This McQueen has block inlays and the BlackTop finish.
I was never going to make a maple-capped guitar. I had grown so tired of PRS guitars in the 90's, and as the 2000's rolled around it just seemed there were more and more of them. They were always that transparent teal color.. and I just grew to hate them.
But, I had a good friend in LA who needed a LP style guitar 'cos he was auditioning for a band that insisted he use one.. and I reluctantly sat down to come up with something we could both live with.
I decided the basic sound elements had to be there.. mahogany body & neck, eastern maple cap, TOM bridge and stud tail, humbuckers, and the same control layout as the classic. Of course I had to screw with the look, so I incorporated an old design of mine and melded it with the basic LP shape, adding a 6-in-line headstock just to enrage the purists. (I'm like that.) And surprisingly.. it worked!
The McQueen is not a carbon copy of the originals, but it sounds quite a bit like them when the right pickups are used. It's a smaller, more focused sound, which is great for playing blistering solos and low register riffs. Because you're essentially 'muting' the guitar by laminating it, the result is often a less resonant, more controllable sound. I added tone chambers to my design, because I wanted a touch more resonance than I was getting, but it's still a very recognizable sound.
Not available in transparent teal.
-Mark Fuqua, 2013