Thunder Cat
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Thunderingly powerful and still articulate—how is this even happening?
Spied in the wild, the elusive Bobcat Cub—a one pickup wonder. A single pickup version of our Bobcat Special.
It begins with excellent Anderson genetics and structure:
• Our Single-Cut style, Mahogany (Okoume or Limba) all-tone wood body.
• Mahogany neck back with a Rosewood (Blackheart or Ziricote) fingerboard.
• Short Scale - 24 3/4-inch scale length (string length from nut to bridge).
• Top-mounted bridge and tailpiece—where the break angle of the strings over the saddles is less abrupt than a string-through-the-body design, for a more centered projection and softer spring to the low end strings.
But of course, it is always-always how you do it. How you do it all—everything together as one harmonious whole. And in the case of Bobcat Cub, one astonishing axe with one amazing pickup—seemingly resounding with almost endless sustain.
Out of this world.
Editor’s Note: Why would anyone opt for a single pickup layout? Some feel that less magnetic pull from having only one equals greater sustain. Is this true for real-world application? Up for debate and your testing. And more importantly, it mostly depends on the style of pickup as to how much influence the presence of additional coils may have on the overall. And for other players, they simply prefer the simplicity.
Ensuring full-bodied articulation for this particular Cub is the choice of a single PQ Series pickup—a Soapbar-style—where giant single coil tones (without hum) come out to play. As powerful as a vintage humbucker but with a bandwidth that is more spread. Think big, powerful, broad bandwidth single coil sound rather than the mid-only focus of a side-by-side humbucker.
Blew Markus’s socks off when he did one of the final test-plays before shipping. And believe me, picking up someone else’s socks after a Bobcat Cub experience is…well…you can imagine…sockingly shocking….or is that shockingly socking?
Either way…
Maybe the sock part was metaphoric but like any good metaphor its function is to effectively relay the emotion experienced, the thrill and the feeling…of playing a Bobcat Cub live.
He was exclaiming out loud:
“Just so fun to play! Aggressive! Punchy! Rich! So fat and dominant without losing articulation! A Total Rock Machine!”
But do not let the one pickup part fool you—still surprisingly versatile. With knowing manipulation of the controls, there is a hidden variety of sounds laying in wait.
A highpass filter in the volume control circuit—a standard Anderson amenity—allows you to cut output and gain of the pickup to the front end of the amp without losing its wonderful character—giving you several output levels from the same pickup. It's kind of like we run over to your house to swap out pickups with different power levels just for you—all with just the turn of a well designed volume knob. Try it out on any of your Anderson guitars. Kind of fun.
A tone control that is tuned to truly attenuate properly, enabling you to tailor the high end shimmer and round off the edges to your liking. But this is not the only secret the tone knob is hiding. A Push/Pull switch on the same control, cuts power and boosts high end giving you a completely different, vintage level, single coil sound, (still without the 60 cycle hum). Once engaged, you can go at this new sound with the volume and tone controls in the same way as mentioned above. You've got hours of fun tones to try and then incorporate into your pallet.
Is it the combination of the PQ3 pickup, the Mahogany structure and the short scale that makes it so freakin’ fun to experience? Or is it Anderson DNA, where everything just flows freely as one cohesive whole? Or is it both these ingredients rolled into one magic Ande?
This Bobcat Cub went home to live with our customer and good friend, Brian. And it was Brian who unequivocally knew that the new color of Metallic Ice Bora Blue would be what we should do. He also omnisciently opted for a Cub Pickguard—only available with Soapbar-style pickups—appearing here in Tortoise Shell. We would all very much like to thank Brian for being so awesome and for having such darn good taste.
You are now free to experience the thunder of Bobcat Cub.
GUITAR SPECIFICATIONS:
