Tim Reede Mercury

Tim Reede introduces Mercury, a compact chambered body electric guitar with dual humbuckers and piezo pickup.

This guitar is described as the little brother of their other custom instrument, the Apollo, and bearing a similar double cutaway shape with stylized dual sound holes, only this one is a tad bit smaller.

The Tim Reede Mercury is a bit more ambitious and versatile than your average guitar because it aims to provide both electric and acoustic-electric guitar tones in a single instrument. And to achieve this, Tim Reede equipped it with a hollow body with acoustic resonance, as well as a piezo undersaddle pickup system that can capture its acoustic tones.

The guitar starts off with a chambered alder body that follows after a distinct double cutaway shape. The top is crafted from carved maple, following after traditional hollow/semi-hollow guitar designs, but the custom designed sound holes easily set the Mercury apart from classic designs.

It has a rock maple neck with a 22-fret ebony fingerboard, following Strat style specs with a scale length of 25.5" and a C-shape neck profile. Contrasting this classic similarity is its smooth neck and body joint, which allows for super easy access to the upper frets, without compromising structural integrity.

To give the Tim Reede Mercury its electric guitar voice, the company equipped the instrument with Lollar Imperial humbuckers. These pickups are described as having tight lows, balanced midrange and complex overtones. They are derived from the original PAF pickups, and captures the airy top end much like vintage specimens. The bridge position feature alnico 5 magnets while the neck is alnico 2, both of which are de-gaussed to levels designed specifically for their positions.

For its acoustic voice, Tim Reede opted for a Graph Tech products, specifically Ghost piezoo saddles on a Graph Tech Wrap Around bridge. This pickup comes with a dedicated output so you can separately amplify the two outputs and blend them as you see fit. Tim Reede expounds: "There are two output jacks, one for just the electric and the other can be used as a blended signal with both the Lollars and the piezos or it can be switched to be used as just the piezos for an "acoustic guitar" sound."

Other features of this guitar include Gotoh 510 tuning machines, bone nut, and mother-of-pearl fingerboard inlays. And since Tim Reede is a boutique guitar builder, you can opt to further customize the instrument if you prefer.

The new Tim Reede Mercury has a retail price that starts at $2,980, for more information and to check out their other customizable electric guitars, you can head over to Reede Guitars.

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