PRODUCT REVIEW
Redline 3 is a licensed Floyd Rose tremolo with a deep recess cut in the body for reverse dive-bomb pull-ups. In play Before plugging in, I spent some time with the guitar unplugged to get an idea of what was happening with its tone. This is a snappy instrument with a lot of pop and bite, but not at the expense of some body in its sound. The maple center gives the guitar an immedi- ate attack, and the poplar wings add warmth to the tone to balance it out. Notes rang out clear and fairly long, though the Floyd did take a little of the natural sustain out (a com- mon side effect of virtually any tremolo), but not enough to be an issue. It sat nicely on my lap, and the contour body cut was a welcome design choice, keeping the guitar comfort- able during long playing sessions. Rather than a neck plate, the RL3 uses four recessed screws that stay completely out of the way and add an elegant touch to the look of the back of the guitar, as does the rear bottom horn-to-body contour. The neck is radiused very flat at 16”, which allows you to rip and bend across the guitar with pinpoint accuracy and extreme speed. The neck carve isn’t ter- ribly shallow, nor is it baseball bat-like, and
it fit my hand nicely without inducing much
fatigue. While I prefer a slightly “clubby”
neck, that isn’t necessarily in line with this
style of guitar, so Godin hit the mark for their
target audience. The neck is finished in a
light satin that adds to the sleek and speedy
feel, and the massive frets make sure you get
big tone and killer control without sacrificing
playability. Nice.
combination! Not surprisingly, the guitar
tended to favor higher-gain amps like an
Engl Ritchie Blackmore head, Mesa Boogie
Dual Rectifier and a Krank Rev Jr. With classic
amps, like a Marshall Super Lead and a VOX
AC30, the tone was decidedly less “classic”
and lacked some of the dimension that comes
through with lower-gain pickups. To be fair,
Godin did not intend to create another Les
Paul or Strat, so there’s no reason to spend
a lot of time trying to make it something it
isn’t. Clean tones were more sparkly than
chimey on the top end, but the solid low end
was very impressive and lent an authoritative
presence to the sound that would never get
lost in a mix.
guitars with a traditional bolt-on design that I
realized this was quite an improvement. The
action on the guitar was set up higher than
anticipated and would probably be a bit too
high for some players, but no doubt a quick
neck adjustment would fix that. Being made
of wood and traveling from Canada to the
killing desert heat of Arizona probably didn’t
help much either!
The Final Mojo
Godin has made a nice entrance into a new
market for them. The RL3 is a tight, fast and
snappy guitar that has just enough attitude
to get noticed but could easily hang next to
collectible guitars with high-end tops. Godin
also sent two Redline II guitars, which are
24-fret guitars with fixed bridges. These guitars showed that the action setup on the RL3
was a fluke, because both of the Redline IIs
had killer low action. For the price of the RL3
you just can’t go wrong. So there you have it!
A great guitar company adds another offering
to round out their fine collection of instruments. Definitely one to check out!
Getting a little trem
I was blown away with the Floyd Rose trem,
which was the best implementation of one
I’ve ever experienced. The arm pops into
place, rather than being threaded or screwed
in, so it will never strip or need tightening.
The feel is ultra-smooth with no binding
whatsoever, and you can pull back far enough
to break a string due to the recessed well
cut into the body behind the assembly. Sure,
this has been around for years as part of the
design on other guitars, but for some reason
it just seemed smoother, tighter and more
precise on the RL3. And of course, the trem
stayed in tune flawlessly no matter how hard
it was abused.
modern and heavy tones
are your business.
Buy If...
Skip If...
you don’t need a speedy guitar.
Since there were a variety of amps at the
studio during my time with the RL3, I had
the chance to run it through quite a few to
get a feel for how it handled different situations. Whenever I think of a shredder guitar,
it usually involves pickups like a Duncan
Distortion or DiMarzio Super Distortion
Humbucker, but that’s just my age talking.
Godin went the modern route with EMGs,
and it lends a decidedly modern sound to
the guitar. Through most of the amps, I had
to back down the gain on the amp to accommodate the higher-output pickups. This type
of front-end hit to an amp can be used quite
beneficially, if you’re looking for a super-tight
bottom and searing top end. These pickups
are certainly not subtle, and it’s obvious why
so many modern metal bands use this exact
Some other design choices include a 3-way
Strat-style selector rather than a toggle,
as well as a single Volume and Tone knob.
Having only one volume and tone setting for
the two pickups is limiting—for those who
don’t want to be fiddling with the knobs—
but it’s nothing radical and keeps the guitar
simple. Having a toggle switch can be effective in creating machine gun-style rapid on/
off effects with the neck pickup off, so I’d be
lying if I said I didn’t miss that. It’s also nice
to have that setup so you can shut the sound
off altogether between songs without rolling
the volume down, especially with the ability
to create so much gain. It’s a nice feedback
shutoff mechanism, too.
Rating...
4. 5
The neck heel area is designed to give the
player ultimate access to all of the frets, and
it achieves that very nicely. However, my
hands continued to bump the top of the heel
when playing around the 15th fret. It wasn’t
until I checked against another one of my
ONTHEWeb
Click here for sound samples of the
guitar in action at
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Godin Guitars
Street $819
godinguitars.com
