From time to time Gene Baker and his crew at b3 Guitars will produce a batch of very special SL Deluxe guitars, and as you may have guessed, this is one of them.

b3 Guitars are made in CA by a small team led by former Fender and Gibson Custom Shop Master Builder, Gene Baker. They brilliantly blend elements of both Fender and Gibson designs into "why didn't I think of that?" models like the Tele/Firebird inspired Phoenix, Telstar, and the one that started it all back in the early 2000s - the SL, a Strat/Les Paul hybrid.

From time to time Gene and his crew will produce a batch of very special SL Deluxe guitars, and as you may have guessed, this is one of them. A few things assert their presence immediately - the very rare Mango woods used throughout the build (top, neck, and hardware) and the beautiful Ebony fingerboard. Flip the guitar around, and the gorgeous Ash body delivers its own knockout punch.

Sitting down to play this 6lb 7oz (!) beauty, you're met with an extremely lively, resonant, and musical guitar - a hallmark of all b3's to be fair. Without question, Gene and his crew set out to build a show stopper of a guitar - but - not at the expense of the most important elements of any guitar: musicality, tone, feel, vibe....this is an incredibly fun guitar to play. This is what separates the master builders from other builders in our book - the quest for beauty never overshadows the core job - to make a great sounding, great playing, and inspiring instrument. When both come together like it does with this SL? Incredible.

Loaded with Lollar Imperial humbuckers, you can get a range of tones from this guitar, all in the familiar Les Paul/ES-335 world. While this guitar looks uptown, it'll do rock or blues with the best of them if that's your bag. We could even see Languedoc fans latching on to this beauty as with previous Mango SL's we've had.