Ibanez AT100CL Andy Timmons, Sunburst

Ibanez AT100CL Andy Timmons, Sunburst Overview

AT100CL was recreated from Andy's favoured axe, which has been unavailable for several years. The AT delivers the sonic variety needed by a player who is equal parts blues master, ultra versatile session master, and speed demon.

The AT100's neck is unfinished (or at least very minimally finished), and according to Ibanez, is a digitally replicated version of a worn vintage neck on one of Timmons' favourite guitars. The 22 jumbo frets have rounded tips and a gleaming polish, and the only adornments on the slab maple fretboard are black position dots. A four-bolt joint attaches the neck to the gloss-finished alder body, and this area is rounded for an easy reach to the top frets. The single-layer pickguard holds a set of DiMarzio pickups in the classic HSS configuration. The bridge unit is a custom Andy Timmons AT1 with alnico 5 magnets'a design he has been using since 2001. The neck and middle pickups are hum-cancelling Cruiser models that feature side-by-side coils and ceramic magnets. They have more output than stock Strat pickups, and are voiced for greater low-end emphasis. They feed a master Volume control, a pair of Tone pots, and a 5-way selector. Anchoring the strings at the body end is a Wilkinson bridge, which is adjusted to set flat on the body.

The AT1000 is a full sounding guitar with clean tones that are clear, warm, and balanced. The neck and middle positions offer a good selection of sounds for rhythm work and bluesy lead playing, and the neck-plus-middle and middle-plus-bridge tones (positions 2 and 4) have a cool, clucky ring. The sounds stay bright when you turn down, and the Tone controls (one for the bridge pickup and the second for the neck and middle pickups) are voiced well for eliciting browner textures in clean or highly overdriven configurations.