Post by gearhunter on Jun 10, 2019 16:27:09 GMT
Hey there.
1st post here.
And it's the 1st HB guitar I bought. I have not owned really fancy ones. Only Ibanez, Jackson, LTD in the <= 450€ price range, although I did often have my hands on Gibson SGs and LPs.
So I saw a couple youtube vids about the ST62, mostly very positive reviews. I don't have a, let's call it "mostly accurate strat clone" with pickups and that sound. Lately listened to some Hendrix again, and although I'm not much of a player (I have roughly 3 million other interests), or maybe because of it, I thought this purchase could be justified: Let's tickle some single-coily goodness out of my amp, after bombarding it with extra hot hum buckers for so long.
Now I have it here,
and while the neck feels good (at least no finger cutting frets or such), there are a few things that didn't match the rave.
The price was explained to me in terms of "removing the middle man", but it seems clear to me, if my exemplar is actually representative, that at least they must be following a philosophy of "be precise where it is essential, for the rest - employ drunken monkeys if necessary".
While most things I see may be merely cosmetic, one or two may be not - but I'm not exactly a guitar tech, so maybe one of the people on here who know this stuff well might like to comment.
The worst thing is probably the
bent trem lever.
I screwed it in until, just barely, the lever did not feel loose and easily movable anymore, and then turned it back one revolution, to be able to let it hang out of the way as I've seen people do it on video.
I did, unfortunately, not look closely how far it was actually in. So that bend on the threading might have been there before, or, something else prevented the thing from going in further (where I turned it back once because it felt too tight) and I cause the bend because it wasn't in far enough. Then again... shouldn't the material resist bending in any place, threaded or not, if it's going to be used for that kind of stuff... I hope this didn't damage the threading inside the trem, so that another lever could be used... (well this one does work, but I'm not sure for how long, lol)
Then there is the
loose string guide, or whatchamacallit.
See the rotten / worn out screw in the center of the image? Well, those string guide "wings" can be propelled around by bored people, and also slightly lifted / descended, i.e. the screw is not as far in as it needs to be, and it cannot be moved because it's worn out.
I'm not an expert, but to me this seems to mean that changing the tension of the 'e' string will possibly have impact on the 'B' string and vice versa.
mmmm, crusty...
Trussrod: Slightly off hole center in direction of the nut (and there's some gray powdery gunk in there, might be normal?). I *guess* since they did apparently manage to set the instrument up that it's no problem with properly accessing/turning the thing or otherwise? (haven't tried and I don't want to mess with this setting just to try whether it works)
Okay, to the more cosmetic things (I guess it is, if the neck has a workable angle, I guess all is fine, despite the sloppy look, right?)
Neck joint area: Not as sharp a photo as would be necessary to appreciate how sloppy that looks (I thought they use CNCs for this especially for cheap stuff, I wonder how the depth of the removed material can vary so much)
Now to the part I announced earlier - clear evidence of
Drunken Monkeys @ work:
I thought this was the "vintage", not "custom" with plastic disc floating mid air and special screw placement & angle.
The screw is not centered in any dimension The one at the bottom isn't either, but it's not as apparent.
Maybe not a biggie, but... once you noticed it, it does look kinda silly, not being centered on the "knee" being there somewhere on the side.
Now this is probably going to be met with "yeah, whatever", but it's further evidence of the monkey: the distance between the holes drilled for the screws in the output jack is slightly too short
Then, "of course", there are small scratches here and there on gold-ish metal parts, not very visible.
The tuners are not spaced equally far apart, but they share screws with their neighbors pressing them onto the back of the head, and for one of them the distance seems a bit far, so that the screw is barely touching it. The tuner cases have more scratches than other golden parts.
Only one of the 3 pickups has still plastic foil on it - smells like it had already been returned? (in that case I wonder what I waited 2 weeks added to regular shipping time)
Playing it a bit, the strings on some frets were rather resistant to the idea of bends, rather clinging to / scratching on the frets.
I hope that's only because the strings it came with are pretty corroded in many places. To my thumb, the frets feel ok, now after de-stringing, stroking over them. But in places there could be some sort of subtle dirt on them which my bare thumb does not remove.
I guess seeing marks of someone getting at it with a file is a normal thing.
Should I clean the frets before re-stringing? With what?
If I keep it. Should I? Or is this not representative of this brand and chances are really good to get a better shot with another try?
Right now I'm unsure whether those things are enough to complain for the price. But given how much these have been hyped...
And, although I'm not sure, the trem thing seems broken, it doesn't feel right to trust on a lever with that bent threading, which I can't even get in as far as it probably should.
I like the overall look and feel, and SOUND if it, that much I can say. Although the pickups seem rather microphonic. Especially impressive with some reverb on, knocking close to the active pickup on the pickguard, or moving the blade switch to another position could make the audience believe those are special percussive effects.
1st post here.
And it's the 1st HB guitar I bought. I have not owned really fancy ones. Only Ibanez, Jackson, LTD in the <= 450€ price range, although I did often have my hands on Gibson SGs and LPs.
So I saw a couple youtube vids about the ST62, mostly very positive reviews. I don't have a, let's call it "mostly accurate strat clone" with pickups and that sound. Lately listened to some Hendrix again, and although I'm not much of a player (I have roughly 3 million other interests), or maybe because of it, I thought this purchase could be justified: Let's tickle some single-coily goodness out of my amp, after bombarding it with extra hot hum buckers for so long.
Now I have it here,
and while the neck feels good (at least no finger cutting frets or such), there are a few things that didn't match the rave.
The price was explained to me in terms of "removing the middle man", but it seems clear to me, if my exemplar is actually representative, that at least they must be following a philosophy of "be precise where it is essential, for the rest - employ drunken monkeys if necessary".
While most things I see may be merely cosmetic, one or two may be not - but I'm not exactly a guitar tech, so maybe one of the people on here who know this stuff well might like to comment.
The worst thing is probably the
bent trem lever.
I screwed it in until, just barely, the lever did not feel loose and easily movable anymore, and then turned it back one revolution, to be able to let it hang out of the way as I've seen people do it on video.
I did, unfortunately, not look closely how far it was actually in. So that bend on the threading might have been there before, or, something else prevented the thing from going in further (where I turned it back once because it felt too tight) and I cause the bend because it wasn't in far enough. Then again... shouldn't the material resist bending in any place, threaded or not, if it's going to be used for that kind of stuff... I hope this didn't damage the threading inside the trem, so that another lever could be used... (well this one does work, but I'm not sure for how long, lol)
Then there is the
loose string guide, or whatchamacallit.
See the rotten / worn out screw in the center of the image? Well, those string guide "wings" can be propelled around by bored people, and also slightly lifted / descended, i.e. the screw is not as far in as it needs to be, and it cannot be moved because it's worn out.
I'm not an expert, but to me this seems to mean that changing the tension of the 'e' string will possibly have impact on the 'B' string and vice versa.
mmmm, crusty...
Trussrod: Slightly off hole center in direction of the nut (and there's some gray powdery gunk in there, might be normal?). I *guess* since they did apparently manage to set the instrument up that it's no problem with properly accessing/turning the thing or otherwise? (haven't tried and I don't want to mess with this setting just to try whether it works)
Okay, to the more cosmetic things (I guess it is, if the neck has a workable angle, I guess all is fine, despite the sloppy look, right?)
Neck joint area: Not as sharp a photo as would be necessary to appreciate how sloppy that looks (I thought they use CNCs for this especially for cheap stuff, I wonder how the depth of the removed material can vary so much)
Now to the part I announced earlier - clear evidence of
Drunken Monkeys @ work:
I thought this was the "vintage", not "custom" with plastic disc floating mid air and special screw placement & angle.
The screw is not centered in any dimension The one at the bottom isn't either, but it's not as apparent.
Maybe not a biggie, but... once you noticed it, it does look kinda silly, not being centered on the "knee" being there somewhere on the side.
Now this is probably going to be met with "yeah, whatever", but it's further evidence of the monkey: the distance between the holes drilled for the screws in the output jack is slightly too short
Then, "of course", there are small scratches here and there on gold-ish metal parts, not very visible.
The tuners are not spaced equally far apart, but they share screws with their neighbors pressing them onto the back of the head, and for one of them the distance seems a bit far, so that the screw is barely touching it. The tuner cases have more scratches than other golden parts.
Only one of the 3 pickups has still plastic foil on it - smells like it had already been returned? (in that case I wonder what I waited 2 weeks added to regular shipping time)
Playing it a bit, the strings on some frets were rather resistant to the idea of bends, rather clinging to / scratching on the frets.
I hope that's only because the strings it came with are pretty corroded in many places. To my thumb, the frets feel ok, now after de-stringing, stroking over them. But in places there could be some sort of subtle dirt on them which my bare thumb does not remove.
I guess seeing marks of someone getting at it with a file is a normal thing.
Should I clean the frets before re-stringing? With what?
If I keep it. Should I? Or is this not representative of this brand and chances are really good to get a better shot with another try?
Right now I'm unsure whether those things are enough to complain for the price. But given how much these have been hyped...
And, although I'm not sure, the trem thing seems broken, it doesn't feel right to trust on a lever with that bent threading, which I can't even get in as far as it probably should.
I like the overall look and feel, and SOUND if it, that much I can say. Although the pickups seem rather microphonic. Especially impressive with some reverb on, knocking close to the active pickup on the pickguard, or moving the blade switch to another position could make the audience believe those are special percussive effects.