S5
Guitar

Kahler vibrato bridge for deep dives and perfect tuning stability.
Fender LSR roller nut for tuning stability and string tolerance.
Schaller locking tuners for fast string change and tuning stability.
Korina body with a choice of colours and sunbursts.
Figured maple scratchplate with a choice of pattern and colours.
22 fret 25.5 in maple neck.
Compound radius fret-board of a choice of woods.
Nitrocellulose lacquer finish for finest tone.
Seymour Duncan JB, and vintage Strat, and Jazz humbucker pickups.

 

S5
Enlarge Photo

A choice of styles:
Headstock can be classic or 3+3 or spearhead
Lower bout can be asymetric or symetric

The S5 is not just another stratocaster copy with added humbuckers, although it will feel familiar to anyone coming from that direction. It has an original designed body of selected hard tone-woods . 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: JB bridge humbucker; Vintage strat middle; Jazz neck humbucker. Alternative pickup combinations are available to order.

 

S5 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.

Kahler Bridge

S5 Bridge
The Kahler bridge used on the SS3 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.

 

S5 Controls
Pull the tone knob, and the 5 way pickup selector behaves exactly like a Stratocaster using three single-coil pickups.
Push the tone knob, and the 5 way pickup selector, with a Rees circuit, provides 5 humbucker sounds in order from neck to middle to bridge.

Pull for
"Stratocaster like Guitar"

Pickup Selector position when tone knob is pulled:

1: Neck single coil
2: Neck and Mid single coils
3: Middle single coil
4: Mid and Bridge single coils
5: Bridge single coil

Push for
"Three Humbucker Guitar"

Pickup Selector position when tone knob is pushed:

1: Neck humbucker PU.
2: Neck humbucker PU and a bridge single coil.
3: Middle pure humbucker made of a neck coil and a bridge coil.
4: Bridge humbucker PU and a neck single coil.
5: Bridge humbucker PU.

 

Hear Ben Smith playing a Rees S5:

S5

S5 PU Selector Voice Bridge PU Bridge + Mid Middle PU(s) Neck + Mid Neck PU
Clean Humbuckers p p p p
Clean Single Coils p p p
Crunchy Humbuckers p p p p p
Crunchy Single Coils p p p


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