Description
The Fullerton Deluxe ASAT Classic Alnico takes G&L’s traditional single-cutaway bolt-on platform and swaps in a matched set of Alnico V single-coils, giving this ASAT a different sonic personality than the standard Magnetic Field Design version. The bridge pickup sits in a classic boxed-steel bridge with individual brass saddles for solid, accurate intonation, and it delivers a meaty, cutting twang. The neck Alnico V is voiced fuller and rounder, avoiding the thin, weak output that plagued a lot of old-school neck pickups. Run them together and you get a jangly, harmonically rich in-between tone that’s genuinely sweet.
This pickup pairing isn’t a recent marketing idea — G&L’s Paul Gagon has been developing it since the late 1970s. As an R&D engineer at another company at the time, he was asked to figure out exactly what made certain vintage bolt-on guitars so revered. His research combined hands-on shop-floor conversations with pickup builders who’d been at it since the ’50s alongside his own technical analysis, and both pointed to the same conclusion: pickup specs from that era were wildly inconsistent, and the balance between bridge and neck pickups was often off. Gagon’s Alnico V pairing was built to correct that imbalance, and it’s now available in this Fullerton Deluxe model.
Like the G&L Legacy, this guitar blends vintage-informed tone with the practical upgrades Leo Fender kept refining over the years. It’s made at G&L’s original Fullerton, California facility — the same site where the company has built USA instruments since 1980.
Available finishes:
- Butterscotch Blonde over Western Sugar Pine, 1-ply black pickguard, maple fingerboard
- Jet Black over Alder, 1-ply white pickguard, maple fingerboard
- Old School Tobacco over Swamp Ash, 3-ply tortoise shell pickguard, maple fingerboard
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