Emerald Guitars further Revolutionizes the guitar format with its Virtuo All-Carbon-Fiber All-in-one Acoustic, Piezo and Electric Guitar
As this is principally a Guitar Pedal blog, I only feature Guitar articles fairly rarely here - and when they feature something particularly special. And in recent weeks I’ve been really vowed by the Emerald Guitars Virtuo Hybrid Model.
This not only combines Acoustic, Piezo and Electric playback in a single guitar, but also gives you a 13-pin MIDI output - which allows you to control Roland and Boss guitar synthesizer pedals - which combination has to be the most potent of any guitars made to date. The only thing missing for me really is a tremolo / vibrato style bridge - but I can easily forgive that. Al-in-all this is a most impressive feat of engineering all-round.
Emerald Guitars is at the forefront of Carbon Fiber technology and uses a sort of monocoque style of construction - where the entire guitar - body, neck, and headstock is all a single seamless piece of reinforced Carbon Fiber. The guitar then has a Carbon Fiber Fretboard - cleverly made with uni-directional Fibers and 22 Medium Stainless Steel Frets - where the arrangement of fibers looks particularly ’woody’.
Each guitar is made in one piece where several layers of Carbon Fiber Fabric are bonded together and impregnated and reinforced with resin. There’s a whole rainbow of colours available as a dye can be added to the mix - which allows you to deliver these guitars in a variety of colourways - often with an added wood veneer on the top - which can also be dyed - as is the case in our example.
The Guitar, Fretboard and Bridge are all made at the Emerald Guitar Factory which is based in Cancaw, County Donegal, Ireland - not far from Londonderry. And fixtures and fittings are all of the highest quality - including Fishman Fluence Pickups, Gotoh 510 Tuners, and Graphtech Nut and Ghost Piezo saddles.
The pictured guitar was priced at €3,600 / £2,625 when sold - most of the highly finished Virtuo models are in and around c. £3,000 and equivalent - depending on what custom options you go for!
I think Emerald should definitely do a carbon fiber variant of their Logo Ident Dog - as I’ve attempted in the above visual!
Here follow the Key Features and Specifications for the pictured guitar :
Features and Specifications
- Model Name : Virtuo [Harborica]
- Price when sold : €3,600 £2,625
- Model Type : 6 String
- Carbon Colour : Green
- Carbon Type : Standard Weave
- Veneer : Harborica
- Construction : Ergonomic Single Piece Carbon Fiber Construction - All-in-one Headstock, Innovative Connected Neck Design and Body
- Tuners : Gotoh 510 Tuners 18:1 Ratio (Cosmo Black)
- Nut : Graptech Low Friction Nut - Nut Width : 1 11/16", 43mm
- Fretboard : Unique Carbon Fiber Board with 22 Medium Stainless Steel Frets
- Fretboard Radius : 12”-16” compound radius
- Inlays : None, Side Dots only
- Scale Length : 25 1/2", 650mm
- Overall Length : 37 3/4", 960mm
- Max Body Width : 14 3/4", 375mm
- Max Body Depth : 2 3/4", 69.85mm
- Max Body Length : 18", 457mm
- Soundhole : Offset Acoustic Soundhole
- Pickups : Graphtech Ghost Piezo, Fishman Fluence Humbuckers, 13 Pin Hexpander Midi Output
- Bridge Type : Graphtech Fully Adjustable Floating Bridge
- Bridge Saddles : Graphtech Ghost Adjustable Piezo saddles
- Bridge Spacing : 2 3/32", 53mm
- Controls : Piezo Volume Control Knob, Fishman Fluence Humbuckers Volume Control Knob + Push/Pull Vintage or Modern Mode, Midi/Synth Volume Control Knob, Fishman Fluence Humbuckers Tone Control Knob + Push/Pull Coil Splitting, 3-way Piezo / Mix / Humbucker Selector Toggle-switch, 3-way Humbucker Selector Toggle-switch
- Finish : High gloss finish on all surfaces
- Weight : 3lbs, 1.4kg
- Setup : Plek'd to Perfection
- Maintenance : Minimal Maintenance with Maximum Weather Resistance
- Case : Hiscox Custom Lite Flite Hard Case
Demos and Further References
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
