Brian Moore C-55PM

I am lucky enough to be endorsed by Brian Moore Custom Guitars of Brewster, NY. 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 Wilkenson 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.
• In the bridge position, I have a JB. This may be the best all around pickup out there- very crunchy, yet it cleans up nicely. When split, it gets a great faux-Tele sound as well. It is probably the most popular pickup available due to its versatility.

The Wilkinson bridge is setup as a 'floating' system so I can pull it up about a whole step, and dump it down until the strings are slack. Combine this with the graphite nut, straight string pull headstock and Sperzel locking tuners, and you have a really stable tuning system. It is a brushed chrome color, and the bar is held in tightly by just pressing it in. I really like the brushed chrome- it seems to stay cleaner and get less 'sticky'.

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. When ordering the Brian Moore with internal synth electronics, I had a choice of getting the Roland 13-pin system, or the internal MidiAxe 5-pin system. Obviously I picked the 13-pin system for a few reasons:

• I use a Roland GI-10, which uses a 13-pin system.
• The 5-pin MidiAxe system seems more geared toward sequencing at home (which I never do), instead of live playing.
• The 5-pin midi system requires a midi cable to be plugged in a little box, and from this box hangs an AC cord (to power the internal converter) as well as another midi cable.
• The GI-10 has more parameters to tweak and I can do that without a computer.
• 'Hold' is handled uniquely with the GI-10. If a note (or notes) is held, I can play without successive notes being held. This is a more useful and musical way of handeling held notes.
• If I used the 5-pin system, I would have to deal with midi hold, which works like a sustain pedal on a piano- when it is pressed, *every* note is held until it is released.
• Current guitar synth/VG-8 setups all use the 13-pin system.

I hate the idea of expensive 13-pin cords, but the benefits of the 13-pin system in a live setting outweigh this for me.

III. The Controls

The Pickup Systems

I think of this guitar as having 3 unique pickup systems.

This guitar features 2 Seymour Duncan Humbuckers. I had the option of getting a middle single coil as well, but middle pickups have always interfered with my pick.

• The neck pickup is an Alnico Pro II, which provides lower output, really warm sound. I like neck pickups to be pretty warm, since it is the one I use most of the time. In fact, I also keep the tone control at about 7 as well. I hadn't tried this pickup before I got this guitar, but I am very happy with it. It is much better than the brighter Duncan Jazz pickup that a lot of people seem to like. Actually, the Alnico II sounds more jazzy to me than the Jazz pickup.
• The bridge pickup is the Duncan JB- a standard choice for lots of guitarists. To me, its strength lies in its versatility, and not because it has a distinct identifiable tone. Very good at playing clean and distorted, it is responsive to picking dynamics and gets pretty much every classic rock sound out there. At first it sounded bright to me, but I am getting to really like it now.

Piezo Pickup:

The RMC Piezo system is a wonderful piece of technology. Really, I am hooked on this thing. I run these pickups through my Digitech S100 compressor/reverb, and I get an awesome electric/acoustic sound. No, it is not exactly like an acoustic since you don't have the acoustic's body vibrating against your chest- but to the audience (and recording), it can sound just like a plugged-in acoustic. The trick is to send the output through to the PA, and not through all of the normal electric guitar stuff. Really, I always get people coming up to me between sets asking how I get that acoustic sound. It truly sounds better than most of the plugged-in acoustics I have heard.

Piezo output to Synth:

The pickups also are in charge of sending outputs to my synth via the 13-pin cable.They are better at tracking than the Roland GK-2a, and that is saying a lot because my Roland pickup tracked wonderfully.

Switches

I have rewired this guitar a few times, and the current method gives the most diverse sounds, and it is ergonomic enough to get to each of them quickly.

The 5-way Switch is a Super Switch, which allows for lots of wiring options. This, along with a push/push tone pot, gives these variations:

With the Switch off (down):

• Neck Humbucker
• Inside coils of both humbuckers
• Both humbuckers
• Outside coils of both humbuckers
• Bridge Humbucker

With the switch on (up):

• Neck Humbucker
• Outside coil of neck + Inside coil of Bridge
• Neck + Bridge out-of-phase
• Inside coil of neck + Outside coil of Bridge
• Bridge Humbucker

Other Switches

The 3-way Switch: