Danocaster Thinline T Aged (Lollar Widerange)

There are boutique guitars, and then there's Danocaster. Dan Strain has been building instruments in Nashville for years that you can essentially only get by waiting patiently through a shop in the States — or by getting lucky on the used market. Ask around among the city's session players and it becomes clear quickly: these are the studio and live standard there.

Dan doesn't build unusual shapes or spectacular tops. He builds the classics, but so well that people worldwide wait years for one. Hand-picked timber, nitro finishes, ageing that looks like it took decades, and a setup that leaves nothing to be desired.

This one is a Thinline T-style, which makes it one of the more interesting versions. The body with its classic f-hole takes some weight out of a T-style, but more importantly it changes the character: the tone becomes more open, airier and noticeably livelier in the mids. You hear and feel the difference from a solid body immediately.

It's fitted with Lollar Widerange humbuckers, which is the perfect match for an instrument like this. Jason Lollar built his version of the legendary early-70s Fender Widerange — the pickup Seth Lover designed after moving from Gibson to Fender. The Widerange isn't an ordinary humbucker: it's clearer, wirier and richer up top than a PAF, while keeping the fullness and the quiet of a twin-coil design. That mix is what makes it special.

Put that together with the thinline body and you get an instrument with remarkable range. Clean it gives shimmering, three-dimensional sounds; with a little drive it turns forceful and smacky; and even wound up, there's enough twang and attack left that you can't deny the Tele underneath.

A fantastic instrument with a vintage soul, from Ede's Private Stock.