The Fret-King 2023 Collection

Since 1993, and the naissance of Fret-King® in California, the folks at Fret-King® have been listening to guitarists of all stripes, from the internationally renowned and famous, to the ‘journeymen’ players, to the local heroes, as well as to the design community, the press, our peers and our competitors, incorporating real-world experience and needs into innovative, elegant, player focused designs which fall instantly to hand, and are endowed with eminently useable features, superb playability, expanded tonal palettes with a signature edge, bringing a fresh twist to the electric guitar and bass world, through a philosophy and identity which is uniquely Fret-King® the pinnacle of British guitar design,

Proudly on display at NAMM booth #7415, the 2023 Fret-King® Collection brings together decades of skill and experience in understanding what works and translates emotion into instruments which speak with the player’s voice.

The Eclat™ with its peerless, classic single cut elegance is available in two new models, the Standard and Custom.

The ever-popular Country Squire™ model, a Fret-King® stalwart, a magical fusion of the traditional with the contemporary, featuring subtle dynamic and ergonomic enhancements across several distinct and unique variants. Rooted in the familiar, whist offering freedom to be free of retro constraints and burst free into a new creativity, the 2023 Country Squire™ collection includes a slew of different variants, The Classic, The Modern Classic, The Semitone De Luxe™, The Music Row™, The Stealth and The Tone Meister™.

Elise™, the signature Fret-King® offset, chambered, semi acoustic nods to a guitar heritage which spans all musical styles. Available in the 2023 Collection in Hardtail and Vibrola models, the Elise™ Custom has a breath-taking tonal palette which allows it to deliver a truly outstanding range of tone.

Corona™, the emblem of the Fret-King® line available in two versions, Classic and Custom. recognizing the roots of the bolt-neck double cut, as re-interpreted by Fret-King®, Corona™ incorporates master built qualities, classic and contemporary style, feel and tone, and, of course, that Wilkinson trademark, a vibrato with absolutely unrivalled return to pitch whether you play with maximum attitude, in the shadows or on the watchtower.

Corona™ Classic, as it suggests is a quite traditional HSS bolt-neck double cut, with the added advantage of Fret-King’s unique “Varicoil”.

Corona™ Custom is an assertive beast, with a contemporary style body, with tight edge radiuses makes a strong style statement, with a unique pickup, control and switching arrangement which produces an almost limitless range of amazingly useable voices and subtly extended cutaway and heel joint providing enhanced upper fret access while maintaining the Corona™ Custom’s purity of line and traditional elegance.

In a homage to the importance of “The Rhythm Section” in any band, The Fret-King® Perception™ Custom, which has for decades been synonymous with the needs of the journeyman bass player, delivering outstanding tone, feel and balance, speaks to the bass player’s love of tradition and introduces thoughtful innovation.

Featuring the quite outstanding Aguilar® 4SD-D1 pickups mated to Aguilar’s most flexible active pre-amp design, the 24v OBP-3TK/PP, providing three discrete bands of cut and boost of +/-18dB at 40Hz, +/-16dB 400Hz or 800Hz with a push/pull selector on the middle tone knob, and +/-16dB 6.5 kHz and arrangement, which left flat, lets the traditional natural passive tones of the Perception™ Custom shine, and when engaged creates a tonal palette which goes straight into ultimate bass territory.