Godin’s Radium-X is a chambered electric with an acoustic alter-ego

Godin has unveiled the Radium-X, which promises to offer both acoustic and electric guitar tones, thanks to its innovative LR Baggs X-Bridge.

The Radium-X is the latest model in the brand’s ongoing experiment in blurring the lines between electric and acoustic guitar builds. You would be forgiven though, on hearing the name Radium-X, to expect some shining, futuristic looking thing – a Delorean instrument. 

Instead, the Canadian luthier has presented a more traditional looking T-style build with a grain-y, naturalistic construction, but make no mistakes – the forward-thinking tech is still there, it’s just hidden beneath the surface.

There’s a chambered mahogany body capped with a carved swamp ash top, a mahogany neck and a 25.5”-scale rosewood fingerboard. It’s loaded with a thoroughly flexible HH configuration of a Seymour Duncan Jazz SH-2 at the neck and Bare Knuckle Boot Camp True Grit Zebra at the bridge.

Godin describes the sounds available from the pairing as “capable of delivering powerful, warm distortion to clear, glassy tones”. Indeed, on paper it certainly should provide a lot of versatility, but the Radium-X expands the tonal possibilities even further thanks to the addition of an LR Baggs X-Bridge vibrato. 

This combines an undersaddle piezo with a built-in preamp and enables the Radium-X to tap into acoustic-style tones (via the piezo) and blend them with its traditional magnetic pickups, without active circuitry.

The selection is controlled via a mini-toggle (offering piezo, magnetic or blend options) and an acoustic volume control. Alongside this is a more traditional setup of volume and tone controls and a three-way pickup selector (mounted on the upper horn) for the humbuckers.

Finally, the Radium-X offers dual outputs, meaning you can direct the X-Bridge and magnetic pickup outputs along different signal paths, if so desired. 

The Radium-X is available in Natural and Rustic Burst finishes with an expected retail price of around $2,250. For more information, head to Godin’s site.