@@jamestejada3673 Heard great things about em. I remember watching a Darrell Braun vid about them a while back. Most certainly on the Radar - Cheers 😀😀👍👍
🤣😂🤣 love your comedic side mate! All these features for $300 is amazing! I agree swap out the pickup(s), to me only the humbucker needs changing, and still be in the area of a Squier price but with stainless frets, roasted neck etc it's still a good deal! Thanks for the review Steve! Edit: the weight is a deal breaker for me too, 8 lbs is too heavy.
Cheers mate! That means a lot 😀🙏 If we're blethering about guitars - might as well try n have a laugh while we're at it 🤓👍 100% It's a great deal mate! If it wasn't for the weight it would definitely still be with me 👌
Got a Sire S7 with a set of Tone Rider Alnico 2 Blues pickups in so I’m all sorted for a HSS S type. Did not make the livestream this week but I had done I’d have been saying I’m in a weird position of actually having a bit of cash to spend but not being able to find anything to spend it on!! Every time something catches my eye I realise it’s a base I already have covered. 🤷♂️
@@thelolguy007 Yessir! It's the Jet JT600. Had a couple of people asking for this one and Jet asked me what I wanted to check out. So went with this one. Still unopened atm. Have to film that obviously 😜
Very Cool, Thankyou Steve. Such a stunning Guitar, The colour with Roasted Maple neck looks amazing. Sounds great too your awesome playing. All the Best. Cheers
Aww mate! your far too kind! Thank you!😀🙏 But yeah, I had very high hopes for this one. If it wasn't for the weight it would still be here - with some mods of course 😁
I love mine, I changed the weird pickups for tesla sharks and it sounds great. I've had a couple of light guitars with horrible neck dive so the weight makes me happy. The setup on mine was amazing! It stays in tune like a champ too.
That's great news mate! 😀👍 So did you also find the original pickups... "uninspiring"? Just making sure it wasn't just me, coz it's a subjective thing after all. Heard great things about those iron gears - good choice sir. If it wasn't for the weight (I'm a weakling) I'd probably still have this one here... with different pickups. and pickguard 😜
I’m with you Steve, in my opinion the Soloking’s you tried are much too heavy for ‘S’ types, the pickups sound bad and I’m not keen on any of their colour options. Bit of a shame and a lost opportunity for Soloking, I’d be much more inclined to buy a Jet JS-400, particularly when they cost £100 less!
Totally! Although I'd love to see what a production Jet with stainless steel frets would be like 😁👍 John Robson had SS frets installed on his and he's loving it. I might have to give mine the same operation 😁👍
@9:43 Laughed out loud , good work. If I were in the market for a standard scale length "S-Type" this would grab me , Purple ✔ proper woods ✔ stainless Steel frets ✔ Entwistles pickups already fitted so I don't have to do that bit myself✔. Sadly I prefer 27" Scale guitars... Today I saved £300 , go me !
Thank ya very much sir! 😀🙏 I LOVED my Jet JS450, but ultimately had to sell it as it was also too heavy 😬 I'm sure mines was Heavier than the soloking 😅 But I way preferred the neck, pickups, finish and trem on the Jet 😎👌
I had exactly the same experience with my Soloking T style, much too heavy and much too dark sounding! Ended up selling it and took a big hit on price! Unfortunately I had modded it as soon as I got it and so couldn't return it to Anderton's.
Ah that's a bummer. It's a shame as this brand has loads of potential. Could easily be the best show in town if they fix the weight. I'm not too fussed about pickups as I'd probably, needlessly, change them on a guitar of this price anyway 🙈 But the stock ones should be less dramatically dark imo
I got one in seafoam green... changed the pickups to Tonerider hss overwound set, put all new electronics and replaced bridge with Gotoh510. It is a bit lighter than yours, frets are nice and smooth, but the tuners were mounted realy badly so.... still have some work to do. But after all the mods... i have to say that now this guitar sounds incredible and feels realy good and expensive... Realy good mods platform
Steve your points match mine completely. C neck FTW! Shame the Soloking could have really given the others a run for their money. Especially that neck with the lower truss rod adjustment.
Weight is a big deal for me, ideally i want a 3 piece body, center piece the one that counts , use a denser wood but not overly heavy and the wings use a light wood.
@@tadge74 Oooh! Well there's an excuse to buy a Nick Johnson 😂👌 But.. I don't think it's that likely I'll get one, unless there's either an amazing deal or my local shop has a used one (They let me borrow stuff, but they don't carry Schecter). But... Even though they're both HSS Strats. I think these might be too different in specs and price worth comparing. The Schecter thin neck profile and flat radius, extra jumbo frets, locking tuners, Tusq nut, truss rod adjust wheel, Alder body at around £900 Vs Jets modern C neck 9.5" radius, medium jumbo frets, medium jumbo frets, Bass wood body, cheap tuners, bone nut, at around £180.... I'd assume the Schecter will have "better" pickups too. But is all that worth the extra £600? It depends on your tastes. Personally I prefer the neck profile on the Jet, which is the most important factor to me. But it's by no means "better". Thank ya for the suggestion though mate 😀🙏
@@stevecassidyguitar yeah, Very similar looking but in detail different. I've got loads of guitars and wanted a NJ, I wonder if the Jet will fill that hole? Have you tried the Jet 400 relic? Cheers
@@tadge74 I have not tried the Js 400 relic, I'm sure the neck would be just as good. But I'm not a big fan of rosewood or relics, so it's not one i'm likely to try out. The only difference I can see is Rosewood and relic, and it costs £100 more for those features I don't love 😬
I just got an MS-1 Custom a week ago. I'm in the states and ordered it from Andertons. It had the slightest bit of sharp fret ends. People make too much about how hard SS frets are to work with. A Stew Mac sanding stick sorted it out like it would with any guitar. The pickups are certainly dark sounding. I don't mind it as I play with higher gain most of the time. My biggest issue is that I like to have a backup live in case of string breakage and there's nothing I have that is close to as dark, so if I switch live there will be a noticable tonal difference. I still need to get 9-42 on it but I haven't had the time. The action out of box was too high for me but it set up easily enough and no high frets. I have a stupid amount of guitars so I'll get along with the neck. It's smaller than my Harley Benton Fusion 3 EMG and my LTD. No other flaws that I've noticed outside of the fret ends higher up on the treble side. That took maybe 5 min to fix. I like it. For reference I also have an Eart SSS that I put Dimarzio bladed humbuckers in. So I have the Eart, HB and now a Soloking. I had more issues with the HB than the Soloking. Bad jack that drained batteries in a matter of days and the locking tuners are really sloppy. The Soloking holds tune very well. The HB does but there's a lot of slack with you're tuning. I have several high end guitars but gig these because things happen live. Overall it seems to be built well. My example, at least. I don't mind heavy guitars. I didn't weigh mine but it didn't pop out as heavy to me. My main guitar weighs 9lb exactly though. So consider that when hearing my opinion.
Wow 9lbs!? Good on ya mate - you're a far stronger steed than I 💪😎 The MS1 Customs look great too - With the HH set up I wouldn't be as shocked with the darkness as I was with the HSS strat - I can't go dark single coils. Are the Tuners on your HB staggered? I have the older Fusion ii and the'yre apparently "WSG locking tuners" - I absolutely love them and have been looking everywhere to find another set. No such luck yet tho
@@stevecassidyguitar They are staggered. These get a good quarter turn before it actually engages two of the tuners. The rest are okay. Not great. Never noticed they were staggered until I just now checked. Actually don't think I've restrung it yet. It had the bad jack so it sat until about a month ago with I replaced that. My main is a Schecter Sun Valley Super Shredder Exotic Ziricote HT. A heavy guitar with a name that just rolls off the tongue.
Soloking strike me as a guitar brand that wants to show quality for an affordable, but not cheap, price. But I'm not so sure... I like Shijie guitars. But their S style guitar is also a bit on the heavy side. The quality though is on Suhr level.
Thank ya kindly Rich! 😀🙏 I was dissapointed with this one too - I had high hopes. I've still not filmed the chapman vid yet soz 😬 Will try and get round to it this weekend 🤞
I'm actually yet to try a Sire Guitar. I've owned a Sire Marcus Millar V7 Bass for a few years now - quality is top notch 😎👌 I'm not a huge fan of the Sire "strat" body shape though - I think that's why I've not got round to it yet
I love Andertons channel but i felt a little let down from my experience . I went to order an audio interface and because my information on their database didnt have my house number they couldnt ship it out to me so instead of contacting me and asking they just left me in limbo for a week until I had to contact them when it didnt arrive . When I asked them to ship it out to my address they wanted another £20 because it had been shipped in their eyes even though it was just sat at the distribution centre , when i said I think thats unreasonable I just asked poitely for a refund they told me they CANNOT issue a refund unless and this is company policy that I pay a fee of £20 . If it had of been shipped and returned I could understand but I still find this Unacceptable . I suggested in future that they implement a change where they cannot take a customers money unless they have all the relevant details so it wouldnt happen again . Im a bit dissapointed how it was dealt with to be honest as i bought a boss katana and boss waza earphones before all this with no problems . Ive never EVER heard of having to pay to release a customers refund just so people are aware. Im not shitting on Andertons I still love them they just need to look at this problem .
This isn't surprising to me at all. I'm the same as you - I love the Andertons channel and vids etc, but they need to pay more attention to the day to day running of operations. Poor communication, and very little to no attention to detail. My experience with them has been 50/50, in about 6 transactions total - which is pretty terrible imo
@stevecassidyguitar that's not great At all..would you email me your experiences as I'm going to make a youtube video I will leave out your name if u want but I've 3 people including myself .it's not a hit piece just to make people aware if not it's no problem . St the minute they have a couple of solo king in websites for 250 .it's not my thing but for someone starting I still think 250 with locking tuners and the other specs is great. I've also noticed the Chapman's come out at a silly price then a year later there's 50 to 80 per cent off .I have a chapman .they should just concentrate on models under 1k I think they are totally wasting their time with anything remotely like custom shop prices
@@pentatonicpaddy Sorry mate, It would take me too long to detail all my poor experiences with andertons in an email 😂 I was planning on doing a video about it myself, but decided, i don't want to spend 3+ days on a video getting myself angry and being focused on negativity for 3 days - It's not good for my mental health. But I totally understand the desire to let people know. Have you checked in with Rich the "Novice Noise Maker" ? he's also had some less than ideal experience with andertons, well documneted on his channel. Feel free to use my name though, I'm not hiding that I'm dissatisfied with Andertons customer service, I've mentioned it loads in my vids 😂👍
I liked the sound of the pickups personally. It looks like a really good sort of budget range guitar but like all budget ranges you take a chance with setups, fret work and finish. Nice headstock though and was that a little bit of these days by Bon Jovi in one of the playing breaks? 🤘🤘
Different strokes for different folks n all that Jazz 😎👍 Personally ona guitar of that price pickups are a non issue, I'd probably needlessly change em anyway 😂 But these were exceptionally dark. No intentional Bon Jovi 😬 Apologies if i've stole something 🙈
For me the jury is still out on that guitar, although if I was spending 300 quid, I’d probably buy something used but branded , or maybe something from Harley Benton, although it wouldn’t be a Strat style anyway, I’m not a Strat fan as such, so I’ll shut my mush , 😂, great video 👍👍🤠🎸
Cheers Chuck! 😀🙏 There's not much stratty about this one soundwise. But yeah.. seems to be a buyers market at the moment. You could probably get something very cool for £300 and would never lose on it if you resold 👍
@@c.h.fieldsports9876 Nice one! 😂👍 I bought a Chapman from Rich - Expertly packaged I might add.. and it looks like he might be buying it back 😂 The joys of GAS
I saw them on my online travels but never stopped to look...The name makes them sound a bit more high end than they actually are ,,,they've branded it pretty well...
Those pickups are something else. Something else as in having nothing whatsoever to do with a strat sound. Yes the guitar has a lot of named components on it but glueing a Spirit of Ecstacy onto a Metro bonnet won't make it a Rolls Royce.
@@stevecassidyguitar When you order a strat style guitar the single most important aspect you want is stratyness. Yes you might want an HSS config to beef it up a bit at the bridge end (not the place on Islay) but it still has to have the strat sound. Even the reviews you've done on super budget 'S' style guitars sounded , in my opinion, better than this. No chime, no quack, bad crack.
Anyone know of a maker of this type that does 24 inch scale length Jaguar or Mustang ‘copies’? Seems like all anyone makes are strat, tele and the occasional Jazzmaster copy
Good point mate 👍 What is it specifically you're looking for? So short scale and offset, there's loads available.... But is it the premium features your after? Like a roasted neck, stainless steel frets etc? I can't think of anything like that, that exists. Possible big gap in the market here. Closest thing I can thing of is the Harley Benton 25th Anniversary Jazzmaster, but it's 25.5" scale - not what you're after
@@stevecassidyguitar Fender and Squier make 24 inch offsets for sure, but I’m looking for a 24 inch Mustang/Jaguar style by an off-brand that like you say has premium features at similar prices to all of these Strats and tele styles that they make. I have a Charvel DK24 HSS and I don’t need any other 25.5 scale guitar again- the neck plays itself and the Gotoh 510 bridge and the LSR nut I installed make the vibrato very good. The looks are not my thing, but the functionality and sound are 💯 I have a very nice Fender Player Mustang P90- cost me $1100 CAN which is absurd really. The 24 inch scale length really feels different enough from a 25.5 to be a completely different instrument. I just wish these other companies would offer similar specifications for a Mustang/jaguar ‘copy’ that they do for their strat/teles. Harley Benton makes a Mustang copy but it lacks the premium features
@@Lomoholga2 Got ya mate! 😎👍 That's what I thought. Seems there's definitley a Gap in the market here. I wonder who will be first to do it. Hope it's soon for you 👍
@@stevecassidyguitarin interest of fairness, I bought something from them last Saturday and it arrived Sunday morning. I'm probably a good couple of hundred miles from their store too
@@BudgetPedalChap Oh yeah, don't get me wrong - I love the channel, and all the characters - Pete n Lee etc.. Seem like they're always having a good time and would be a fun hang. 😀👍
They come out with some terrible names for these budget guitars! I have always thought that a well specced S and T type budget guitar with a set neck would do well, or even a through neck model. It would attract a lot of interest just for being different!
It’s a shame about your experience with the pickups! I’ve been putting Entwistle neodymium pickups in my basses for years and they’re amazing. I’ve never tried any of their guitar pickups though
Must be a different story for bass 🤷♂️ I was chatting to someone on here yesterday i think, who also put neodyniums in a guitar, also very dark but he likes them like that👍 I though they might have used the wrong pot values in the Soloking but apparently not
So near yet so far, for me the 9.5" raidius neck is a big NO, also i prefer dark Rosewood or Ebony fretboards. The ingredients are almost right, but it all went pear shaped with the electronics. For now i will stick with my trusty Fusion mk2, i have yet to find a guitar that is better. Would i try a Soloking, not if it meant dealing with Andertons, they ripped me off once, never again.
The Fusion 2 is a excellent guitar 😎👌not just "for the money" 👍 Although, I'll be parting ways with mine once I've filmed some more stuff 😬 It's mainly the 12" radius, but also the HSH. If I ever got another fusion, would have to be HSS
@@stevecassidyguitar Harley Benton might make one to your requirements in the future. For now the spec is good enough for me. Having sold all my 9.5" guitars i am not going to buy anymore just to sell them again at a loss. As i have found out recently the used market is awash with more guitars than buyers.
@@Barbarapape I hope so 😁. That's a shame it's not a good time to sell. But it can take long enough to decided to sell - once it's decided - they gotta go! That's how it works for me anyway
Makes you wonder how much mark up companies put on their goods a new I phone in China costs 10 dollars to manufacture and look what the retail price is 😂
I wouldn't buy anything from Andertons, and even if that wasn't the case, the guitar doesn't look that great - there are a lot of better, or as good guitars out there for the same money, or in some cases less.
I can see why mate 👍 My customer service experience with Andertons has been 50/50. Which isn't great for (probably) one of the biggest music retailers in the uk 🙈
@@markdoolan3424 I'd love to try out a Firefly 😀👍 there's a couple of models I'm quite interested in, but not easy enough to get in the UK unfortunately
@@stevecassidyguitar yeah they easier to get in America it seems the channel 'Raf's Gear Reviews' have done a load of Firefly reviews plus others iam still working thru all the vids!
