Brian Moore C-55PM

I am lucky enough to be endorsed by Brian Moore Custom Guitars of formerly of Brewster, NY. I am not exactly sure what this means now the company isn’t quite the same as it used to be, but it just makes the guitars the former factory made rarer, I suppose.

They are one of the few companies making guitars with built in synth electronics, and they just so happen to put the electronics is some of the best guitars made. My guitar was custom built for me, with a few changes from stock models. The C-55 comes stock with locking Sperzel tuners and a graphite nut. The bridge is a Wilkinson unit, which is the finest floating bridge out there. It is super heavy-duty, and features RMC Piezo saddles which serve as the synth pickups as well as provide a separate ‘acoustic’ output. It is non-locking, so string changes are super simple when combined with the locking tuners.

I. Body & Neck

• The body is made of mahogany with a quilted maple top. I ordered mine with special chambers routed out in the body, in effect making it semi-hollow. As a result, it is really light and resonant- very loud acoustically.
• The bolt-on 22-fret neck is made of maple with a rosewood fingerboard and abalone dot markers. Brian Moore is certainly capable of elaborate inlays, but I like necks to be plain and non-distracting. I also like 22 fret necks better than 24 fret necks- the pickups are farther apart and provide more of a drastic change when they are switched. The back of the body is curved to fit against your tummy, and it is easily the most comfortable guitar I have played. The color is a deep dark blue that I picked from an old Carvin ad.

II. Pickups

This guitar comes with 2 Seymour Duncan humbuckers and a set of RMC bridge piezo pickups. I did not want a middle pickup because my pick tends to hit it when I play.

Magnetic Pickups

• First, there is an Alnico II Pro in the neck position. This is a fairly low output pickup that is really warm- sounds great with just a hint of distortion. Clean chords sound amazing on this pickup as well.

Piezo Pickup

The RMC pickups are built into the Wilkinson bridge’s saddles. They serve 2 functions (I will describe each separately):

• To provide output to the midi interface and then the synth
• To provide a piezo or ‘acoustic’ output via the stereo jack.

This guitar has a 13-pin Roland-style synth jack on its side.