CoolCat
Well-known member
I been looking at this thing for awhile. Pulled the trigger and got a short review if anyones looking for a "jazzy humbucker guitar".
A lot of happy customers, of course at $190 helps positive reviews in quantity.
It showed up in a sparse carboard box with styrofoam and somehow Amazon had one in Texas so it arrived in a 2day trip.
Buying so many guitars over the years I feel Ive had them all from Gibsons E335 to warped neck used ripoff buys....for the most part a Fender Strat/Tele single pup was enough....Gibsons and Epiphones seemed alluring with the humbuckers, but the "Jazzy" "thick" mellow bluesy clean sound was
something to compliment a single coil guitar.
At $190 the picture shows a Gibson-ish semihollow but what arrived is "the new" version and it seems, Im guessing, but the Headstock and body had a couple too close to Gibson-ish and they changed up and rounded some corners and slight adjustment to the headstock (like WARM and Neumann 87 shape change?) ....any way. The bigger difference was the color from the picture was a lighter sunburst.
Moving on, tuned it, plugged it in and tweaked it to a really nice tone, and it hit that well. The silent Humbucker is great, a little eq to my taste and was soon recording a little mellow jam 3chord slow stuff with clean-smooth in Reaper...very nice.
Plus is its a different Guitar from my strats, so its been a little enjoyment for some strange.
At $190...apparently a automated "3D" CNC can do this? The whole thing is kind of mind boggling and scary imo.
I told my son.."if we had $190 could I go build one of these from Home Depot?"...hellno!
The next day some more jamming and then to look for problems a bit, but I just dont see anything to really complain about.
Ive seen expensive guitars with little cosmetic things in the paint or on the bindings...and sure, thats unacceptable for $4500 guitars, ok for $190 guitars?
Dings and things will happen if its played a lot around here, so this cosmetic stuff is small imo. But there arent any defects I can see from 12inches away anyway. The "magnifier stuff" some people get off on and I get that, could find more defects but again Ive seen that on $4500 Gibsons at times too.
I guess then these CNC take a lot of the cheapness out and as a player, the guitars are really well done. Im playing it Stock, and its fine.
Maybe its the CNC Robots taking over? Maybe the pearl inlays are synthetic-copies, maybe the tuners will wear out in a year?
But Im playing it "as is" and its fine. I dont justify a Brydland for hobby home stuff and the Fender Tube amps are now located in my computer sim folder.
This guitar will be in a house and wont be banged around other than humans, but there wont be airflights and weather changes to destroy it.
Benn listening to Wes Montgomery and the Hank Garland stuff...Semi Hollow guitars, the large beautiful guitars back in the day....(the Gar- land part of Bryd-land I learned..Bryd + Garland = Gibson Brydland pretty cool).....anyway this guitar has that vibey tone too. Big fat humbuckers and sooooo quiet compared to single coils. Very different to play than the Strat maple necks...
still I wonder how do they make such a nice a guitar.... and sell so cheap?
A lot of happy customers, of course at $190 helps positive reviews in quantity.
It showed up in a sparse carboard box with styrofoam and somehow Amazon had one in Texas so it arrived in a 2day trip.
Buying so many guitars over the years I feel Ive had them all from Gibsons E335 to warped neck used ripoff buys....for the most part a Fender Strat/Tele single pup was enough....Gibsons and Epiphones seemed alluring with the humbuckers, but the "Jazzy" "thick" mellow bluesy clean sound was
something to compliment a single coil guitar.
At $190 the picture shows a Gibson-ish semihollow but what arrived is "the new" version and it seems, Im guessing, but the Headstock and body had a couple too close to Gibson-ish and they changed up and rounded some corners and slight adjustment to the headstock (like WARM and Neumann 87 shape change?) ....any way. The bigger difference was the color from the picture was a lighter sunburst.
Moving on, tuned it, plugged it in and tweaked it to a really nice tone, and it hit that well. The silent Humbucker is great, a little eq to my taste and was soon recording a little mellow jam 3chord slow stuff with clean-smooth in Reaper...very nice.
Plus is its a different Guitar from my strats, so its been a little enjoyment for some strange.
At $190...apparently a automated "3D" CNC can do this? The whole thing is kind of mind boggling and scary imo.
I told my son.."if we had $190 could I go build one of these from Home Depot?"...hellno!
The next day some more jamming and then to look for problems a bit, but I just dont see anything to really complain about.
Ive seen expensive guitars with little cosmetic things in the paint or on the bindings...and sure, thats unacceptable for $4500 guitars, ok for $190 guitars?
Dings and things will happen if its played a lot around here, so this cosmetic stuff is small imo. But there arent any defects I can see from 12inches away anyway. The "magnifier stuff" some people get off on and I get that, could find more defects but again Ive seen that on $4500 Gibsons at times too.
I guess then these CNC take a lot of the cheapness out and as a player, the guitars are really well done. Im playing it Stock, and its fine.
Maybe its the CNC Robots taking over? Maybe the pearl inlays are synthetic-copies, maybe the tuners will wear out in a year?
But Im playing it "as is" and its fine. I dont justify a Brydland for hobby home stuff and the Fender Tube amps are now located in my computer sim folder.
This guitar will be in a house and wont be banged around other than humans, but there wont be airflights and weather changes to destroy it.
Benn listening to Wes Montgomery and the Hank Garland stuff...Semi Hollow guitars, the large beautiful guitars back in the day....(the Gar- land part of Bryd-land I learned..Bryd + Garland = Gibson Brydland pretty cool).....anyway this guitar has that vibey tone too. Big fat humbuckers and sooooo quiet compared to single coils. Very different to play than the Strat maple necks...
still I wonder how do they make such a nice a guitar.... and sell so cheap?