Description
The Legacy Tribute is G&L’s answer to the question every S-style player eventually asks: why choose between vintage snap and modern playability? Leo Fender himself drew up this design, folding refinements from the S-500 and Comanche into a package built around three CLF-100 Alnico V single-coils. These pickups aren’t a casual reissue effort — G&L’s Paul Gagon spent years cross-referencing Leo’s original lab prints against real late-’50s guitars and conversations with the builders who wound pickups on that very production line back in the day. The result is that elusive chime-and-quack tone that made those early examples legendary, and it’s earned the Legacy praise from Guitar Player and Guitar World alike.
Where it breaks from tradition is in the electronics and hardware. Leo’s PTB (Passive Treble and Bass) circuit works across all three pickups, opening up tonal territory a standard vintage wiring scheme simply can’t reach. The Dual-Fulcrum vibrato — another Leo Fender design — delivers rock-solid tuning stability through pitch bends in either direction, with a smooth, substantial feel courtesy of its aluminum arm.
This particular build wears a Gloss Black finish over a Basswood body (standard for solid-color finishes in this line), paired with a Hard-Rock Maple neck and Maple fingerboard. The medium C profile neck measures 1 5/8″ at the nut with a 12″ radius, 22 medium jumbo nickel frets, and a 25 1/2″ scale — familiar territory for any S-style player, but a step up in build quality that reflects G&L’s continued attention to craftsmanship.
- Construction: Bolt-on
- Scale: 25 1/2″
- Pickups: G&L CLF-100 Alnico V single-coils, made in Fullerton, CA
- Body Wood: Basswood (solid finish)
- Neck Wood: Hard-Rock Maple with Maple fingerboard
- Neck Width at Nut: 1 5/8″
- Neck Radius: 12″
- Neck Profile: Medium C
- Frets: 22 medium jumbo, nickel
- Tuning Keys: 18:1 ratio, sealed-back
- Bridge: G&L Dual-Fulcrum vibrato
- Controls: 5-position selector, volume, treble, bass (PTB system)
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