his hardware innovations are among the
more lasting developments of the last 30
years. His Wilkinson roller nut, which
caught the guitar playing public’s eye as
a feature on Fender’s Strat Plus in 1987,
remains widely used and influential. And
his locking tuners and bridges are go-to
parts for guitarists improving and modifying their stock instruments. Wilkinson
probably could rest on his laurels at this
point. But as his ongoing work with the
Fret-King and Vintage brands attests,
Wilkinson sees room for innovations—
big and small—in even the most iconic
electric guitar designs.
On the surface, there’s little hint of
what this guitar can do. The heart of the
self-tuning system is the Wilkinson ATD
HT440 bridge, which is conventional
The guitar itself is a handsome, modern twist on a Strat profile. The two-piece
alder body has a reassuring heft—
particularly with all the onboard electronics—
but could benefit from a few smoother
body contours at the body edges, which
will occasionally give you a jab in the
ribs. The 25 1/2" scale neck with rosewood fretboard and medium-jumbo frets
is basically a comfy slim C shape, if a
little bit flattish for my tastes.
selector) and learn the symbols and preset
numbers displayed on the LCD, the ATD
HT440 works almost as naturally as a
pedal tuner.
Factory presets include standard
EADGBE, Drop D, Open G, Open E,
DADGAD and GDFCDG. And setting
up the Super-Matic for any one of them is
a simple process of holding the function
button down until the number 1 appears,
clicking the button repeatedly until you
The Wilkinson ATD HT440 bridge isn’t totally intuitive if you’re new to the technology, but it’s a very streamlined system with a minimum of controls that’s easy to get a feel for.
enough looking at first glance, but upon
closer examination reveals itself to be a
little engineering marvel. Just aft of each
fully adjustable saddle there’s a capstan that
anchors the string. Each capstan is attached
to an individual motor and gearbox. The
motor and gear box assembly interface via
a microprocessor with a hex pickup just
forward of the bridge and a tuning selector
for accessing presets.
The interface between player and the
tuning selector is itself quite unobtrusive.
There’s a very small (and at first easy-to-miss) button mounted on the treble side of
the pickup, and on the bass side, a small
oval LCD readout that relays simple data
about preset selection, whether a note is
sharp or flat (when the built-in chromatic
tuner is in use), and system status alerts
for broken strings, battery life, and partial
tuning. The entire system runs on a 9-volt
battery, which Fret-King says will last for
up to 250 tunings.
The guitar’s standard electronics
include Wilkinson WHHBZ33 offset
pole piece “Zebra” humbuckers and a
Wilkinson WHSM single-coil in the
middle position. They’re wired via a
5-position selector switch and Wilkinson
’s Vari-coil system which enables variable
splitting using the aft-most tone control,
which is arguably a less clumsy and tonally varied approach than push-pull pot
coil tapping.
Tuning on the Fly
The Wilkinson ATD HT440 bridge isn’t
totally intuitive if you’re new to the tech-
nology, but it’s a very streamlined system
with a minimum of controls that’s easy to
get a feel for—especially if you treat your-
self to a video tutorial from Wilkinson
himself on the Fret-King web site (fret-
king.com). Once you grow accustomed to
using the master function button (which
doubles as an on/off switch and preset
find the number that corresponds to
the desired preset, and strumming once.
You’ll hear a quick burst of activity from
the miniature motors in the bridge as
they turn the capstans, and if you have
the guitar’s volume up, the odd sound
of the strings changing pitch in unison.
Occasionally it will take a second slow
strum for the system to read, process, and
retune each note, but it rarely takes a third
strum if you’re patient and deliberate.
