New Breed

The latest Brit brand to head overseas, Cream T releases the new LT range, made in China, and aims to make instant solderless pickup-swapping even more attractive

- Words Dave Burrluck

Imagine a guitar where you can change pickups in seconds without soldering and move from an old Patent Applied For pickup to a mega shred-tastic hot 'bucker, for example. One guitar, limitless possibilities for the tonal investigator or any player that simply has to cover a lot of sounds. Well, the technology to do exactly that has been with us for some time. Developed by the now-defunct Relish Guitars in Switzerland, it was subsequently purchased by Cream T and rebranded as Guitar-X.

But we're not exactly discussing household names here, are we? While Cream T offers Standard pickup-swapping models at £1,499 and Custom models from £1,999 upwards, these well-made UK guitars are only available in limited numbers and it's fair to say that, despite the potential, the pickup-swapping concept hasn't exactly taken off.

In an attempt to give the concept a shot in the arm, Cream T's latest venture is to attack the price point and go to China, not the UK, to produce its new LT range. Currently, there are two models (both of which we've seen in the UK lineup): the offset Crossfire and the S-style Polaris.

Each mode

l is available in three 'packages', which ascend in price and include three humbucking-sized pickups; common to each one is a Guitar-X humbucking-sized P-90 single coil. The Guitar-X package (£749) adds two uncovered Guitar-X Tribute humbuckers, the Seymour Duncan package (£879) swaps those for the uncovered Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded humbucker set (JB and Jazz), and the Cream T Custom Shop Package (£999) has a set of Cream Of The Crop ’buckers and also comes with a premium logo’d gigbag (the other two are more standard). The lowest-tier package is only offered in metallic black, the other two in four different colours per model.