Brondel Honeycaster Hybrid Olympic White

For guitarists, you know how they say tone is in the hands? It's true for builders as well.

For the TME regulars among us, we're fond of saying our boutique builders are the hidden gems of the industry, and we mean it. For example, builders like Thomas Rodriguez down in Virginia and Tim Bram in Maryland are single-luthier shops turning out remarkably beautiful, musical, and consistent instruments.

Another builder who may be new to some but absolutely belongs on your "want list" is Laurent Brondel up in Maine. We've worked with Laurent for years on both his incredible steel string acoustics and his vintage-inspired electrics, like this model he calls the Honeycaster Hybrid.

If there's a guitar that gets the "oohs and ahs" from the staff when we pop the case, it's the Honeycaster Hybrid. From a pure vibe and aesthetic standpoint, this thing is awesome, right? A beautifully yellowed Olympic White with a matching headstock (bonus points), rosewood board, and a tortoise guard is always a home run in our book. But looks only get you so far, no?

One thing that's consistently great about Laurent's work is his fretwork and setups (in fact, we have him do refrets on vintage guitars that need that kind of restoration). Sounds like a small thing because folks tend to fixate on "build quality," which obviously matters. Is the neck well made? Is the body? Is the neck pocket tight? Sure, all important. But really, it's about feel. Does the guitar fight you or work with you? Do you lose half an hour without realizing it, or do you put it back on the stand after two strums? For us, we want every guitar Laurent sends (and end up spending as much time with them as we can eek out). They're just that good. It's a combination of build quality, playability, feel, and tone. They feel like old guitars without all the endearing quirks of an old guitar. Speaking of tone, this one is loaded with Ron Ellis 52T (bridge) & 64S (neck/middle) pickups, which means you already know it sounds amazing (it does).

The Ellis pickups carry through on the feel theme Laurent establishes everywhere else. You get exactly the kind of tones you'd expect from a great F-style build, but what really sets the Ellis pickups apart is their touch sensitivity and dynamic range. Plus, how cool is it to get authentic Tele tones out of a guitar that plays with the ease and comfort of a great Strat?

Very cool is the correct answer.