The 24-fret neck, 25.5” scale, and 1 11/16” nut give the guitar a spacious Gibson-like feel, and the extra fret preparation performed once the Asia-built DockStar arrives stateside really shows. The neck pickup has a unique roundness-evoking tones somewhere between Larry Carlton and B.B. In general, the build quality, look, and feel of the DockStar was in line with other similarly priced semi-hollow models. But that little extra little bit of forward lean in the body profile gives the guitar more balance when wearing it. Overall, the body shape is a bit more offset than say, a Fender Starcaster, which it resembles to a degree. The hollow mahogany body is covered by flame maple veneer on both the top and back that gives the guitar an expensive vibe and look. It’s incredibly light and can almost feel like a toy at times. The DockStar is also a potential lifesaver if you dread the notion of slinging a Les Paul through yet another four-hour gig. It’s easy to forget how smooth and welcoming a set-neck design can feel when heading into the upper frets, but the DockStar’s feels great. The design elements that PHRED takes from Languedoc and other offset models flow together like a raging “Scarlet Begonias” from ’77. But Los Angeles-based PHRED Instruments, which has a strong affinity for the music and instruments of the Grateful Dead and Phish, builds guitars inspired by rarities like Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” and Anastasio’s own Languedoc, which is the primary influence on the DockStar Flame Maple reviewed here. That gets a whole lot harder when the instruments in question are specialized or one-of-a-kind custom instruments like Trey Anastasio’s hard-to-find Paul Languedoc creations. I would encourage any standard tuned player to try the OPTIWEB Coated strings and I’m sure you’ll fall in love, too!įor more info, visit and players may be reluctant to admit it, but we love to play the guitars our heroes play. Just a small suggestion □Īt the end of the day, they’re a great sounding string that lasts a long time and they’re very forgiving on fretboard noise. For dropped tunings, it would be nice to see Elixir offer even more choices in thicker gauges in the future – especially for more aggressive bands. In terms of brightness and clarity the Elixir OPTIWEB Coated strings are superb and unmatched on the current guitar string market. When I got home from the tour I used their standard gauge six string set and it fit a lot nicer. We did break a few more strings on this tour than, though. The coating never felt like it was coming off and the strings remained mostly untarnished for the duration of the tour and held their tone. ![]() In terms of how the strings last, I have to admit they didn’t go ‘dead’ after THIRTY SHOWS(!) and we dragged them through Florida’s humidity and Arizona’s 100+ degree temperatures. The brighter tone does come with a bit of a tradeoff- as Marcos and I found we had to drive our amps to match the same aggressive tone that our previous strings had that seemed to come more naturally. ![]() The brighter and clearer quality of the strings really allows chord augmentations and suspensions to shine through the mix, which is often lost in drop tunings. In fact, I had to dial down a lot of treble from my amp mix and increase the bass to get the same aggressive tone I was used to. Immediately after setting up the guitar I noticed how much brighter and clearer the Elixir strings were than previous brands I had used. If you do have finger squeak problems on an electric, this string will solve that problem for you as well. The OPTIWEB coating is a lot thinner than its NANOWEB and POLYWEB cousins in the product line and while you do feel the coating a bit, after playing for about thirty seconds I forgot it was there.
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