The S3 is not just another stratocaster copy, although it will feel familiar to anyone coming from that direction. An original designed body of selected hard tone-woods features a thin carbon fibre reinforced neck joint, offering better access to high frets. The scratch-plate is 6mm solid figured maple, not cheap plastic, creating more musical resonance with long sustain as well as beauty. During development a plastic scratch-plate was tested and found detrimental to tone.

Standard pickups are Seymour Duncan Alnico 2 Pro for the neck and middle pickups providing traditional bell-like tones, and a Seymour Duncan Twang Banger for the bridge pickup providing a more telecaster-like fat and more aggressive tone. Alternative pickup combinations are available to order.

S3 Bridge

Other Guitars
Let's face reality: making a vibrato bridge ( or misnamed "tremolo" bridge) that relies on bed-springs, wood screws, and the body wood in its high-force string tension balancing mechanism, may be cheap to manufacture, but is never going to have the stability or response that a guitarist really needs. The only way to achieve stability together with responsive deep-dive control is to use serious precision engineering components.

S3 Bridge
The Kahler bridge used on the S3 is a heavyweight piece of precision kit, expensive to manufacture, but worth every cent and more. The result is a bridge that offers intimate feel and control; amazingly deep dives down as much as a whole octave; and with one of the right nuts: roller; low-friction; or locking; offers perfectly reliable tuning stability.

Adjustability
The bridge is adjustable in every way imaginable: string weight; individual string intonation; individual string height; individual string-string spacing. The vibrato arm can be used on either side, and the stiffness of its rotation can be set. Strings are top-loaded for quick changing. This is clearly the best vibrato bridge in the world.

Floating Vibrato or Fixed Action Bridge
The same bridge can be locked by turning an Allen key when the vibrato action is not required. This makes it into a fixed bridge.

S3 Controls
Push the tone knob, and the 5 way pickup selector behaves exactly like a Stratocaster using three single-coil pickups.
Pull the tone knob, and the neck pickup is always added to whatever is selected by the 5 way switch. This adds a very desirable neck + bridge combination, and even all three pickups together.

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