Скачать или смотреть Bailey Curve...Solid Maple & Handcrafted In Scotland (+Wizz Premium Clone PAFs)

As you may have seen recently, I've been on the lookout for a UK-made guitar to add to my collection - and that search (somewhat!) ended a few weeks ago when I found my Nathan Sheppard NSG1. But I left a saved search on my eBay app, and pretty soon another instrument cropped up that really piqued my interest.

It was a Curve Special, made by Mark Bailey of ‪@BaileyGuitarsChannel‬ up in Ayrshire, Scotland - and interestingly, it had been crafted out of a solid 1-piece lump of flamed maple...a common wood for necks and fretboards, but certainly not whole bodies. So, I did some digging and read up more about Mark and his work, and I really liked the way he goes about manufacturing his instruments. (Plus, interestingly - to me at least(!) - back in the day, he trained Nathan Sheppard...so there'd have been a certain 'luthier lineage' perk to me buying the Curve!)

So I placed a bid on the guitar and managed to win it - for a staggeringly low price compared to the RRP (and instruments such as this depreciating like a heavy-weighted stone is either a positive or negative, depending on whether you're buying or selling!). The pickups it came with were a set of Wilkinson 'HOT' open black humbuckers - budget pickups that were drastically mismatched in terms of output - so I knew they were going to go instantly. I looked around for a set of Scottish handwound pickups, but it seems such things don't exist (please let me know if you know otherwise!) So in the end, I found a set of Wizz Premium Clone PAFs - which I've wanted to try out for a good while now - on Gumtree, and bought them from a very nice fella in Scotland....so that was at least partially fitting!!

With the pickups in, and the rest of the electronics upgraded, this guitar really came into its own - and I LOVE how the open cream pickups look...they really bring the whole guitar to life, visually. So now, it's my UK-made, handcrafted, solid-maple beauty that I scored for less dolla than a MIM Fender. Cool, eh?

What do you think? A handcrafted beauty? Or not for you? Comment below!

Amp is an Orange Retro 50 Custom Shop running into a Zilla Studio Pro 2x12 cabinet loaded with Scumback S75-PVC AlNiCo and Celestion AlNiCo Gold speakers. Recorded with Aston Spirit Condenser, '70s Sennheiser MD441 and sE RNR1 ribbon mics, with a Schoeps CMC6 room mic.

0:00 Intro
7:17 Playing
11:32 Outro


[email protected]

Vector images by freepik.com