Hagström Ultra Swede

Hagström is a Swedish company founded in 1925 (Happy 100th!) which originally made accordions before introducing guitars in 1958. They stopped production in 1983, but resumed in 2004. It is not entirely clear how much connection the current Hagström has to the original company, or whether (as is often the case) someone else just bought the name and relevant intellectual property and the started building them again.

The Ultra Swede is clearly Les Paul inspired, but with a smaller body, which firstly addresses the common complaint of those guitars being too heavy, and also helps to give it an identity apart from “another LP copy.”

The neck has Hagström’s special “H-expander” truss rod and propriety “Resonator(tm)” fretboard. Pearl slice inlays with an extra abalone bit in the middle. It has a pair of humbuckers, single volume and tone with a pickup selector and a mini toggle for coil splits.

Tune-o-matic bridge with a …covered tailpiece? With all of these other guitars out here just brazenly flaunting tail in front of God and everybody, leave it to the Swedes to have a little decorum. Actually it does not have a single tail piece at all, but rather six individual brass blocks for allegedly better coupling to the body and less string-to-string interference. How does that contrast with individual string-through-body, we wonder?

As we have never properly articulated our official “What Does and Does Not Effect Tone” policy, this is a good a time as any. We have previously stated that 90% of the tone comes from the strings and the pickups. One might dismissively interpret that as nothing else really matters, but that is not what we are saying. First of all, this refers specifically to the tone, not addressing factors that effect feel and playability, which are obviously significant. Also, we clearly pulled that number out of thin air. Even so, just talking about nominally the same set of strings from the same brand, new strings sound different from broken in, and especially different from old and grimy. That is not even getting into different gauges and materials and unusual windings or coatings and so on. Change the strings, change the sound. Change the pickups… it’s a whole new guitar.

That said, there is still a lot of room for nuance in that other 10%. It could be the difference between a “pretty good” and an “amazing” guitar. We fully believe that there are some virtuosos out there who in a blindfold test can absolutely identify different woods, magnet types, metals in the hardware, length of the cable to the amp, and whatever else, (even if most people on the internet who claim to be able to so are probably full of crap). For the rest of us, even if you can not necessarily pick out each little detail, it ultimately all combines into the overall vibe and mojo of a guitar. It all matters.

So, is anyone going to pick up this Ultra Swede and think, “Ooh, I like the sound of those individual brass blocks and that Resonator(tm) fretboard”? Doubtful. But is it going to have a little different je ne sais quoi compared to another guitar from another maker? Absolutely.

Anyway, apparently those individual blocks are so unsightly that they had to cover them up. You know what is not unsightly though? Mystique burst finish.

#PurpleGuitarPhursday #Hagström