Back in 2013, I did a weekly series about 52 different guitars I’d love to own. At the end of that year, I ended up buying one of the guitars in the list. Well, it’s been way too long since I blogged regularly and it’s also been too long since I found the motivation to find another guitar to buy. That changes now and my inspiration starts strong with the Palm Bay Guitars Avalanche AXX1.
The Avalanche comes in two models—AXX1 and AXX2. Both are sexy, black and seemingly made for the heavy rock style of guitar I love to listen to and play. The AXX1 however is the perfect kind of guitar for me. It’s stripped down and comes with just what you need to get rocking from the moment you plug it in.
There’s one humbucker pickup and it’s perfectly placed in the bridge position. There is one volume control and it has no accompanying tone control—perfect. As an added bonus, the volume control is push/pull for pickup coil splitting. So if you want to get that single coil feel, you can.
Another setup style I love is the string-through-body bridge. I’m not personally a tremolo user as I mostly play the most basic of metal rhythm guitar.
Of the guitars I already own and love, this AXX1 reminds me of my Dean Zero due to it’s simplified approach to plug and play metal. Plus—and I know I’ve already mentioned this—it’s black. That’s a huge plus for me. The white binding is a very nice touch as well. I love it.
Some other features worth noting
- Body wood is mahogany
- Neck wood is maple
- Headstock is maple/mahogany ‘sandwich’
- Fret markers are abalone (with a nice Palm Bay tree marker in the first fret)
- Machine heads are Grover
Not only does the guitar look amazing, but it seems to sound great too. In regards to the AXX series, I found this awesome sounding video. The guitar in this video is the AXX2, but I’d be surprised if a lot of this wasn’t captured using the bridge pickup.
If you’d like to see the AXX1 in a video, there is this short video featuring Marc Hudson (vocalist from Dragonforce).
Plenty of incentive to check these guitars out—you should do that too by visiting the Palm Bay Guitars website.
I’m motivated. This year has a good feel already for me thanks to this beginning of a new series of 52 guitars. Happy new (guitar) year!