Review of Tom Anderson Atom CT
If there was a guitar line I wish I could be sponsored by above all else, it’s Tom Anderson Guitarworks. Ever since I heard of the brand and heard what came out of them tonally between some of my favorite guitars, I was hooked! Beyond hooked! I knew I needed one. I’ve been hounding their line for the longest time. Being that they are a custom guitar brand, you get what you pay for and when one new will cost you about $3400, again, you get what you pay for.
I had the grand opportunity to get one and I found one off of reverb.com. They don’t make this particular model anymore so you can imagine my surprise when one was in my range and the price was negotiable. Then I picked it up and played it, I can understand why people have these but with this one, it’s another story.
Released back in 2008ish, the Atom was Tom Anderson’s answer to the singlecut. When he created his solidbody acoustic model known as the Tom Anderson Crowdster Acoustic, he then made an electric variety of the same shape body but entirely electric, then had a beautiful carve top model.

This is an entry of my review on this guitar. I will be doing more of these on all my gear so, buckle up!
The Tom Anderson Atom CT (which stands for Carve Top) is a solidbody mahogany back with a flamed maple top in a Tobacco burst color finish binding. The carve top basically means that the top is contoured. The mahogany back with this maple top gives it a very woodsy tone to the guitar that almost borders on a very low-mid range and is a bit overpowering on the bass but the top end still has a glassy chime to it that just peaks over all the lows and the low-mids. At 24 3/4 inch scale, it sits comfortably without it being too long or too short.
The neck of this guitar is of mahogany as well with a rosewood fingerboard. There’s a toughness and a rigidity to the neck that allows for you to be able to grip it with ease and the resonance from the neck is clear cut and vibrates well when you pluck a string. My model is a matching satin finish which means it’s a fast moving neck. Armed with Anderson’s stainless steel low-rise fret configuration makes it not only clear but also very easy to play.
The electronics are simple; one master volume knob, one master tone knob, and a 5-way selector switch. The added bonus is the coil tap from the tone knob that only works when you’re on the middle position of the selector switch. Position 1 is full neck pickup. Position 2 is full neck with part of the bridge. Position 3 is both the neck and bridge pick. It is also this position that if you pull up on the coil tapped tone knob, you get half of each pickup giving it a single-coil feel to the sound. Position 4 is half neck/all bridge, and finally position 5 is all bridge. The tonal variety is endless and what you get out of it just blows the mind.
The pickups are Tom Anderson’s proprietary hand wound in shop pickups. In my Atom, I have the HC1 in the neck position and the HC2 in the bridge position.
Overall, this is one fantastic guitar and I can’t say enough about it!
