by a renowned expert in his field - but weighing the sound and build quality against the price, the Rat Rod repeatedly forces you to look at the headstock logo to double check that you are indeed playing a guitar that costs less than £600 quid! If you are on a bit of a tight budget but you are looking for the ideal axe for thumping blues and classic rock, you simply have to check out the Rat Rod.

Let’s not beat about the bush: If you are in the market for a budget priced LP style guitar I have to say – hand on heart - that this little Sparrow sings a very sweet song. The acid test comes when you plug in and find that a worryingly significant amount of time has passed since you started playing; I can vouch that whenever I start playing the Rat Rod time seems to speed up and before I know where I am I have grown half a day’s worth of beard and missed three meals before I realize that maybe I should take a break. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a teeny bit but you get my drift; the Rat Rod is as tempting as a box of chocs stashed away in the back of the fridge, you know you shouldn’t keep nipping back for another go but somehow you can’t help yourself. We said at the beginning of this review that the Sparrow Rat Rod is an interpretation of a much-loved classic and that is exactly what it is; it does exactly what you’d expect and it does it very, very convincingly indeed. PU

Cheap Guitars from Beyond the Red Curtain

Music manufacturers around the world in their quest to reach a wider audience, particularly the lower end of the market, are always looking to lower their manufacturing costs. This has led many to peep around the red curtain and use manufacturers based in China - particularly in the last 5 years.  A lot of people have pre-conceived views on anything manufactured in China and automatically assume that because the products are produced cheaply that the products will be of bad build quality. Not necessarily true, but you do have to be wary. 

Guitarists like most musicians are wary, and want to make sure they are getting a quality guitar that is going to be durable, especially if you're gigging with a punk/metal/rock band for instance. This is totally understandable. But sometimes the dream of owning your own Fender Strat is not always possible due to budgetary constraints so you have to set your sights a little lower. 

At this point it may be worth having a look at alternative manufacturer. Some manufacturers use a company in China to build the basic model, ship it to their own shop, pull it apart, upgrade various parts and hot-rod it. One such company doing this is Sparrow Guitars which is a Canadian company who've employed the services of Scott Zimmermann (an ex-Fender master builder) to oversee the quality in China before they reach Canada and finally given an overhaul.

 

Its a wonderful model that allows for some fantastic features available on higher end models, to be made available at a significantly lower price, whilst retaining good quality in terms of build and sound.  

Sparrow electric guitars comes in models based on already popular classics i.e. Big Daddy  - Gretsch Hollow Body; The Primitive - Semi-hollow Body; The Rat Rod - Les Paul shape and the Twangmaster - Telecaster shape.  There three entry levels in terms of price represented by the Pro, Boss and Ace models. 

Additionally, guitarists can choose from custom artwork. So even if you can't play too well, at least you'll look cool. 

For an independent review click here.