After years haven't played guitar, I've bought a used a2.7blop+ with a coroner logo on its truss rod cover (maybe the owner before like to swap things) After having this beast, the next guitar i wanted to buy is another solar 😂 I'm Indonesian, even here it's hard to find available seller because of the company export oriented. Also it's quite expensive in Indonesian standard, and not too popular because of brand metal heavy oriented. Btw, Wildwood Indonesia the company who build these guitar also makes Schecter, PRS(SE), D’Angelico, Yamaha, Fender, ESP(LTD), Supro, Jackson, and Dean, chapman and many others.
Solar guitars? Do they recharge with the power of the sun? Now that's cool. In all seriousness, I'm learning a lot about guitars with your videos, keep up the good work brother
Thanks, glad to make some interesting educational content. I'm pretty sure it's called Solar because the guy's name is Ola, so sOLAr but that's my guess
Nice comparison! I just bought my first "high end" prestige from ibanez, and definitely nice to practice with a guitar with that quality feel. For my next ones though ,your perspective of instruments getting some jobs nicely done, without pay8ng everytime the premium price is talking to me.
It could be great to find an inexpensive guitar that feels expensive. Unfortunately a lot of the expense goes into making a guitar a quality instrument, so at best lower cost guitars might come close to that feel. Not to say they're un-usuable of course
The thing i love about solar is that most of them come without high-end pickups so the cost is lower. Just because you can always change pickups for pretty low cost but for example stainless steel frets are gonna be a lot more expensive upgrade
Can't disagree there. Played in isolation I wish they had a bit more, but they fit in my mixes really well and on the non-evertune guitars they sound a bit better to my ear
I find Solar to be of unusual dimension. The body ( and the headstock) is smaller than a strat or a tele, but the thickness is 45 mm. So my tele Solar is heavier than the Squier Jazzmaster, but the sound is much thinner, plugged or unplugged, although both guitars are alder. I was really surprised how bright the guitar is, brighter then the G&L Cantrell which is all maple, also 45 mm thick but a much larger and heavier body. The pickups have a sort of muddiness in the low mids which takes time to get used with and which favour a less gainy amp, although they are medium-high output. The small headstock makes also the tuning somewhat cumbersome. The tuners feel cramped in there.
My real concern with the Indonesian models is whether they've handled the issues with the fingerboards cracking. Not sure if it was a seasoning issue (Indonesia being more humid than most of the customer environments) or what.
I remember when that all was going on. Thankfully I haven't had any issues. As soon as I get them, I use lemon oil on the fretboard since I restring and set them up after a day of acclimation
@@Sticky_Tea It could be a batch that was having issues. I've had that happen with strings before. Could have been a batch of wood that was seasoned improperly and happened to be used on a bunch of guitars.
I think all of my Indonesian made guitar have had issues with the electronics (grounding, shielding, etc …) but plays fine otherwise. My 8 string with Fishman moderns was far noisier than my Mexican Strat with single coils, and that was on cleans. Had to get the entire thing re-soldered, then it worked like a charm. Do you have a general opinion on the quality between Korean and Indonesian mid-range guitars? Never owned a Korean myself, but there are some LTD baritones I'm eyeing at the moment.
Bummer about the wiring but that's par for the course basically. Korean guitars in general are higher quality than Indonesian made guitars, however the ID guitars of today are as quality as the KR guitars of over 10 years ago I'd say. I've also noticed that cramming in high end features onto budget guitars tends to lower the overall quality since they're built to a price point
Ah that's unfortunate. I haven't gotten my hands on a new lprean guitar in a while. I can say Japanese QA on ibanez prestiges isn't quite as reliable as it used to be. Wiring issues and neck misalignments
I see you have many Solar guitars, so you’re probably the right person to ask you this: Have you had any cracked fretboard on your solars? I have seen some people, mainly on Facebook groups, reporting that issue. Saw one today where the cracked happened near the logo.
Good question. I haven't had a single one of my solars develop any cracks anywhere. I condition the fretboard about a day after I get them when I'm doing a full setup and then twice a year and have had zero issues. The only issues I've had with solars is that one or two of them have had minor finish imperfections, but these can't be seen unless you put your face right up to them - impossible to see in my videos for example, and I like it tbh
Compared to ESP and Jackson prices for similar models, Solar is more affordable. Compared to Gibson and Fender, they’re cheap! However, compared to Harley Benton, I definitely see your point.
I am a fender/gibson guy. I don’t even have any ibanez or ltd anymore. I really doubt ill ever buy a solar/chapman/merrow schecter or any youtuber guitars. I want guitars designed in the 50’s
Those older design guitars certainly have a vibe and feel to them and if it works for you, that's great! All about picking the tools for the job that work for us
