A Horse of a Different Color

by Michael Ross
Guitar One Magazine

Reverend instruments are built by a small crew in Joe Naylor's Detroit-area shop. When we first reviewed an original model (NOV/02), we were impressed by its combination of funky design and quality construction. Now, to make his guitars available to a wider public, Naylor has offered the less expensive Workhorse series, which has the same American workmanship but fewer features and options. We took a look at the Workhorse Slingshot Custom.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE ...
Both the Premium and the Workhorse versions of the Slingshot Custom feature the same phenolic-laminate top and back (made from wood fibers and phenolic resin) laminated to a 6"-wide white mahogany center block, which houses a small steel sustain bar. The idea here is to produce the attack and sustain of a solidbody while capturing the acoustic properties of semi-hollow construction. Both versions also come with a cool chrome-plated armrest, full-access neck joint, graphite nut, low-friction string trees, and string-thru-body bridge. You get the same North American maple neck; rosewood fingerboard with rolled edges; vintage yellow-satin neck finish; medium jumbo frets; truss rod access at the headstock; and the same Naylor-designed P-90-style pickups, the middle one reverse-wound to cancel the hum in positions two and four of the five-way switch.
So what don't you get? Well, you don't get a multi-layered pickguard (you must make do with a single layer), Sperzel locking tuners (you do get die-cast, non-locking tuners), or nearly as many color, hardware, and wiring options as are offered on the Premium series.

...THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME
As for playability, you get the same rounded, vintage-style neck, which sits comfortably in the hand; and the same finely finished frets, which respond as well to sliding into notes as to bending. The semi-hollow body lends an additional chunk to the barking yet snappy pickups. Just like "high-priced spread," the Workhorse offers more sustain than you might expect from a phenolic laminate, yet it's still light enough that it won't break your back on those four-set gigs.
Plugging into a Reverend Hellhound amp (what else?), I set the guitar on the bridge/middle setting. Using just a touch of amp gain, I obtained a fat, funky, out-of-phase (and hum-less) sound that inspired the riff below. Each of the three pickups sings with supersized single-coil tone; the Reverend pickups suffered none of the muddiness occasionally found in soapbar pickups. Special mention should be made of the instrument's controls: the volume is wired to preserve high-end when lowering the output, and the tone offers usable settings all the way down to maximum roll-off, where it simulates a backed-off-wah—cool!

LESS IS NOT MUCH LESS
Reverend managed to cut $140 off the price of the Premium version of the Slingshot Custom without significantly reducing the quality of the instrument. For bells and whistles, go Premium (it's still a bargain), but for a solid gigging axe, check out this stripped-down screamer.