Rondo SST Owl Floyd Rose Review

[starbuck26]

Hey fellas,

Picked up another Rondo the other day... http://www.rondomusic.com/sstftowl.html

I decided to order this guitar because in the past I've played strats with floating bridges that were all pretty useless from a tuning/intonation standpoint, and have since switched over to fixed bridges. But, seeing a price tag of 129.00 with a floyd rose trem, i thought to give it a shot. At the very least i'd learn something about playing guitar with a whammy bar. Plus usually play white guitars and I thought it looked good. It arrived with no cosmetic blemishes, looked great, outside of that ugly finish on the neck. It looks more blue in the pictures. It's actually more of a bright white with the slightest twinge of the lightest blue.

Apparently the guitar was set up with D'addario 9s at the factory. By 'factory' I assume they mean some industrial sweatshop in China, and so I was not surprised that when it arrived it was mother out of tune and had a bit of rust on some of the strings. No matter.

I set to work immediately. I unlocked the nut and took all the strings off, had a look at the body and neck. The neck, I found, was pretty comfortable, feeling more like my nylon classical guitar than the thinner fender necks I'm used to. The rosewood was really dry, and so I rubbed in some lemon oil. It felt much better after that. I'll probably give it a few more doses. Some of the tuners were a bit loose, and I tightened them up a bit.
I took the rear bridge cover off and had a look at the 'licensed floyd rose' in the back, and it looked pretty solid. I noticed from reading that most floyd rose trems have three springs, and you either arrange them like this: I I I or like this: / I \ . This particular chinese copy had just two springs, arranged like this / \. I'm not sure what the difference is, or if it matters. Perhaps someone can comment.

I took the guard off to have a look at the electronics. Major skimp work. I didn't have time to get out the soldering gun, and I wanted to hear what it sounded like before messing around. They had some crap shielding tape on the guard, and I could tell immediately that the ground wires and solder points should be re-done. I didn't have a good look at the pots but I'll likely resolder them as well. There was the shortest bit of copper wire, totally without a cover, crappily soldered from tone pot 1 to tone pot 2, which functions, but looks incredibly backyard. The pickups are totally no-name. They're basically just wound up and then covered in electrical tape around the sides. I also have an sx tele copy, and when I changed the pickups I took one apart. Shitty.

Next step was to replace the strings. I play Ernie Ball Super Slinky '9s, and have like 232434 packs of of them, so I put them on, despite several things I read on the internet that you shouldn't use slinkies in a floyd rose. I have no idea why they said that. Whatever.

After getting them all stretched out, I played it for a while without locking the nut down. The guitar actually has a really nice, rich sound to it unamplified. The neck felt pretty good, down the line I will probably replace it. Not so much out of discomfort, but out of my desire to fuck with hundred dollar guitars.

Finally I clamped her down and tuned with the fine tuners. Then I plugged her in and went to work. My real goal for this guitar is to have a solid backup guitar that I won't worry about banging around in the car to and from gigs. My requirements for it is that it will STAY IN TUNE VERY WELL, and everything else after that is, well… whatever. So, my first testing of it was to take the whammy bar and do a series of full dive bombs and pulling and bending and jerking and slashing at strings. It held it's tune remarkably well.

The neck and middle pickups are, in my opinion, totally useless. They sound like shit, and there is a MAJOR volume difference between either single coils and the bridge humbucker. Positions 2 and 4 also have noticeable ground noise, leading me to believe that the middle pickup isn't reverse-wound, but I really don't know. It doesn't matter, they're all coming out of there, anyway.

The Bridge Humbucker was actually surprising, though. I yanked it up and it had some pretty good tone coming off of it. I did notice the highs were a bit shrill, but all in all quite serviceable. But, as I said, either way it's coming out. I'm replacing it with some pickups from an old strat I no longer use. It'll be a Seymour Duncan Invader in the bridge, and a Pair of Quarter Pounders in the neck and middle.

With a bit of work I think this guitar will sound great. If anyone's interested, I'd be happy to post a few clips and some pics as well.

Cheers maties,
Tom

[eyema_believer]

Congrats on the new guit!
Yes, you simply MUST post clips..... post haste, young man!!

Peace!

~Shawn

[wbcsound]

Good review. Thanks.

[Zaphod B]

Great write-up. Thanks!

[DrewPeterson7]

I played my first Agile yesterday too, actually, an Intreped Pro 8-string that someone from www.metalguitarist.org brought down to my place yesterday.

It was actually pretty damned cool - it was definitely not a "botique" grade guitar by any means, and the fit and finish wasn't really stellar. But, it was a very comfortable guitar, and played quite well.

I've got a few pics of myself with the thing that my buddy who I co-admin the place with shot - I'll toss up a link or something.

It was a good thing I liked it, as on Wednesday or Thursday I said "fuck it," and put down a deposit on an Agile Texan 7. If it'd sucked, I'd have had a very uneasy couple months waiting for the thing to come in, lol.

EDIT - excuse the slightly goofy facial expression, as one would expect for any guitar with this many strings, I was chuckling while playing it. Also, I want one of these.