General construction is of a high level with no obvious flaws and the quality workmanship on everything from the fretwork to the binding around the body and neck. The Retromatic is very well made with good attention to detail particularly noticeable in the logo embossed truss rod cover and die cast Peerless emblem. While I'm talking about options, I should add that the Retromatic comes in a wide range of colours, too, including green, gold, black, red - a ton of options and with a choice of binding styles, too.
Peerless includes a quality hardcase in the price too, which is always something we like to see.
Models are also available with a single humbucker in the bridge, no varitone switch and with a Stetsbar Pro II Trem if you need a bar for those vintage vibrato wobbles and dives. A high quality roller bridge and stop tailpiece aid sustain. The pickups are designed by Matt Gleeson of Monty’s pickups London, and were created to match the acoustic characteristics of the Retromatic’s body styling.
Whilst dependent on your taste, the Retromatic is certainly a good-looking and distinctive guitar, especially our review model with its gold top and piano black neck, back and sides! The retro design with its unique staggered headstock and compact body is made from traditional tone woods as a laminated maple top, back and sides, a maple neck and rosewood fretboard and a mahogany sustain block adding tone and reducing feedback.Īs far as hardware goes, the Retromatic has various options available - our review model, a P3, came with a bridge humbucker, neck P90, single volume and tone controls, plus a 3-way pickup selector switch complete with the 6-way varitone dial for extended tone shaping. That's no surprise as the Korean company has been making really high quality guitars in this style for 40 years - and in the past, for a list of top US brands that might surprise you! The Retromatic is the latest model in the company's thinline series and features vintage good looks and versatile hardware options for those looking to get their retro-rock or jazz/blues fix in a smaller, more comfortable package.
Peerless certainly knows what it's doing when it comes to hollow and semi-hollow guitars, with a vast array of instruments on offer in the catalogue, ranging from fully hollow 17” archtops to smaller bodied thinline semis. Tom Quayle digs out his blue suede shoes. Launched at NAMM this year, the Peerless Retromatic is possibly the coolest guitar yet from the uber-cool Peerless Guitar Co.