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When an electric guitar sounds musical before you plug it in, it's a good sign that the wood, bridge and nut are something special. When the axe feels like it's "alive" when you strum it, it's a good sign that the overall construction is excellent. And when you find yourself cutting back on your use of stomp boxes, it's a good sign the pickups are giving you great output. All the signs are right with the Fury BBM, a three-pickup electric solidbody that is easily equal to the excellent Tom Anderson guitars, yet priced lower. The suggested retail on the BBM model is $1449 with hard shell case, although this particular model has a transparent finish which adds $100. Fury Guitars has been making quality axes in Canada since 1962. Under the guidance of design engineer Glenn McDougall, Fury has created a line of guitars that live up to their claim of making "noticeably finer musical instruments." Their line includes other six-string models plus a baritone, a 12-string and a bass. After meeting the Fury design and sales team at the NAMM convention, the company sent down the BBM three-pickup model that is as sleek as any custom shop guitar you've ever seen. The thing fairly jumps when you hit a chord. The patented Fury ZP pickups actually increase string motion by concentrating the magnetic force on the outer rim of the pole pieces. In addition, McDougall told me that the Fury pickups "are designed to handle initial attack peaks before the coils\ saturate." This also improves the sustain of the pickup Body beautiful The 1-1/2 inch thick offset double cutaway body is beautiful, and elegantly contoured at the back (the "belly cut") as well as across the bout where your right arm rests. The body is also relieved under the base of the neck, giving you extraordinary access to the upper frets. The neck edge is ideal for thumb placement during string bends. Soft maple is used for most of the body to produce a creamy tone, but it is constructed with a center block of hard maple for increased sustain. The nitrocellulose and acrylic lacquer finish was superb (and the company offers it in 18 color choices). The four-screw bolt-on neck has the reassuring solidity that comes from Eastern rock maple and it has been shaped to be halfway between a big "half a baseball bat" style neck and a thin shredder's neck. It has also been finely sanded to perfection and lacquered to a highly pleasing sheen. The nine-inch radius is comfortable and permits fast playing or string bending. It's a wide/medium neck, although not as wide as it could be -- virtually my only complaint is that I prefer an extra sixteenth of an inch from the E strings to the edge of the fingerboard. (Fury also offers a "W" style bridge on non-trem models, which widens the string spacing by 1/8-inch from E string to E string at the bridge.) With an unusual scale length of 25.064-inches, the guitar splits the difference between the short scale Gibson style (24-3/4 inches) and the standard scale Fender style (25-1/2 inches). The deep cutaway is at the 22nd fret, allowing you access to the entire fingerboard. The jumbo frets are set and finished as nicely as any you'll see. Using what the company calls a Balanced High-Mass Bridge/Tailpiece, the unit is machined from solid mill-rolled brass, then plated in chrome or gold. The bridge saddles are among the longer ones on the market, permitting precise intonation adjustment no matter what gauge of strings you prefer. Adjusting the height of the bridge is quite simple. Controls are conventionally placed and include tone, volume, 5-way pickup selector switch, and a humbucker coil tap toggle. Heads up The headstock utilizes a four-hole string tree and six-in-line Schaller tuners. The hard acrylic Uninut is a special design by the company and is cut quite deep. It also seems more solid than most and lets open string notes ring out with clarity. And the deeply-cut grooves make for softer playing action at the first fret. Pickup and go! The two single coils and one humbucker are another design exclusive called the Fury ZP. As noted above, the tubular pole pieces eliminate magnetic force in the center, instead pulling the strings from the outer edge to lower resistance to string motion. Combined with sensitive attack dynamics, a lack of microphonics, and total isolation of the pickup structure from transient resonance all contribute to what can only be called a monstrous sound. Played straight into an amp, the Fury emits nice varieties of tones, from glassy quiver to a glorious grind. Playing out For a reaction from people who make their living using guitars, I took the Fury BBM to Big Water Records where it was given a pro workout by Zak Daniels and Jim "Kat" Katsikides of the One Eyed Snakes. They plugged it into a Roland Blues Cube and wailed. Reaction: "I want it," Kat told me. "No, I want it," Zak said. They said lots of other things about the axe, mostly using language that can't be printed here, but all of it added up to the fact that they think the Fury is one mean machine. Michael Campagna, a superb blues guitarist whose furious speed runs often break into funk-strums, also played the Fury and was impressed by the quality workmanship. "You can tell it's very well put together," he told me, "with a very comfortable feel, which is important if you're playing a few sets or recording for a whole day." He did notice something I missed: the fingerboard doesn't widen above the 12th fret to the same degree as a typical design. It measures 2-1/8 inches at the 22nd fret, about standard for a Strat at the 12th fret. (Glenn McDougall and company executive Stan Garchinski state that a Fury guitar is actually 1/16-inch wider at the nut than a Strat, the same 2-inches at the 12th fret, and just 1/16-inch narrower at the 22nd fret as compared to a Fender Strat.) After racing up and down the fretboard unplugged, Campagna played the Fury BBM through a classic '59 Fender Bassman and the tonal range was superb in all pickup positions. And LOUD. No one who played the Fury had anything bad to say. Players who were also quite excited by the axe included Paul Audi of Suzanne LaStad (and his side project, Foyl) and session player Michael Laskavy. The sound and playability are the primary attractions with the Fury, and it shines in both departments. Bottom line: The Fury BBM guitar is art and science in the service of tone. CONTACT:
Suggested Retail: $1449 with hard shell case |
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