Cole Clark TL2EC-BLBLR-HUM All Blackwood Rosewood Thinline Humbucker Acoustic Guitar

The Cole Clark TL2EC-BLBLR-HUM is a Thinline Grand Auditorium in solid Australian blackwood with two complete voices on board: Cole Clark's PG3mk2 acoustic pickup system and a bridge-position Balanced Humbucker, each with its own output jack. Built in Bayswater, Victoria, with a Queensland maple neck, a rosewood fretboard and bridge and a body only about 7 cm deep, it is the guitar for the player who covers an acoustic set and a gritty electric part in the same night without changing instruments. It travels in Cole Clark's tweed hardcase.

One guitar, two outputs, no compromise

Cole Clark's dual-output models grew out of watching touring artists wedge retrofit magnetic pickups into their soundholes for a bit of drive. It works after a fashion, but the soundhole is the wrong spot for a distorted sound and it makes a mess of a good rosette. So Cole Clark put a properly voiced humbucker where an electric player would want it, tucked in just ahead of the bridge, and gave it a jack of its own. The acoustic system runs to the PA or an acoustic amp; the humbucker runs to a guitar amp, a modeller or a looper. A mini three-way toggle on the top selects electric, acoustic or both at once, so you can sit a crunchy rhythm under a strummed part or flick between the two mid-song. Because neither signal is squeezed through the other's electronics, each one sounds like the real thing.

A humbucker balanced for bronze strings

An ordinary electric pickup only hears the nickel in a string, so on a phosphor bronze acoustic set the wound strings drop away and the plain B and E shout. Cole Clark's Balanced Humbucker, made in-house at the factory around alnico 5 magnets, sets the magnetic strength of every pole piece individually, lifting the wound strings and reining in the plain ones so the whole set comes through at one level. The result is a genuine electric-guitar voice from acoustic strings, with volume and tone knobs mounted on the top within reach of your picking hand. The balancing method is patented, and it is why the plugged-in electric sound here is a working tool rather than a novelty.

PG3mk2: the acoustic side, done properly

The acoustic voice comes from Cole Clark's PG3mk2 True Acoustic system, built into the guitar during production rather than fitted afterwards. An under-saddle piezo handles the bass, a patented face sensor on the top takes the midrange above the crossover point, and a condenser microphone inside the body adds the air on top; the mk2 revision sharpened the microphone's extreme highs and refined how the three elements are filtered together. The side-mounted preamp carries a master volume, a blend control for the face sensor and a separate level for the microphone, and the acoustic output jack doubles as the battery housing. Through a PA it sounds like the guitar unplugged, and it resists feedback well at stage volume.

Solid blackwood, carved thin

Top, back and sides are all solid AA-grade Australian blackwood, koa's close relative, sourced sustainably from Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland. Blackwood is the stiffest top timber Cole Clark uses and the one they rate highest for amplified work: bright, punchy and quick, with plenty of attack for a percussive or hard-strumming player, and more tolerant of Queensland humidity swings than the softer softwoods. The top and back are carved on the inside, thick through the centre and thin at the edges, and the True Hybrid version carries a slightly thicker top to support the magnetic pickup. At roughly 7 cm deep the Thinline body gives up some unplugged volume in exchange for real comfort across a long set, and the small heel opens up the upper frets past the cutaway. Binding, purfling and rosette are all inlaid timber rather than plastic, and the rosewood fretboard carries abalone snowflake inlays. Grain and figure vary from guitar to guitar.

Spanish heel, Plek'd frets, ready for the road

As with every Cole Clark, the Queensland maple neck is built on a Spanish heel: it runs through into the body rather than being bolted or dovetailed on, so the guitar sustains longer, stays louder up the neck and is designed never to need a neck reset. The 25.5-inch scale, 44 mm Graph Tech Tusq nut and 12-inch radius give a comfortable, slightly wide feel, and the frets and nut are cut on Cole Clark's Plek machine under string tension for a low, even action straight out of the case. Gold Grover machine heads, a Tusq saddle in the rosewood bridge, a natural satin nitrocellulose finish and phosphor bronze 12–53s finish the job. The pickguard is supplied loose in the case, and the case is Cole Clark's tweed hardcase. Set up in-store by Guitar World Australia's techs before it ships to you, so it plays perfectly the moment it arrives.