****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Solid guitar for the money, except for the squeally, microphonic pickups. Don't use a high gain amp unless you're prepared for your ears to cry out in agony!I upgraded mine, but it will do the job for anyone from beginner to pro musician, if can get past the loud squealing!I ditched the stock tuners for vintage Grover Deluxe tuners (135N). I gutted the pickups and electronics as well. Swapped in a Fishman Fluence Classic humbucker set (Zebra coils) w/a rechargeable battery pack. Have yet to plug it and test due to charging the battery ?Edit:It sounds amazing now with new pickups through a BOSS KATANA MKII amp!!Opened box, re -strung tuned up. Plug in to a real amp, this thing is legit. If you are a fender guy and want humbuckers every now and then this is the ticket. Everyone is amazed at the tones from this thing. Needs nothing really speed pots a bone nut but not much else. Can’t put it down. Can’t wait to see where this company goes. Excellent product. Any real musician will love this thing.The first one showed up damaged. Amazon sent a new one/replacement right away. 5 stars for Amazon.Not a high end instrument - when I had the damaged one and replacement side by side nothing lined up like pickups and bridges so there’s that. I think the damaged one may have had better pickups in it.So the pickups are weak. Needed setup, nut wasn’t cut the best, quite a bit of string buzz due to nut cut. Was able to correct though …Needed truss rod/neck adjustment & bridge adjustment - which it tolerated/took well. Frets needed polishing.Bottom line - decent beginner guitar - nice finish - holds tune - looks good - fun to play.Would I buy again = yes.I just received this guitar about an hour ago, and gave it a preliminary lookover. Obviously, the appearance is stunning. The first thing I did was treated the fretboard with Fret Doctor, as the wood seemed a bit dry. I also put a lighter gauge of strings on (I play the Billy Gibbons set of 7's). Right off the bat, it was obvious that the tops of the frets were a bit rough, you can hear and feel it when bending strings. The neck was perfectly straight. The intonation was perfect with the strings that were included, but of course I'm going to have to adjust that now that I went to a much lighter set. The problems that people noted regarding the pickups being microphonic, yep. It will be impossible to use it at high gain, even at low volume levels. The thing squeals like the pig in Deliverance. Overall, the tone of the pickups is a bit fatter than my other humbucker guitars. Not muddy, just a bit thicker, if that makes any sense. Also, the are output seems a bit lower than my other guitars (for reference, my other guitars are Ibanez semi-hollow with their stock pickups). If it weren't for the squealing pickups, I might just leave them alone because the tone is okay, but I'm going to end up changing them. Also, other reviewers have noted that the knobs are just barely off the body of the guitar, even touching them in some cases. Two of mine are like that. There was no damage from shipping, it was double boxed as shown in the photo.Overall, I'm glad I bought the guitar and I was kind of expecting that it would need some upgrades. The first photo was immediately after I unpackaged it. The second photo is in its current form. New pickups (Guitar Madness '57 Alnico II), new truss cover, new roller bridge. It's my best sounding guitar now.UPDATE: I did a studio session with this guitar. The only upgrades were those listed above.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B94JVKZC/ref=dm_rwp_pur_lnd_albm_frCosmetically, this guitar is beautiful. And it came well set up so it plays very well. The neck is a little thick for my taste, but not bad at all. A lot like the chunky Gibson Les Pauls. With a few minor upgrades this could be a great guitar, but even as is it is a very nice guitar, especially for the price. Mine had zero cosmetic blemishes. Very happy with it.Everything was great but just one thing. The bridge was not placed correctly and as a result the intonation for the lowest four strings could not be properly set. Other than that, the finish, workmanship, materials used were all of the highest quality. I was genuinely impressed with the overall quality, but a misplaced bridge makes it all for naught if I can't get the proper intonation without routing the mounting holes for the bridge.
