Probett SG-teor Polaris White w/P90s

Giddy is the only word that describes our feeling whenever a new Probett arrives at the shop.

Damian Probett builds out of the UK, and among people who follow this end of the market closely, he lands in the conversation about who's actually at the top of the electric game right now. We're not going to pretend to be neutral about it. The names that come up around his tend to be Johan Gustavsson, Gil Yaron, Michael Stevens. So when this SG-Teor arrived, it was a good (make that, great) day around here.

The SG-Teor starts from Damian's Meteor platform, which is essentially a set-neck take on a Tele, and works some SG thinking into it: the top carve and the thinner body profile. We asked Damian to capture the vibe of a great, P90-loaded SG, with some light aging to tie the whole idea together. Mission accomplished - what a cool, great sounding, and easy playing guitar!

Lack of weight, the neck profile, and overall build quality are the things people always mention first with Probett, and it holds up here as well (easily, we might add). His YouTube channel (@PROBETTGUITARS) is worth ten minutes of your time. The build videos he's posted make the point better than we can. The level of care that goes into each step is truly incredible, and it shows up in the instrument in ways that are hard to describe until one is in your hands - but you can definitely feel it in the guitar's responsiveness. These guitars are very alive and reactive to your input.

But a "buttoned up" build alone doesn't get you anywhere if the thing has no soul. The question that matters is whether a guitar has anything to say. Does it pull music out of you? Does it get you playing things you didn't know where possible? This one does. And for us, that's the line between a good builder and a great one: making something nearly perfect that also has a pulse, and doing it with one set of hands. Woodworking, fretwork, finishing, setup, all of it mastered by the same person. At this level, that's rare and no doubt why Damian is such a highly revered builder.