Hello there, back again with another cool guitar review for you! This time we will be looking at one of my favourite super Strats by Cort Guitars company. In this Cort G-Custom review, I will be sharing a lot of details about the guitar as well as my experience with Cort Guitars.
Table of Contents
Cort Guitars
As many of you already know, Cort Guitars is a South Korean guitar manufacturer and they are one of the biggest guitar companies in the universe. Their expertise in guitar making is still influencing the guitar market without even you knowing it! Cort Guitars used to manufacture Cort-branded guitars in South Korea back in the early 2000s.
Check out all the content featuring the Cort brand here
The brand was still underestimated by many guitar players as it was perceived as a cheap guitar manufacturer. However, if you knew the quality of the wood, components and parts, you would probably be regretting all day long that you hadn’t kept one in your collection. Thomann's 70th Anniversary Offers
Later on, they moved their production to Indonesia to reduce costs. Even this change had a big impact on the expertise that Indonesian factories would be developing with the help of this opportunity.
Personally, whenever I see a guitar made in South Korea, I have immediate trust in the instrument as this basically means that Cort‘s long-term expertise has been reflected in the instrument. I had an Ibanez AR300 made in South Korea and it was one of the finest instruments I ever played! Currently, I have a Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid PT-7 which is also made in South Korea! Flawless instrument!
Check out my Ibanez AR300 review here
Having said that, the Cort guitars I had the chance to test and record with while I was working in the musical instruments industry were all made in Indonesia. I still claim most of the models were always top-notch quality and high-value purchases!
Cort G-Custom
Cort G-Custom was also no different. Considering the fact that the G-Custom was one of their top-segmented electric guitars, it had all the features you may ask for in a super Strat guitar!
It features a swamp ash body with an eye-catching quilted maple top. It’s a classic S-type design featuring a double-cut body but it’s definitely a unique design by Cort, not a direct copy of a Stratocaster design.
Cort G-Custom also features a bird’s eye maple neck with a very slim design. I must say it was one of the easiest-to-play guitars that I have ever played.
One of the cool things about Cort G-Custom is that it features a set of EMG SA & 89 pickups in an HSS pickup configuration.
Tell me what this configuration of active EMGs reminds you of? To me, it reminds of Steve Lukather‘s signature Ernie Ball Music Man Luke!
Even though it’s not the exact same model as Lukather’s guitars, you can actually have the same vibe of active EMGs in an HSS setup.
Note that, if you want to purchase this EMG (89-SA-SA) set, it will cost you around €245! Almost 1/3 of the Cort G-Custom‘s price tag!
Cort G-Custom electronics feature a classic 5-way lever switch for selecting each pickup individually as well as having access to in-between pickup positions. On top of this, you have a coil-tap function on the tone knob (as a push-pull switch). With the coil tap, you can split the bridge humbucker, have it as a single coil as well and blend it with the middle pickup! Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!
As you will see this guitar in action very soon below, the CFA-III tremolo is an excellent tremolo and it never caused any tuning issues even when I used it very often while making the video!
Cort G-Custom also comes with locking tuners. I don’t exactly remember the brand but I think these were Cort-branded ones. No issues with tuning, perfect set of tuners!
Before I share the Cort G-Custom review video, let’s quickly have a look at the tech specs chart down below!
Cort G-Custom Tech Specs
| Construction | Bolt-on |
| Cutaway | Double Cutaway |
| Body | Swamp Ash Body w/ Quilted Maple Top |
| Neck | Bird's Eye Maple Neck (1st Fret : 21mm, 12th Fret : 23mm) |
| Fretboard | Rosewood Fingerboard |
| Frets | 22 Frets (Large) |
| Scale | 648mm |
| Inlay | Abalone Dot |
| Tuners | Locking Tuners |
| Bridge | CFA-III Tremolo |
| Electronics | 5 Way Lever Switch, 1 Volume 1 Tone (Coil Tap) |
| Pickups | EMG SA-89 / SA / SA (HSS) |
| Hardware | CR(Chrome) Hardware |
| Nut | Graph Tech TUSQ XL |
As you can see, there is no imprecisely selected component or parts on this instrument! As I have mentioned above, it was one of the top-segmented electric guitars by Cort back in the day.
Before I give you more details about Cort G-Custom, let’s listen to the sound samples.
Cort G-Custom Review & Sound Demo (no talking)
As you can hear from the video, Cort G-Custom has excellent and sweet-sounding cleans as well as distorted guitar tones! If you are familiar with EMG active pickups, you can easily tell these EMG pickups have distinguishable active guitar sounds that some of us love and some of us hate.
To me, EMG pickups are great but unless you are okay with their compressed sonic qualities, you may not like them. I currently own a Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid PT-7 featuring EMG 57 and EMG 66 humbucker pickups and I love the sound of them!
Check out my EMG57/66 active pickups review here
The only thing I don’t like about EMG active pickups is that slightly overdriven sounds tend to feel a bit tasteless to me. I like them either in crystal clean or slightly boosted or in high-gain settings. Music Plugin Deals at Pluginboutique.com
Cort G-Custom is definitely a high-value purchase based on my experience with hundreds of guitars while working in the industry. The craftsmanship was flawless! There was no single issue that we could detect during our guitar testing procedures.
As I have mentioned in the beginning, Cort G-Custom is a unique G series guitar by Cort Guitars. Back in the day, there were not many mid-segmented G series guitars by Cort. But recently, they have started manufacturing a lot of variations of the G series. But none of them features EMG 89/SA/SA configuration.
Check out all available Cort G series guitars here
I highly recommend you try one (if you can find one!) and see for yourself!
Where to buy Cort G-Custom?
Unfortunately, Cort G-Custom is not available anymore. I don’t understand why Cort discontinues some of their flagship instruments such as Cort G-Custom or M series electric guitars. I understand there’s been huge competition in the guitar market. However, these instruments are very well-known for their crazy value/money ratio. So I would expect them to keep pushing these with some variations just like many guitar manufacturers have been doing for ages! Martinic Plugins - Precisely Modeled Vintage Instruments and FX Plugins
Your best bet is to sign up with Reverb.com and set up a notification alert with the Cort G-Custom search query. This way, you can get notified of Cort G-Customs once they are listed by some sellers on the internet globally.
Overall, I would recommend Cort G-Custom to anyone who is after a serious super Strat with modern touches. I hope you have enjoyed this brief article. Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
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