You wouldn't find any guitar with these overwhelming features. Designed by collaboration of Aria, Gigsville UK, and Gerry Cott, PE-100GC was introduced from 1980 to 1983. Recently Aria revived this monster and I used to have one of their 2007 models.

I can surely tell you would never have seen multi knobs and switches like this. To me it looks like Aria put all of their patent knowledge about coil tab, booster, phase and rotary tone selectors into practice on this guitar. You will never be bored in playing all different combination of the switches and selectors.

Here's the comment from Gerry Cott, who design the circuit - 'The basic concept was that PE-1000GC should be extremely versatile soundwise, sturdy and good looker, which I reckon it's achieved. Don’t be overawed by the various switches, they're positioned with a lot of thought and allow for quick adjustment without altering the right hand playing position.'

All the parts functioning good. Speaking of the cosmetics, I admit there are a bit of lacquer wear, especially on the rim and cutaway edge where body and neck meets. Scratches on the back are also shown on the photos. But if you are a curious and creative player, there would be no guitar fitting better than this for you. Please note this guitar comes along with a gig bag. Lastly, the retail price of this beast back in 1980 was JPY 100,000 and its revisit model in recent years has JPY 254,000 on its price tag.

More details on each of the switches (number matches the pic on the right hand)

1. three position Pickup selector


2. master volume


3. master tone


4. booster switch (powered by 9V battery)


5. booster treble control


6. coiltap switch (switching front and rear humbucking at once)


7. phase reversal switch (switching the phase of front and rear pickup. Down - in phase, Up - out of phase)


8. six position tone selector (somthign similar to Gibson 345 tonality palette switch. Switching from low cut to high cut)