# P-90 Gustavsson 59' Bluesmaster Custom



## faracaster (Mar 9, 2006)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE !!!!!!!

Well either Santa came a little late or The Stork was early.

I received this Johan Gustavsson Bluesmaster Custom on Friday (took me all day to get home and hold it on my hands....it was killing me!!!). I ordered this guitar from Johan almost three years ago. Johan takes his time in building these. There is only less than 40 serial numbers between this one and my other one that is three years old. This is only the second P-90 equipped Bluesmaster Custom that Johan has made. (he has made some goldtops with P-90s) I was told it may some time before he makes another, if ever. 

What follows is a completely subjective and personal account of the pleasures and charms of this guitar. So please take with a large grain of salt.

If any of you ever have the chance to get a JG, take it. Pricey? Very. But every time I’ve pulled my first JG out and played it....I have no idea what it costs, I just know how good it sounds and plays. These are among the very best solidbody guitars ever made.
First the goods.....Honduran mahogany body and neck, dark Brazilian rosewood fingerboard, American soft maple top. 24.6” scale. Les Paul-like dimensions ( thickness, body width, neck shape, mass etc), Telecaster shape.
Weight.....*7.1 lbs !!!!!* A solid body guitar with LP style woods and size but just above 7 pounds! Apparently the only additional routing to a normal LP is a slightly enlarged path for the neck pickup wires to pass through the body to the control cavity. Johan is using some mighty light wood in his building. He uses only 50+ year old air dried wood in his guitars. He has used Wolfetone P-90s in this one. Gotoh “Kluson” tuners. His own proprietary bridge design. Buzz Feiten tuning system. Nitro finish.
This guitar, while being a feather at 7.1 lbs., is evenly balanced. No headstock heavy neck here. It feels perfect on a strap or on your lap. The extremely thin nitro finish almost disappears to the touch. You can feel as one with the wood. And feel it you do when strummed or attacked. The resonance it palpable in your gut and in your fretting hand without even hearing the notes. The action is set relatively low, but there is no fretting out or buzzing anywhere up and down the neck. The fret work is a marvel. Precise, highly skilled work that makes the frets seem to have been seated 50 years ago. They feel like they were always in that dark, dark, thick piece of Brazilian. The maple top is one of those miracles of nature, that has wide wavy licks of flamey tiger striping, that explode in amber spikes. Then as you turn the guitar, they disappear, back into the dense complex maple top.
Some of you may know I have a real issue with LP styled guitars and their ergonomics. Johan while staying virtually traditional it his building techniques, has managed to bring subtle changes to the vernacular. Which for me is an extremely fortunate set of circumstances. This guitar feels like I’ve owned it it for decades and has a thousand gigs burned into it. The neck profile and shape is firmly in the vintage LP territory. Fat, wide, and even C shaped at the nut, it flattens out oh so very slightly towards the 12th fret.
The tone. The TONE !!!!!! This baby quite simply does it all for me. By simple I mean, all I want out of a guitar is to be a screaming demon when up full and a clear, clean open book when turned down. Is that too much to ask? For me, P-90s are the perfect ride for that kind of needs. They are single coils so you know they will be clear and sparkly when playing clean. The JG with the Wolfetones does that in spades. All the way up to 8 on the volume dial then they morph into sweet, clear, aggressive solo tone. A little less output than it’s sister humbucker equipped JG but none the less sustain on tap. It seems to want to jump effortlessly from one harmonic to the next. For all the simplicity of the design, there is a bible of tone available here. All usable, and classic sounds. The tone controls work in a unique fashion here. When the volume is full they act as normal. But when the volume is at anything less than full, they work like a fatness control. By backing them down, they make the tone clearer and thinner. You can get some real great funk tones here. 
When soloing the notes tend to grow out of the guitar and bloom into rich, complex showers of sound. Sort of makes me want to slow down and smell the (tone) roses. Which is a good thing methinks. 
Overall it is just a great sounding guitar that brings joy to my over inflated gearhead. 

Attached are some pix that truly do not do this guitar justice. Also there is a shot of both P-90 and the humbucker JG’s together.

Cheers
Pete




























Here is a pic of my other one (with humbuckers) with it's P-90 sister.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2008)

Sweet mother of god those are beautiful.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lofu lofu lofu


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Pete...those guitars are incredible. :bow:

If your pics were any better (they are great pics IMHO), I'd be reaching to my monitor to try and play a few notes.

Enjoy...fat chance that you won't..LOL

Congrats

Dave


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## Scottone (Feb 10, 2006)

Beautiful guitar! We are truly living in the golden age of guitar building as far as I'm concerned.


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

STUNNING!:bow: Congrats on your purchase and thank you for always sharing pics and tone reports of your latest incoming guitars! Enjoy!


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## Mr Yerp (Feb 24, 2006)

lofu lofu lofu


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## LaRSin (Nov 27, 2006)

Great looking guitars I'm sure you will enjoy them 

lofu
lofu
lofu:rockon:


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

I am totally speechless! Wow ! Pete you always have the best looking guitar around but that one is on my top 1 list! I really love it! Congrats and enjoy it until your fingers bleed!


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## Bmag39 (Dec 3, 2007)

One word, lofu


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## v-verb (Mar 29, 2007)

Beautiful guitars Pete! Can't wait to try the P90 one!


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Those are guitargasm inducing beauties.


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

This pic has become my desktop background! Amazing pics indeed. The tops are quite astounding....but not overdone. They both look like they were made in the 50s'. But the thing that I love from the pics is the string spacing on both of them. Look at how much space is between the high E and the edge of the fretboard. Lots' of room to do the "vibrato thang'"! Again Pete...ENJOY!sdsre








[/QUOTE]


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## ssdeluxe (Mar 29, 2007)

dropped by Pete's today and I have to say, regardless of hype/price /whatever, these jg's are truly astounding in feel/tone/look and complexity of expression. Pete has incredible taste in "gtr-ness", but these I think (imho, as always) are really special.

I hate you Pete ! :food-smiley-004:

the mazerati gt is no slouch either !


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## steve_chiro (Oct 25, 2007)

Beautiful guitars. Congrats. I want one...


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## pompeii0 (Nov 10, 2006)

If I had the money, one of those would be the ONLY guitar I would ever need. Well maybe 2 guitars, a sunburst with buckers and a gold top with p90s. The BEST looking guitars on the planet - PERIOD!!!


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

that is the sweetest pair of guitars that I have seen. Even from your pics you can see the build quality and setup of these two. The P90 one must sound awful sweet with the wolfetone P90's, I have a pair and they are awesome. Congrats Pete.... :food-smiley-004:


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Pete,... I hope you don't mind, but that picture is now my wallpaper.


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## faracaster (Mar 9, 2006)

Robert1950 said:


> Pete,... I hope you don't mind, but that picture is now my wallpaper.


Not at all Robert. Enjoy.

cheers
Pete


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## adamthemute (Jun 18, 2007)

Those are awesomely beautiful guitars...


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Very interesting. To me they look like the love child of a Tele and a Les Paul.


Definitely look like high end instruments.


Quite nice.


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## tubeinmyhead (Feb 13, 2008)

*Birds of a feather...*

Hi Faracaster,

I happened on this forum by happen chance and your thread in specific. I was impressed enough to subscribe and post a reply.

I'm the guy that has the other P-90 BM59 JG. it's an 03' I bought it new from Wildwood back then (check JG website - mines the BM59 on the far right of the BM59 opening page). I've since added a Humbucker BM59 (an 04' I bought used thru Wildwood). I'd post you a photo but I'm a Guitar player and my keyboardest isn't here to do it for me 

Anyway ENJOY!!! It's the "threeesome" only you and I know about and others can only dream of!!:food-smiley-004:

Roger 

Colorado


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## faracaster (Mar 9, 2006)

tubeinmyhead said:


> Hi Faracaster,
> 
> I happened on this forum by happen chance and your thread in specific. I was impressed enough to subscribe and post a reply.
> 
> ...



Roger

Nice to hear from you.
It was your guitar in particular (with the P-90's) that was the voodoo, the potion, the scent, the sex, that made me want a JG in the first place.
A good friend of mine was in Wildwood when they took delivery of those first JG's that your's was a part of. He phoned me and said "Pete you have to get one of these". 
Unless you have had one in your possession for a while, you have no idea of the sonic goodies that these guitars possess.
Happy playing my friend and thanks for chiming in eh.
cheers
Pete


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## tubeinmyhead (Feb 13, 2008)

*lets see if this shows up*

Hey, eh Pete!

I'll thry this and see if it takes:banana:


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## tubeinmyhead (Feb 13, 2008)

Oh well. On of these days I'll need to learn how to post up pics.

It's interesting how I bought the P90. I'd been interested in buying a P-90 LP style for a long time but none I tried ever had the "mojo". I've known Steve for a long time and I'd pop by every now and then and play a few. I was in shortly after he got that batch of Jo's and said "have I got the one for you". He pulled the BM59 P90 out and it just stunned me. I'd NEVER heard of Johan before but it only took 30 minutes for me to part with $3500 and walk out of the store with that guitar.

The Jo's really have that... err THING... you know... that THING!! :rockon2:

cheers mate! enjoy good fortune... sometimes even the dog stumbles into the kings treasure room:banana:

Roger


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## faracaster (Mar 9, 2006)

tubeinmyhead said:


> Oh well. On of these days I'll need to learn how to post up pics.
> He pulled the BM59 P90 out and it just stunned me. I'd NEVER heard of Johan before but it only took 30 minutes for me to part with $3500 and walk out of the store with that guitar.
> 
> The Jo's really have that... err THING... you know... that THING!! :rockon2:
> ...


I do remember when they were that price. Seems like an incredible deal now. I bet we have not nearly seen the ceiling on their price yet.

You have to get a picture up....I'd love to see that beauty now it's 5 years old. My new P-90 one looks all shiny and new compared to my humbucker 05' which while I have taken care of it, looks almost vintage now.
cheers
...and thanks again for chiming in.
Pete


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## tubeinmyhead (Feb 13, 2008)

*One more shot at it*








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Roger


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## faracaster (Mar 9, 2006)

tubeinmyhead said:


> [/IMG]
> 
> 
> 
> ...


WOW !!!!!
Fantastic Roger. I think those are gourgeous !!!!

Cheers
Pete

PS congrats on the pix post solution


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## steve_chiro (Oct 25, 2007)

I can't get over how nice these guitars are...


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## Edutainment (Jan 29, 2008)

lofu I'm in love with your guitars.


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## jesseblues (Jan 16, 2008)

how much do those cost?


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## steve_chiro (Oct 25, 2007)

Like 10K brand new, or 14K used, if you're lucky enough to find one.


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## xbolt (Jan 1, 2008)

Very unique!

That makes a nice pair :rockon:


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## pattste (Dec 30, 2007)

jesseblues said:


> how much do those cost?


If you need to ask, you probably can't afford them. :sport-smiley-002:

Just kidding. But seriously, Gustavsson's are pretty much considered the best boutique guitar you can buy today. Probably the most expensive one too.


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## Tybone (Feb 12, 2006)

I was lucky enough to play Pete's P90BM yesterday. It was clear that every note you played made the entire guitar vibrate. It was like it was alive.


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