NGD/Review: Dean Gordon Virtus (full-carve headless) custom-build

[LunatiqueRob]

Some of you know that I ordered a custom-built Virtus (headless full-carve variant) from Dean Gordon last year, and now, about nine months later, it is finally finished and in my studio.

The reason I decided to spend the money ($5K) on this custom-build is because I wanted a guitar that encompassed everything I'd ever want in a guitar--from the ideal ergonomics and aesthetics to all the essential tones I need. It originally started when I was feeling unsatisfied with the Strandbergs I've had (I had seven of them but I have sold all of them except one) and was looking for alternatives that suited my needs better. While talking about it with fellow guitar players in Discord, one of them pointed me to Dean Gordon's work, and it was love at first sight. His sensibility for ergonomics and aesthetics matched my preferences almost exactly, and I contacted him right away to get started on a custom build.

I was very particular about exactly what I wanted, and we had many in-depth discussions during the build process, and the result is about as close to what I envisioned in my head as we could get. He said I was easily the top 5 pickiest client but he liked the challenge.
Here are the specifications:

• Frets: 24
• Body Wood: Alder-2pc
• Carve: full
• Weight Reduction: None
• Top Wood: no-top-wood
• Body Finish: Satin Marble White
• Back Plate Material: blackCarbon fiber
• Neck Wood: Quartersawn roasted-Maple, carbon fiber reinforcement rods
• Neck Profile: slim C
⦁ Fretboard Radius: 12"-16"
• Neck Finish: natural satin
• Fingerboard Wood: ebony
• Fret Wire: stainless medium jumbo
• Nut Material: Graphtech tusq
• Side Dots: luminlay
• Headstock Detail: Plain, No Trim
• Bridge Hardware: TAN Tremolo, black
• Horn Finish: Black anaodized
• Knobs: cupcake-gold
• Pickup Configuration: HSH
• Pickup Brand: DiMarzio
• Pickup Models: DiMarzio Tone Zone (bridge), DiMarzio True Velvet (middle), DiMarzio Titan (neck)
• Middle pickup custom paintjob in lavender
• Controls: 1 Volume, 1 Tone, 10-Way Freeway blade switch (5b5-02)
• Switch Wiring: HSH 5-way super switch in 2 banks (10 positions)
• Capacitor 0.022
• Neck Ferrules: gold
• String Ferrule: polished aluminum
• Strap Locks: Black Grover
• 5.8 lbs

Now, some photos:















To be continued in next post (due to the forums limit of 10 images per post).

 

[LunatiqueRob]

...Continued







Ergonomics/Playability
One of my biggest pet peeves about the world of guitar is how terrible the ergonomics are in many designs, and how conservative a large portion of guitar players are, wanting the same designs from an era that had no advanced understanding of human physiology and ergonomics and had no high-tech materials available to them. So many designs on the market have no forearm contour, neck-heel contour, belly cut, clearance of the final fret for easy access, and body carve that allows ergonomic seated playing position. The Virtus headless full-carve model addresses all of these and is probably the most ergonomic and comfortable guitar I have ever played. The forearm contouring is as comfortable as the wide contouring of the Ibanez AZ series, and the upper-frets access is at least as good as the EBMM John Petrucci Majesty models. The lower carve on the body allows the guitar to be placed at 45-degree angle on the right thigh just like Strandbergs, except I prefer the "normal" neck and frets it has (modern thin C) over the Endurneck and multiscale. My Virtus is 5.8 pounds, so about half a pound heavier than Strandbergs, which is actually a good thing because I find Strandbergs too light and move around too much.

Tones
I knew I wanted HSH with coil-splitting because that is the most versatile configuration and wiring I know of. I had an Ibanez KIKO10BP with the nicest neck split-coil tone I've ever heard, but unfortunately, there were some inherent design issues with that model so I sold it, but I never got over how good that neck split-coil tone was--better than "real" single-coils on my other guitars. The problem was that it used custom DiMarzio pickups designed especially for that model and not available to the public. After contacting DiMarzio about it, they recommended the Jake Bowen signature Titan pickup, which they said is the closest to the tone I was after. I checked out demos on YT but it was hard to find any that played it with clean tones and in split-coil mode at the neck. Luckily, someone in a guitar Discord server I hangout in had one and recorded clips for me, and indeed, it was similar to the tone I was after (a bit warmer, but similar snappy, warm, full, and sweet characteristics).

As for the True Velt and Tone Zone, I know them well from the Ibanez guitars I've had and liked them. I know the Tone Zone can be polarizing, but I like the beefy bottom end it has.

We were initially going to use a toggle switch and do something similar to the Ibanez Dynamix 10 wiring, but when I found out about the Freeway switch having 10 positions but looks like a typical blade switch, I decided that was even more ergonomic. It basically has two banks of five positions, and you access the banks by tilting the switch up or down. There were some essential tones that are must-haves for me, and we managed to wire all of them in. Here are all 10 positions:

Upper bank (classic Strat positions):
5. Neck outer-coil
4. Neck outer-coil + Middle
3. Middle
2. Bridge Inner-coil + Middle
1. Bridge inner-coil
Lower bank:
5. Neck humbucker
4. Bridger outer-coil + Neck humbucker
3. Bridge inner-coil + Neck outer-coil
2. Neck + bridge humbuckers
1. Bridge humbucker

The neck humbucker sounds similar to a Strandberg Original and Prog with the Suhr SSV in the neck. Warm but articulate and pleasant sounding. The neck split-coil sounds almost exactly like the neck single-coil of the Strandberg Standard HSS. Warm but still has snappiness and sweet sounding.

As for the other positions, with so many tonal options, all my bases are covered. Funk, R&B, Neo Soul, Prog, metal, jazz, fusion, pop, country--this is truly an all-in-one guitar. The only thing it doesn't have in its tonal palette is a very bright neck single-coil sound, which I'm not a fan of anyway as I find it unpleasantly shrill.

Aesthetics
When it comes to visuals, it's highly subjective; one man's dream guitar is the source of another man's derisive jokes. For example, I've seen plenty of derisive remarks regarding Strandberg's design, but I find them very cool and modern and intelligent, with a clear understand of ergonomics. Dean Gordon's design sensibility is like the next level in that regard. I personally love the modern sweeping curves of the Virtus Headless Full-Carve variant mixed with the industrial element of the aluminum lower horn. It shares a similar sensibility awith aerodynamic sci-fi spaceships and race cars.

During the build process, I did many mockups and narrowed them down to the satin white with black and gold hardware and lavender middle pickup. Here are some of the mockups I did to arrive at the final design:








To be continued in next post.

 

[LunatiqueRob]

...continued.

The middle pickup color was critical to get right because it changes how the rest of the guitar feels. I wavered back and forth between black and mint green, but eventually settled on lavender. That dash of pastel color adds a feminine balance to the masculinity of the rest of the guitar, creating the ideal balance for my sensibility. It was not easy to get the color right, as off-the-shelf products weren't close enough. Dean tried one that he felt got close enough, but I found it leaning too much into blue and more of a lilac, while I wanted a specific type of lavender. This is the color he tried first, but it was too blue:


I tried to elaborate on exactly the lavender color I wanted:


Eventually, he found a place that does custom paint mixes and I was fine with spending the extra $80 on getting that custom paint mix. Here are some of the work that went into getting that exact color of lavender. He did a test on a stick first:


After I gave the okay, he redid the pickup color:


Here are some build process photos Dean took along the way:







To be continued in next post.

 

[LunatiqueRob]

...continued.

This is what it looked like with a black middle pickup:


The dots were swapped out with rings:

Dean doesn't like fret markings in general on the fretboard because he prefers a cleaner look, but I find them useful for intuitive navigation of the fretboard when my brain is already frazzled from having to keep so much stuff in mind while improvising or composing. And for teaching it helps the students too to see where my fingers are at.

These are the photos Dean took of it in his workshop before shipping it off to me:




And the photos I took once it arrived in my studio are the ones in the first post of this thread.

Some of you might remember from my thread, "My journey from finding "the one" guitar to amassing a collection (still on-going)," that it was because I was searching for that one ideal ergonomic guitar that can do it all, that I ended up ordering the Dean Gordon custom build. I'm happy to say that my search ended with this Virtus Headless Full-Carve model. This isn't to say I might not buy more guitars in the future, but it'll be for more niche reasons (for example, I've been on a Telecaster kick lately and now have four and might get at least one or two more).

I'll try to make a video for my Virtus at some point (and maybe also videos on my guitar collection), but that's a huge time sink and time is today's most precious currency.

 

[Moongrum]

You killed it on the color choices, some gold accents, black bridge, and then the lavender single coil really makes it look special.
Contours on that are super massive, I can imagine it's a joy to play.
Did you pull out the A string from its nut slot in the close up of the non-headstock? String spacing looks wide and it looks like there's a divot in the nut.

 

[LunatiqueRob]

You killed it on the color choices, some gold accents, black bridge, and then the lavender single coil really makes it look special.
Contours on that are super massive, I can imagine it's a joy to play.
Did you pull out the A string from its nut slot in the close up of the non-headstock? String spacing looks wide and it looks like there's a divot in the nut.

Hahahaa, oops. I should delete that and retake the photo.

And thanks!

 

[Moongrum]

Hahahaa, oops. I should delete that and retake the photo.

And thanks!

Sorry, I had to ask because the guitar was otherwise immaculate

 

[JDB123]

Super cool, always liked his designs. Very sports car-y. Something about an HSH guitar screams "I know how to play this thing", lol

 

[Pingu]

Holy dude! I just saw them post this on IG and was wondering who it belonged to lol. The Gold metals + Lavender on the front look really great.

I've been talking with Dean about an order. I wasn't really looking, but in depth photos of a full carve headless aren't the easiest find. I'm casually being pushed over the edge to order haha!

 

[odibrom]

Damn... that's an interesting one... Congrats on finding The One...

 

[Hollowway]

Man, that lavender single makes it for me. Nice choice! Glad to see you went with Dean on this. I don’t yet have one, but he’s doing 8s now, so hopefully I will soon!

 

[narad]

Awesome build and definitely a "thank you for your service" for making all these other mockups. The latte one with black/gold hardware was siiiiick. Definitely a contender if I order something from Dean.

 

[jco5055]

what do you think of the TAN tremolo? I've been very curious about those

 

[LunatiqueRob]

what do you think of the TAN tremolo? I've been very curious about those

They're quite similar to Strandberg's trem design, but my TAN's tuners are not as smooth and a bit jumpy except for the B string. I might drip some 3-in-1 oil in them to see if they will smooth out. I haven't tested the tuning stability vigorously yet because it's still acclimating, but so far it has been drifting out of tune due to the strings still stretching (and I did stretch them to shorten this acclimating period). I think after playing it for a week or two and working the trem in, everything will probably settle down. Tuning stability was one of my biggest concerns going in and I told Dean from the start if this guitar cannot stay in tune I will return it because that's the number one criterium for me to keep any guitar in my studio. All the guitars that didn't have tuning stability (after I had done all I could to address the issue, using every trick I have ever learned from scouring the Internet and asking fellow guitar players with decades of experience) got sold or returned.

 

[LunatiqueRob]

I retook the shots with the misaligned A string at the nut, and added a straight-on body shot:

 

[Purelojik]

deans a great guy and thats a killer axe! lets hear some clips! and vids!

 

[Concerto412]

Gorgeous build, and much appreciated write-up! I love the painstaking commitment to the aesthetic, and the included photo of the middle single in black really highlights how much that final colour choice sways the overall look.
I hope it’s everything you’ve been looking for!

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Beautiful guitar but you sound like a pain in the ass to work with

 

[LunatiqueRob]

Beautiful guitar but you sound like a pain in the ass to work with

Dean said I was easily in the top 5 of pickiest customers, but he appreciates the challenge because if he could make the dream guitar for someone like me, it'd be a piece of cake when it comes to less picky customers. He's a perfectionist himself so he totally gets that greatness never resulted from anyone who simply shrugged and said, "Whatever. Don't really care."

 

[LunatiqueRob]

deans a great guy and thats a killer axe! lets hear some clips! and vids!

It's in the plans. I don't want to just fart out something casual, since a guitar like this deserves a quality video, and that takes significant planning, time, and effort.