I haven't had a chance to play it in a loud band environment yet my loud band is on practice hiatus while one of us has a baby, so it may be a few weeks before I get to stretch it out at volume. In fact, though I'd sort of been mentally pickup shopping before buying it, now that I've had it a couple days, I've decided to live with the stock pups a while first. It's an airy, complex guitar and there's a jangle that translates to an edge with some gain - you have to dial back the tone and volume controls to control the treble if you want a mellower jazz sound - but it's really a versatile little beasty, and sounds much better than I expected off the rack. The pickups are well matched and slightly on the hotter side for P90s - growlier than the Duncans that Godin has used in their guitars, but fatter and to my ears better than the Reverend P90s in my Roundhouse, though I'm sure the guitar helps with that. The electronics seem solid large CTS-style pots that feel good, a solid switch, and the jack is mounted on a square of plastic but it's a thick, decent looking piece of plastic. The bridge is solid too, not a rattley mess like some.

The tuners feel very solid and have done a good job so far. The neck is a smallish modern C shape, and the fretboard feels like it's got a pretty flat radius - maybe 10-12'? - though not nearly so flat as most Godin's. It's a very light guitar, but I haven't had any trouble with neck dive, despite the strap button being on the neck heel. Just as resonant and lively and loud as the one at L&M, and the neck was just sweet no dead spots and it plays very well straight off the wall - I'm sure that it will be perfect with a fret polish and a couple minor tweaks.

So I decided to drop by Steve's on my way home from work and found this Vintage Cherry version. I'm sure that they could have had their tech fix that up, but that's such a lengthy and painful process there that I didn't want to bother. I went back Friday to check it out more thoroughly and was kind of disappointed to find a couple dead spots around the 15th fret. The first Casino Coupe I played was a natural one they had on the wall at L&M that I really liked on first impression.

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