How Careless Can Someone Be

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Really!?

Brand new Raven. Artist and friend (fantastic person) Cody Davis comes by the Anderson (happiest place on earth) Guitarworks factory to pick up his brand new guitar—shiny, black and beautiful Raven Superbird.

Goes into the Anderson test studio and closes the door. Plugs into the amp wall. Awesome and impressive playing can be heard wafting throughout the entire area. Very nice. We all loved it.

We walk in 20 minutes later to see how it’s going and how he likes the guitar. He loves the tone and playability of his new Raven—just thrilling and awe inspiring. So happy.

But one look at the guitar and…what the…?

“What did you do in here Cody? What kind of songs were you playing?”

Giant holes and wear marks in the finish…everywhere. The Firemist Gold undercoat was showing through the now dull, scraped and cracking Black paint. Pick marks all over in the playing area. Scratched Black Pickguard.  Looked like some kind of wild animal (perhaps a Bobcat) had seriously mauled his guitar. But it still played and sounded fantastic, of course.

Wow! Some people apparently play excessively aggressively when they are delighted.

As our friend Cody continued to play on in a state of pure oblivious bliss, we began the photo shoot and just pretended not to notice the radically altered condition of his new guitar. After all what could we do? But his guitar certainly didn’t look new anymore. Could he have been swinging it around his head by the guitar cable—or something? Who knows what happened in the Anderson studio when we weren’t looking?

After the photo session I happened to mention, “Hey Cody, buddy…did you maybe, slightly, happen to…barely, accidentally ding your Raven a touch while you were enjoying the first play? I think I might see a slight smudge on it when the light is at just the right angle?”

“Ha dude, of course you do, I ordered this Superbird with an In-Distress, Level 3, Double Decker paint job—Black over Firemist Gold. It’s suppose to look worn and awesome—like your best old, played-in guitar or favorite pair of jeans. So Good.“

“Ha! What?…Ah…umm…ah…yeah. Sure...I like totally knew that, Cody! Knew it all along. I was just seeing if any of you would happen to noticed. That’s all…Ha. Umm…That was a good one, right?…Funny…I totally meant to say all that stuff about not noticing that this was an In-Distress paint finish…ah…so…yeah…Okay then…”

Whoa, that was a close one. I must have gotten him confused with the Sao session in Guitar Tales from last week where Linda’s Black Raven was pristine and pretty.  Oops. Just don’t tell anyone I did that, please.

Before we go any farther down the rabbit Raven hole with this distressing, In-Distress, debacle, let’s look further into Cody’s Raven Superbird specs.

But first some “bird” background.

A Superbird is a Raven done in a particular way that makes it more…aggressive.

A Superbird is always:

• A Short Scale Length, 24 3/4-inch from nut to bridge. This makes reaching a bit easier and mid frequencies a little more emphasized.

• Mahogany Neck Back. This also brings focus and an overlay of aggression into the midrange by smoothing the outer frequencies of the bandwidth.

For our newest Superbird Ravens you can get the body done in one of 3 variants—but all of which still predominantly accentuate mid muscle—just in slightly different ways:

1. Mahogany body. Brings its original signature sound of expected muscular midrange—the original body wood for a Superbird.

2. Okoume body. When you want to power up your traditional Mahogany with even more mahogany mastery—mahogany on steroids.

3. Limba aka Korina. Mixing most of the mids of mahogany with more upper-mid articulation and sparkle. As if Mahogany and Swamp Ash had an offspring and the dominant traits were profoundly influenced by its mahogany parent but you still have telltale attributes of shimmer.

Cody opted for the Limba variant, to have a little sparkle blended in with his mahogany thud.

Two MC Series pickups, pick up all of this profound sound and blast it out as giant single coil-plus tones, that only a mini-humbucker—built correctly—can stand and deliver.  Cody says, “With the bridge in full power, I can dig in and dance in humbucker land.”  He also has the ability to switch these “mini-hums” down to F-level single coil output. In this mode he states he can, “Tame the snarl and add extra dimension—more 3D for a different dynamic.”

And as you may have noticed, Cody opted for no front dots on the neck but don’t worry because he is thrilled that he can see in the dark with his optional Luminlay side dots aglow.

Cody is in the mists of creating—working on new and excellent Cody music. Catch him on Instagram: @codydavisguitar

Thank you Cody for being such an awesome person and an Anderson Player. You and your Raven Superbird please take care.

GUITAR SPECIFICATIONS: