Craig Skelly’s review of the Wilson Brothers VM-75 Guitar
The title above was my first post here at Mosriteforum.com when I described my purchase a few weeks ago of the Wilson Brothers Ventures Electric Guitar model VM-75. Now that I have been playing this instrument for the last few weeks and have had the opportunity to play it with my surf band, the Breakaways, on the bandstand, my opinion has changed…but more on that later.
The Facts:
The VM-75, according to wilsonguitarventures.com is “The Ventures Trademark Body Style in Alder with Carved Top”. It comes appointed with an alder body, maple neck / Rosewood Fretboard, 22 Frets, 25 ½” scale, 2 single coil pickups, 1 volume, 1 tone, 3 position pickup switch and chrome hardware all housed in a beautifully finished sunburst body and headstock. The reality of this VM-75 is Semie meets Leo. It’s Semie in finish, style and pickups, but Leo in Bridge, tremolo unit and neck/fret size. No speed frets here. No vibromute either.
My Weekend Buying Experience:
I had not been to Deke’s Mosrite Geek Festival before but had heard a lot of great stories about it. So, on a whim, the lead guitar player in my band, Bruce, and I bought tickets and went. Braving the heavy traffic around the Anaheim Namm show, we arrived and proceeded into the large ballroom where we heard the music coming from. We roamed the hall and saw all the beautiful Mosrites and related guitars around the room and while we were in route to the Hallmark displays we bumped into our old pal Mel Waldorf. We went outside to a table to chat and he introduced me to his friend from Bakersfield, Danny, who runs an internet Mosrite Forum. We spent the next 4 hours immersed in all things Mosrite ending up with me catching a bug, a Mosrite bug.
The next day, Bruce and I went to the OC Guitar show as we do every year. There were a few Mosrites but the sticker shock of the cost of a ’65 Ventures Model took me off guard. So when I saw the Ventures logo on top of what looked like a Mosrite, I went to check it out. It was actually a Wilson Brothers Guitar Model VM-75. It looked like a Mosrite and had the Ventures logo…and I was hoping not the vintage pricing to go with it. I talked to the dealer, Dewey of Freedom Guitars, and we settled on the $360 with a gig bag. The guitar was not new, but it still had the plastic over the pickguard and Dewey told me the instrument was professionally set up. We quickly checked the electronics and the straightness of the neck…no problems there; I handed over the cash and walked out of the show with a new guitar and great excuse to try to explain to my wife how badly I needed another guitar. “Honey, this one so different than all the others”…Yea, right.
Early Thoughts on the Guitar:
After getting the guitar home and plugging it into my small practice amp, I was very surprised to hear the great variety of tones I could achieve with just the 2 pickups. The neck pickup is very robust and thick. The bridge pickup is thin and snarly, in a surfy way. The middle position or both pickups on is where this guitar shines. It has a sound all its own…It’s a Bakersfield oil field on a hot day. Thick and sweaty with plenty of sustain! The neck is very pleasing and familiar to my hands. Not in a Mosrite way but in a Fender meets Gibson way. The neck feels very Strat-like but the fingerboard with the tight binding and flat radius feels very Les Paul…go figure! The alder body has a rich and loud resonance and I even received a noise complaint from my kids last night while playing unplugged in the living room during America Idol. The bridge is all Stratocaster. It has similar bridge plate, saddles, trem block and spring/claw assembly as the classic Fender. I looked on the internet at other models of Wilson Bro’s and could see that the more expensive models are essentially the same as mine except they have a Jazzmaster/Jaguar Trem assembly and bridge. Speaking of looking on the web,
I wanted to explore the company and find out more about this guitar.
Web Experience/Customer Service:
So, I went to their web page http://www.wilsonguitarventures.com and clicked on the contact page and gave them a call. I had a few simple questions about the instrument and wanted to hear from the horse’s mouth. I received a nice message machine and left the appropriate information for a return call. Not satisfied, I clicked on the email link and sent an email of the same few questions. Two days go by and I had not heard back from the Wilson Bros. So I picked up the phone and called again. They answered and connected me to James Fox, a partner in the company with Don Wilson. He did not have many technical answers for me and referred me to the dealer I bought the guitar from. He did want to make sure I received the information I needed, and even gave me his cell number if I have any more questions that he can answer. He gave me the big picture about the company and background info about Wilson Bros. Including answering one of my questions about where the guitars are made. The lower end models VM-10 are made in China, the mid- level models (like mine) are made in Korea and the signature models are made in Japan.
The next day I received an email from Tim Wilson, Don’s son. Here’s the guy with the Tech specs. He answered my questions and apologized for not being available sooner as they were at Namm and then Chicago on trade shows. We exchanged 3 or 4 more emails and I came away from the table thinking that the Wilson Bros are a bunch of guitar guys like you and me making a go at manufacturing and distributing Ventures guitars. It was a good feeling that they loved what they were doing and would support their customers.
On the bandstand:
The VM-75 was in good company on the bandstand last weekend. I brought my ’65 Jazzmaster, ’66 Jaguar, Custom Shop Vintage Reissue Bass VI, and the VM-75. This was a large outdoor show in Huntington Beach, CA near the Pier so I played through my ’63 Fender Blonde Twin Amp and the ’63 Fender Reverb tank. Besides the nice feel of this guitar, the first thing I noticed was that the output is strong. With the amp on 3 and the guitar volume on 7, I was easily able to cut through the bass and drums to come up in the mix whenever I needed. The bridge pickup is strong and snarley. But not to much. It has the great mix of sweet and sour. My surf licks sounded straight out of 1963. All the other guys in the band immediately noticed I was not playing my usual guitar. The front pickup (neck) was very hot and kind of dark. I had trouble finding the right song / rhythm to play on this setting. I’d like to talk to Don Wilson on how and what songs he uses the front pickup on. It had trouble cutting through the mix and the frequencies blended with the bass so that if I was doubling the bass part, you could not distinguish between guitar and bass. Switching to the middle position of both pickups on is where I found the sweet spot. This was an awesome blend of the snarley and somber. I played the instrument mostly in this position and had a great time playing lead and rhythm. What a versatile setting!
The volume knob was different than my Fenders because it would not darken the sound as I turned it down. It was a pure volume reduction without losing any tone, great job Wilson Bros. The tone knob is different as well. It actually changes the tone of the output. Again comparing to Fender tone, where you get a darker sound, the VM-75 actually made the pickups sound differently. This led to many different combinations of sounds with the different pickups. My gearhead self wondered what the guitar would be like if they had a tone control for each pickup instead of one overall tone control for the whole guitar. The tonal possibilities would be endless.
The Frets were well dressed and medium tall but not jumbo. I was easily able to move up and down the neck without any issues. The whammy bar is much thicker than the Fender arm and was constantly begging to be used. So I obliged and had a great time shimmering chords and single line flourishes with plenty of whammy vibrato. How surfy is that! It took me some time to get used to looking down at a painted neck. But once accustomed, it presented no issues.
In Conclusion:
I’ll be lugging the VM-75 to many more Breakaways gigs in the future. I enjoyed the beautiful sunburst finish, great feel, and robust sound of this well made instrument.
My opinion of this excellent guitar has changed since that first post, I would like to change that line to: “It’s so fun driving this VW, I may delay my purchase of the Porsche.”
