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WE SHIP ANYWHERE
DiPinto Mach IV Guitar
Guitar One, October 2000
DiPinto Galaxie • By Michael Ross
In the early 80's, sideman extraordinaire David Lindley
discovered the joys of cheap imported and domestic guitars like
Teiscos and Silvertones. Their unique tone instantly put a sonic
signature of his music, and they looked really cool (at least on
a man who wore checkered polyester pants as rock garb). DiPinto
guitars of Philadelphia has designed model that straddles the
line between classic American design and import oddities.
 The
radical design elements shared by the DiPinto Galaxie 4 and
Galaxie 2 may require a certain sartorial confidence on stage,
but much of the guitars' strength is functional. True the
Galaxie 4's matching tortoise pickguard and headstock ensemble,
star inlays, and four (count 'em, four) pickups scream fun. But
the angled headstock combines the look of a Fender with the
ability of a Gibson to maintain tension across the 42mm nut
without the use of string trees. This is especially functional
on the Galaxie 4, where it helps the tremolo stay in tune.
These lightweight guitars also balance extremely well, with
then neck hanging at a very comfortable angle when your strapped
in. The maple, four bolt necks are attached to the headstock
with a luthiers' joint. The Galaxie 4's Jaguar style tremolo
maintains the guitars tuning, and bending one string doesn't
throw the others out of tune, but dive bombing is not an option,
and there is some loss of sustain (though in general the guitar
sustains well). The Galaxie 4 brings Fender to mind with a 25
1/2" scale length and a club-like shape to the neck. The Galaxie
2 nods to Gibson with it's standard tune-o-matic bridge and stop
tailpiece configuration.
Sound Choices
If three pickups are good, four must be better, right? Well, different
anyhow. At first it might seem that the DiPinto dudes decided to go a little
nuts with the wiring set up, but, like its looks, the wiring of the Galaxie 4 is
as functional as it is freaky. The five-way switch offers bridge pickup alone,
bridge and two adjacent pickups, middle two, all four (yahoo!), or neck pickup
alone. Positions 3 and 4 are hum canceling combinations of the single coils.
These DiPinto designed pickups are powerful enough to let you lower the
middle two a bit, if they get in the way of your picking, and still have plenty
of punch. The bridge pickup provides a Strat-like skank tone but also has enough
midrange to sound good distorted. Position 2 offers a fine funk tone, and the
neck pickup by itself gives enough warmth for jazz combined with beaucoups bite
for blues. The middle two together make a unique sound that will in future be
know as DiPinto Tone, like a Strat neck/middle combo but with more mids. The
Silver Sparkle Galaxie 2 came with two humbuckers and a three way switch. But of
course two standard humbuckers would be too normal for DiPinto. In reality,
these humbuckers are made up of two single coils each, wired together in series
and mounted separately. This allows you to shape their tone by raising or
lowering half the pickup. Finding the neck sound a little boomy, I just lowered
the half of the pickup closest to the neck and instantly had more focus without
the output loss I would expect from lowering the entire pickup.
Wave Your Freak Flag
I'd be lying if I said these were the most playable guitars I ever
picked up, but I could say the same about all the cool Teiscos,
Framus, Silvertones, and Dan Electros (old and new) I have
played. The DiPintos certainly are playable but, like the
aforementioned bands, their strength lies in their
style-visually and sonically. Take one of these on-stage and the
audience will be talking about it for weeks.
Onstage or in the studio, these DiPintos will give you a leg
up on developing a sound of your own. At these prices they can
be a welcome addition to your collection for that special sonic
or stage occasion.
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Hey, Mr. Roman,
My name is Justin Kent, from Toronto. I've just recently gotten
into guitars ( been playing for just over a year ) and for
whatever reason...I just love them. My girlfriend stumbled
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though I own one. I got it as a gift before I knew anything
about guitars or how they were made.
I was given a great book for Christmas about guitars in general
and the history of the most influential companies and now I hate
my cheap Korean made bolt on strat copy lol. I've decided that
the next guitar I buy will come from your store. I wonder how
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meaning to go for a while but now I have a legit reason.
All in all, I just wanted to show my appreciation to someone who's
done a superb job of embracing, displaying, and marketing
something I'm very interested in and passionate about.
Thank you,
Justin Kent
BASSES
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