Members heem6 Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 I've been playing SuperStrats for a long time. I have pretty much every one I want at this point and have been doing good with the GAS until I saw the XV-500 Les Paul type guitar on the GuitarFetish website. I waffled back and forth between this and the Agile AL-3100 Slim neck profile. To be honest, a LP is never going to be my main guitar, and I liked the 3/4" maple cap on the Xaviere, plus that Amber Sunrise (Red/Orange) color combo really knocked me out! I got the guitar about two weeks later - and immediately noticed the color was much different than the website pictures. Their website shows a Red/Orange sunburst and in reality it's an Orange/Yellow sunburst. I had seen posts online saying this, and was pretty much expecting what I got. I was very disappointed, but I have to say, it's a beautiful guitar and now I really like this finish as well. Took it down to my regular guitar shop and had them double-check the neck for straightness. Straight with just a slight bit more relief on the bass side than on the treble side, but very slight and nothing to worry about. (Precision Guitar is just that - very precise and I've learned the hard way that when they say slight - it means very slight, all necks have some "character" to them - and you don't send a "keeper" guitar like this back just because of it.) They remarked that the frets were in surprisingly good shape to start with. The fret ends were smooth from the factory. I had them do a fret level and put on a new bone nut. When I came back to get it I was really pleasantly surprised. I would have been okay if this was only good enough to be a display guitar - at $180 what can you expect? Well, it turns out to be a really nice guitar. After the fret level it plays like butter - action is low with no buzzing and with the bone nut the strings just ring out. Really, I didn't expect this to be a great player, just hopefully a good "sounder." I'm a nut about low action and slinky playability and this guitar (after the fret level) really impresses and inspires me. The only real flaws I could find were the screws on the selector switch plate on the back - the holes were drilled at an angle and I will need to redrill them. Not a big deal. The flame veneer is gorgeous, binding is spot on, knobs and pots are all good, and the tuners are good enough to hold this guitar in tune even with some aggressive string bending. (Note: with the plastic nut it was hard to keep this guitar in tune, the strings kept getting caught on it - it would be easy to mistake this as a tuner problem - but with the new nut it stays in tune very well.) Mine was missing the truss rod wrench but GFS promised to mail me one. The pickups are just great for me. I like higher-output, crunchy pickups and these are some of the most articulate distortion-class pickups I've run across. I dislike tone controls, so I disconnected the neck pickup tone control, and disabled the capacitor on the bridge pickup tone control. On the attached clip, I boosted the highs a lot and the mids a fair bit. I was going for an 80's tone, stock the pickups will be darker than this, but still very crunchy. In short - if they are all this quality, I can't imagine anyone not being happy with one of these guitars. Spend $60 to get the frets leveled and a couple more bucks on a bone or graphtech nut and you will have a guitar you might just fall in love with. Very solid-feeling, very good feeling, great sounding - except for the plastic nut this does not feel or sound like a discount guitar but a quality instrument any level of player would be happy with. Hope this review was helpful and hope you enjoy the pictures and clip! http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?q=hi&songID=7487045 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Preacher Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 Wow, that's a gorgeous guitar, great to see one in the wild, as it were. Thanks for the detailed review (and the clips sound great). HNGD!:thu::thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members webwarmiller Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 I got the guitar about two weeks later - and immediately noticed the color was much different than the website pictures. Their website shows a Red/Orange sunburst and in reality it's an Orange/Yellow sunburst. I had seen posts online saying this, and was pretty much expecting what I got. I was very disappointed, but I have to say, it's a beautiful guitar and now I really like this finish as well. Looking at your pics and those from GFS's website, they actually appear very close. I'm guessing that this is simply a case of the colors looking different in pics.....regardless of who takes the photos. Your pics do look slight less red, but I would consider that a good thing. Get too close to a true red and you've got 'clown' burst which looks cheap imo. BTW, $60 for a fret level is a solid $40-70 LESS than most places.....consider yourself lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members heem6 Posted February 13, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 I don't know - my pictures are probably a tad darker than the guitar's true color, but they still look quite different to my eye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fireproof777 Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 HNGD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members heem6 Posted February 13, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 It's about 21mm thick at the third fret, so it's definitely thicker, but yet it's fairly comfortable, especially once you get used to it. More of a C-shape than the flat backed necks on most of my SuperStrats. 43mm wide, so similar to most of my necks that way. Frets are medium jumbo instead of jumbo, which I actually prefer, so that's a treat for me. Of course, the neck has a gloss finish (which seems pretty smooth playing right now) which is different than my SuperStrats. which all have tung oil finishes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sailorofdarknes Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 HNGD! Looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members robbdeman Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 HNGD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newbuilder Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Looks like a nice guitar and thanks for the review~! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members j*h Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 looks hot!congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rchiav Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Thanks for the review. I've been looking for a 22 fret fixed bridge guitar with less than a 25.5" scale and these have been on the list. If they're as decent as you say, it might be hard to pass up for the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Krashpad Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Congrats! (o)(o) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members brandass Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Hey man, nice review! Enjoyed the clip as well. Any chance we can hear some cleans? HNGD!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members heem6 Posted February 15, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 15, 2011 Thanks, everybody ~ I recorded a quick clip of all clean tones tonight - neck pickup, both pickups and bridge pickup. I boosted the highs on this clip but nothing else. Mastered with some stereo separation added, and normalized, but no post-EQ. Hope you enjoy! http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10281035 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members brandass Posted February 15, 2011 Members Share Posted February 15, 2011 Thanks, everybody ~ I recorded a quick clip of all clean tones tonight - neck pickup, both pickups and bridge pickup. I boosted the highs on this clip but nothing else. Mastered with some stereo separation added, and normalized, but no post-EQ. Hope you enjoy! http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10281035 That I did, sir, that I did. Very, very nice! Killer pups to match the killer look - damned sweet. Congrats! GASssssssss.... again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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