PRODUCT REVIEW
SS-eR BeLL CUSTOM GUITARS BY JORDAN WAGNER
Most guitarists can remember the moment that inspired them to pick up the instrument. For my
father, seeing Roy Rogers on television when he was 4 years old planted the seed, and seeing the
Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show watered, fertilized, and provided sunshine for that seed to grow.
The combination of how cool Roy Rogers looked and the beautiful sounds the Fab Four made
nurtured a love of guitar and music that has never left him. For me, what really got my blood
pumping was seeing a power-chord riff being beaten into a cherry-red Gibson Explorer by Trent
Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Not only did it sound great, but he also just looked so cool with that
guitar. For me, that shape instantly became associated with razor-sharp tone. Over the years, my
musical tastes have spread much, much further than ’90s industrial, but the image and the sound
of that guitar have been stuck in my head ever since.
Don Bell of Bell Custom Guitars obviously has the same fascination with that body style, as evidenced by his SS-E and SS-ER guitars. His instruments have already attracted the attention of
such players as Steve Stevens, who currently has his Bell Custom Jazzblaster with him on the Billy
Idol European tour. I got the chance to give Bell’s SS-ER, one of his coolest-looking creations, a
rundown recently. From the time that I spent with it, I came away very impressed.
Working in Wood and Acrylic
The defining feature in Bell’s striking production line is obviously his use of acrylic body wings.
His original creations sported bodies made entirely of acrylic, but he wasn’t satisfied because he
felt they sounded thin. He thought he’d make the acrylic sound better by adding a wood core
(the SS-ER’s is mahogany, but certain Bell models use maple), but he says the acrylic actually
made the wood sound better.
“Mahogany is normally dark sounding,” Don explains, “and the acrylic helps take that
muddiness out of it without losing the essential tone. The highs become clearer and
less brittle sounding, and the lows become tighter—almost like putting a compressor
on a bass drum so it doesn’t have that flab in it.” The 24. 75"-scale SS-ER’s mahogany core is stained a deep cherry, and it connects to the 22-fret neck with a traditional glued-in joint rather than the neck-through construction you might expect.
But the rest of the setup—stop tailpiece, Tune-o-matic bridge, two volumes and
a tone knob—is pretty by-the-book. Pickup-wise, the SS-ER is outfitted with a
set of Amalfitano PAF-style humbuckers, which have been potted to reduce
feedback.
Right out of the case, the SS-ER was set up perfectly and had spot-on
intonation. The action was high enough to dig into the strings with
minimal buzz, but low enough to facilitate quick runs up and down the
neck. I really liked the feel of the neck taper, which was akin to the
’60s slim taper on my ’ 78 Les Paul Custom, but slightly thicker. As for
other facets of playability, Explorers have never been known to be
lightweight, and neither is the SS-ER. The added weight from the
acrylic—which is heavier than mahogany—puts the guitar at 9. 5
pounds. Luckily, unlike a lot of instruments with unusual body
shapes, it balances well.
