While not one of my most expensive guitars in the studio, this Fernandes Monterey with Sustainer circuitry is pretty unique. It has a Gotoh bridge pickup, and a sustainer neck pickup. When I first received the guitar, I noticed it would feedback a lot from the bridge pickup and I could get it to 'stop' feed backing when I physically tilted the bridge pup with my finger. Hmmmm. Pulled the tape off around the bridge pickup only to find this one had not been wax sealed properly, which was probably the reason for all the feedback. I decided to replace that pickup with one of my hand wound humbuckers, and now it sounds (alot) more like a Les Paul, with all that compressed goodness. Wiring was a complete mess too, and quality isn't (really) there... I would do a better job on the wiring if I had done it myself, and this kind of bothered me.
The weight of this guitar isn't really there either. While mahogany is a great tone wood, and one I personally prefer -- this guitar made use of only a thin slab of it, and it doesn't dish out tone (like it could) if they had used a thicker, heavier body.
I like the neck, it's got kind of a wide PRS feel to it, but it's radius isn't huge and it's pretty easy to play... paint looks great (very nice silver pearl job), the headstock I don't like much. Tuners are 'Grover' spin-offs with the 'tulip' heads. I like that, just wish they were real grovers!
The sustainer is pretty cool. You have two modes -- one which sustains (indefinitely) as long as you are 'activating' the string and another which goes into a 'feedback' squeal . I like both. The problem with the system is that it can be feedback-ie on the high E string, and it literally eats 9V batteries for breakfast.
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