PJD Guitars Carey Apprentice | Part Les Paul Junior, part Esquire, all incredible! Review & Demo

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This is the PJD Guitars Carey Apprentice, a made-in-England singlecut that’s 50% Gibson Les Paul Junior, and 50% Fender Esquire!

PJD Carey Apprentice:

If you’re not familiar with PJD Guitars, then you should be – they’re excellent instruments, handmade in York, England, to the highest of standards. PJD currently make 4 main models: the offset St. John, the double cutaway, Stratocaster influenced Woodford, the Telecaster-inspired York, and the singlecut Carey.

This specific guitar, the Carey Apprentice, is a limited, stripped back and aged version of the Carey, and it really does – at least on first glance – contain the DNA of both a Les Paul Junior and an Esquire. You’ve got the solid, single cutaway Gibson-esque body (made of lightweight obeche wood) and a single PJD Fat Nacho P90 pickup. Then there’s the more Fendery stuff: a hardtail Strat-type bridge, a bolt-on roasted maple neck with a 25.5” scale length, and that very Tele-ish headstock.

There’s one other cool thing to mention: the Carey Apprentice is also loaded with a Mars-Tronic Treblemaker kit. This is a particularly flexible take on the treble bleed, and you can find out more about it here:

So, the Carey Apprentice has much to offer… but how good is it really? How versatile can that single P90 pickup be? That’s what we’re about to find out! Here, I test the guitar in as many different styles as I can, from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, blues, punk, metal and more.

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:19 Introduction to the Carey Apprentice and PJD Guitars
01:21 This guitar is a cross between a Les Paul Junior and an Esquire!
02:11 Specs and info
03:43 The Mars-Tronic Treblemaker
05:48 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
06:50 Funk rhythm chords
07:04 Country ballad arpeggios
07:16 Country lead sound
07:23 Blues progression
07:34 Strummed country pop chords
07:53 Poppy barre chords
08:09 Ringing open indie pop chords
08:21 Cowboy chords with tone control test
08:48 Soul pop barre chords
09:01 Strummed folk pop chords
09:17 Ambient arpeggios (w/ tc Plethora X3)

Overdrive Sounds
09:46 Fat indie rhythm chords
10:02 Volume control/treble bleed roll-off test
10:22 Southern rock arpeggios
10:32 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
10:48 Choppy barre chords
10:57 Big open indie rock chords
11:15 Indie octave chords
11:40 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
11:57 Quacky Hendrix inspired riff
12:06 Driving rock riff
12:21 Airbourne inspired rock riff
12:32 Hendrix inspired riff
12:49 Classic rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
13:05 80s rock riff
13:25 Hard rock riff
13:41 ZZ Top inspired riff
13:53 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
14:11 Hard rock melodic lead
14:22 Classic hard rock riff
14:39 Upbeat rock riff
14:54 Chunky alt rock chords
15:07 Alternative rock riff
15:21 Pop punk riff
15:34 Punk rock power chords
15:47 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
16:00 Punky grunge riff
16:14 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
16:30 Modern rock palm-muted power chords (Drop D)
16:55 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Metal sounds (all in Drop D)
17:11 Metal chugging riff
17:28 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
17:40 Heavy metal lead sound
17:56 Hardcore punk riff
18:07 Classic metal/sludge riff

18:43 My thoughts
19:32 First impressions out of the box
19:52 Relic guitars – yay or nay?
20:49 Weight
21:32 Build quality, hardware, Treblemaker
22:16 Playability and the neck
23:00 Sounds
25:59 What other similar guitars are out there?
27:46 My conclusions on the Carey Apprentice and why you should buy it

My setup was as follows: I ran the guitar into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, using my Greer Lightspeed and Revv G3 pedals for drive sounds, and my TC Electronic Plethora X3 for some occasional extra ambient noises. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head:
Greer Lightspeed:
Revv G3:
TC Plethora X3:
Focusrite 4i4 (the new 2i4):
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Enjoy!


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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#PJDGuitars #LesPaulJunior #PJDCarey #Esquire #LuthierGuitars #RelicGuitar


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@Pjdguitars.
@mars-tronic