DISC Music Man BFR Luke III HSS, Tumescent Bound Ebony

Full Description

Steve Lukather and the Ernie Ball Family Reserve

Steve Lukather has been working with Music Man for many years now, with a large array of signature models based on his high demands and playing specifications. The Ball Family Reserve Luke III BFR is a re-imagination of the current Luke Models, designed for even higher performance and richer tones. It comes from the Ball Family Reserve series; a range of models produced in limited quantities with the finest quality tonewoods and finishes to produce some truly custom-shop standard instruments.

Premium Tonewoods

The Ball Family Reserve pride themselves on crafting limited run guitars with top quality woods and finishes. The Music Man Luke III BFR is no different and is crafted from warm and resonant African mahogany. It is paired with a mahogany neck and provides a wonderfully rich and nuanced tone with great sustain and acoustic resonance. The ebony fingerboard assists with low-end articulation and provides a smooth playing surface for the left hand. This guitar was designed to be more tonally rich than the original Luke III, and it is in part due to these tonewoods that it is able to achieve that goal.

Unrivalled Playability

The Luke III features a medium-flat 12'' radius with a comparatively short 25-1/2'' string-length. When combined with 22 high-profile medium-wide frets, this gives an incredibly slick playing feel with easy bends and vibrato. The deep double cutaway and 5-bolt sculpted neck joint means high fret access is simply no problem whatsoever. As you'd expect from the demands of a guitarist like Lukather, playing the 22nd fret is no more taxing then playing the 1st.

DiMarzio Pickups

With such high quality tonewoods, the Luke III needs versatile and nuanced pickups to live up to the tonal qualities that the woods possess; enter DiMarzio. The Steve Lukather Transition humbucker is designed for power and depth, with a real organic feel. They are open sounding yet equally capable of high-gain saturation and liquid smooth lead tones. Steve says he's started over sonically and is into a more organic sound these days, but the Transition Bridge Model has a tough, in-your-face sound that's also perfect for shredding and technical playing. The two Custom single coil pickups provide the sonic contrast to the humbucker bridge, and make this a particularly versatile studio or live instrument.

Top Quality Hardware

The Luke III BFR features a non-locking tremolo of Music Man's own design. When combined with the Schaller M6-IND locking machine heads, they give absolute tuning stability and an accurate return-to-pitch.

Electronic Versatility

An on-board preamp gives the Luke III access to a 15db gain boost which can be engaged at any moment. This is ideal for pushing your amp harder in order to gain a lead boost.

About Steve Lukather

Steve Lukather was the primary guitarist for the band Toto, and has since diversified his playing to become one of the most in-demand session players working, with countless credits to his name. He possesses a complete command of his instrument in almost any genre, and needs a guitar that can deliver a wide range of tones with no limits to his technique. Lukather is a long-time user of Music Man which makes the connection with his signature guitars so strong.

Reviews

"This is a superb modern electric guitar - in this case designed to work for a top guitar player. The Luke III is almost vintage in its neck feel, and its secret weapon gain boost and versatile pickups mean that it'd be superb on any rock gig, not to mention jam session." - Music Radar

Read the full review on the Music Radar website.

Features

• African mahogany body in tumescent finish
• HSS with 1 DiMarzio Transition humbucker, 2 DiMarzio custom single coils
• Active preamp for 15db gain boost
• 5-way pickup selector switch
• 12'' radius bound ebony fingerboard with 22 frets
• Non-locking Music Man vintage style tremolo
• Smooth satin-finished mahogany neck
• Hardcase included

Specifications

Body & Bridge

• Model: Luke III BFR
• Body Wood: African mahogany
• Body Finish: High gloss polyester
• Body Colour: Tumescent
• Bridge: Music Man® floating vintage tremolo

Neck & Fingerboard

• Scale Length: 25-1/2'' (64.8 cm)
• Neck Radius: 12'' (30.5 cm)
• Frets: 22 - High profile, medium width
• Neck Wood: Mahogany
• Fingerboard: Ebony
• Inlays: Mother of Pearl dots
• Neck Finish: Gunstock oil and hand-rubbed special wax blend
• Tuning Machines: Schaller M6-IND Locking
• Neck Construction: Bolt-On

Hardware & Electronics

• Pickup Switching: 5-way lever pickup selector
• Pickups: 1 DiMarzio Transition humbucking; 2 DiMarzio custom single coil
• Electronics: Custom Music Man® active preamp; push/push volume for gain boost, 500kohm passive tone - .022µF tone capacitor
• Strings: Ernie Ball Slinkys 9-42