The VOX Giulietta VGA-3PS is a small cutaway archtop guitar designed for the contemporary player looking for something special. The unique electronics and stylish design combine to deliver comfortable playability and a beautiful rich sound – bright and glassy yet with defined lows, similar to a flat top acoustic guitar. The combination of the looks, style, playability and sonic character make the Giulietta 3PS a great personal choice for you to use both live and when recording.
Full-size archtop guitars look great, but their large size and weight can make them uncomfortable for many players. They are also notoriously susceptible to feedback at stage volume. By carefully balancing the smaller single cutaway body size and full-scale neck, VOX has been able to create a modern instrument that any player can feel comfortable playing without sacrificing tonal versatility and quality. Plugged in, Giulietta can produce tones that are as rich as full sized acoustic guitars.
The Giulietta VGA-3PS features a compact and comfortable body, which makes for a more comfortable and practical playing experience, but also helps reduce feedback and improve the overall tone of the guitar. The real secret of the Giulietta, however, is the innovative patented VOX Hybrid Bridge System. The VOX Hybrid Bridge System uses a traditional wooden base that features a specially-developed laminated wood/aluminium top section. The compensated one-piece saddle is equipped with a proprietary piezo system that provides quick response and even string-to-string output. Additionally, this unique combination of materials widens the frequency response of the piezo system, adding sparkling high harmonics and also significantly increasing sustain. As an added bonus, this bridge also helps reduce feedback at high volumes.
Traditionally, archtop guitars are available either as fully acoustic instruments or with magnetic pickups cut into the top, with all controls mounted in the wood. A different approach was used to give the VGA-3PS greater projection and sustain. With the pickup system contained in the Hybrid Bridge and the controls suspended in the pickguard, the top wood is allowed to resonate freely without the weight of the electronic components inhibiting its true vibration.
The Giuletta’s excellent on-board piezo pickup system transforms the typical dull tone of an archtop by providing greater dynamic sensitivity, a more even distribution of lows, mids & highs, and enhanced sustain that rivals your favourite flattop acoustic. The Volume and Tone controls are discreetly located on the pickguard, just like a classic archtop, keeping the look crisp and uncluttered while delivering a wide range of tones to suit any style. There is also a low-cut pot that is adjustable with a small flat blade screwdriver to custom tailor the bass response of your guitar.
The USB chargeable preamp boasts a hefty 8 hours of play time just with 1-2 hours of charging. This design choice is not only for convenience, but it also eliminates the need for a battery compartment; another factor which increases the resonance and vibrations of the wood.
Not content to stop there, the designers & engineers at VOX also sought to address another common issue with piezo-equipped archtop guitars: over-ring. This phenomenon occurs when a bridge-mounted piezo pickup amplifies not only the fretted sound, but also the length of string between the bridge and tailpiece, creating an undesirable effect that interrupts your performance. To address this, VOX developed a simple-to-use removable string mute (included with the guitar) that prevents over-ring and leaves you with a pure, clean sound.
Features
- New Vox Super Capacitor Preamp System with pickguard-mounted Volume and Tone controls
- High quality piezo pickup in the Hybrid Bridge
- Greater dynamic sensitivity and tonal flexibility with the minimum amount of controls
- Patent-pending Hybrid wood/aluminium adjustable bridge
- Vox patent-pending String Mute to stop unwanted “over-ring”
- Active/Passive Switch to turn off Super Capacitor Preamp for passive use
- Single Cutaway Archtop
- Arched laminated spruce top
- Arched laminated mahogany back
- Laminated mahogany sides
- Single ply top binding
- Single ply back binding
- 342mm (13 1/2?) body width
- Set Nyatoh, tilt headstock
- Traditional ”C” shape
- 43mm (1.690?) nut width
- Bone nut
- Roasted Jatoba (stabilised through special drying process)
- 320mm (12.6?) fingerboard radius
- Pearloid dot position markers
- 22 medium jumbo frets
- Patented Hybrid Bridge on floating ebony base
- Integrated piezo saddle
- 24.75? (628mm) scale length
- Piezo bridge saddle
- Vox Super Capacitor Preamp System with pickguard-mounted volume and tone controls
- Includes Gig bag, String mute, Mini-USB charging cable, Adjustment wrench