MAGNETO ERIC GALES £849 RD3 SIGNATURE

A fine slice of blues... and bling!

- Dave Burrluck

While Eric Gales is enjoying quite a renaissance, not least with his latest Joe Bonamassa- and Josh Scott-produced album Crown, the Magneto guitar pictured on its cover is lesser known. In fact, Magneto was founded by Christian Hatsatt back in 2008 and have built quite an underground reputation with their small production Japanese-made T-Wave and Sonnet models, which combine neat re-designs of Fender's finest with exemplary hand-craft but, inevitably, high-end prices. Eric was introduced to the brand just over a decade ago and has been playing them ever since, and, of course, already has his own Raw Dawg II Custom signature model based on the Sonnet.

But starting in 2017 Christian set about producing a much more affordable Chinese-made U-One range - which became available in Europe in 2019 - and in 2020 discussions with Eric led to the new signature guitar you see here, which is anything but high-end in price.

In the flesh, the RD3 hardly reinvents the Stratocaster, but along with its smart metallic finish - that gold mirror scratchpate with its smart grained ivoroid control knobs and gold-plated Gotoh hardware, not to mention the inlaid signature that surrounds the 12th fret - it's certainly distinctive in style. The body outline is altered too: the upper horn is reduced in length and the treble horn slightly altered from the age-old outline. There's some dishing around the neck heel which reduces the bulk a little too and you'll notice an extra strap button at the tip of the heel: as Eric Gales' fans will know, he plays upside-down, left-handed style.

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The initial run of RD3s used a three-piece hard rock maple neck; Magneto have now switched to slab-sawn roasted maple, primarily for stability, but Magneto's Christian Hatsatt believes it also adds "a certain amount of higher midrange" to the sound.

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