I was upset that they didn't make a carbon fiber body with aluminum neck. The doomers would have been ALL over those, just to cannibalize the necks if nothing else. Aluminum necks are *NOT* cheap.
Also, I have been looking at woods that are commonly available and you could take a scan of that body or just draw it up, but when you look at how thin it is, you could actually make a LOT of these bodies for not much because you can do a two ply fat slab instead of having the body be two or three pieces side to die, which you'll get when you're making guitars starting with commonly available structural cuts of materials...but if you can get each half of the "sandwich" bread slices down to under an inch, then your top and bottom will have complete continuity of grain and you can get much better selection on woods that would cost you like 5x more, even here in Oregon, where we have great supplies of most tonewoods, for the most part.
@@russellzauner I agree. That sounds like a good approach, but be mindful of the thickness of the body vs. the depth of pocket required for most pickups. Lord knows what they used in the Koloss. They could be a proprietary pickup. Some Fishman pickups are really thin. I guess you can always just pocket the neck shallower so it rides higher above the body, thus reducing the pickup cavity depths, but then you have to think about the bridge height. A lot of inexpensive electrics from the late 50s/early 60s were constructed that way because they had thin bodies. That's been out of favour for a long time now, as I'm sure you're aware, but given a dense and heavy enough body wood, you can go thin. Greetings from Nova Scotia btw
"I'll bet mine will be awesome, I'll bet mine will rock! NOPE!" Thank you for taking this much time to put this hard of a eyeball on this thing. It turned into a couple 5 minute long burns which were pretty much fully deserved. If you have this kind of quality control and you want to charge me three bills, fuck you lol
It’s shame he didn’t make an intro playing that thing. I’d love to hear it’s ice-pick sound sitting in the mix and some harmonized guitars clashing horribly.
I bet that “Guitar Experience” was in the Chibson Backshop. You know, where every dream can come true, but only if the neck is twisted like a hog dick.
Much as I wanted to keep my Christmas morning positive and happy, this video was hilarious anyway as only you can make it. I heard just how unstable the tuning was even as you were playing chords on it, before you laid on the whammy bar--ouch! And yes, those pickups are just lifeless and weak. A very Merry Christmas to you and your wife and family, Arnold!
The neck-including the headstock, is a hollow piece of injection molded plastic...like a toy. You can literally flex it with your arm. One reviewer stepped on his and the neck bent like a piece of rubber. who green lighted this?
Bruh lol seriously that's fucked I'd rather have a toy guitar at that point I've seen a couple that held a tune with nylon strings this thing is a joke to say the least.
I was just thinking it would be worth owning the guitar so you could say ‘could you pass my ‘Kolos to me’ (colostomy) These guitars just aren’t my bag 🤣
I’m disgusted by people gushing over this brand. I get that positive vids are good for one’s bottom line, but seriously? Thank you for the honest review, Arnold. Saved me a good chunk of change.
Just for the fun of it, 'Koloss' in Greek language translates as 'ass' - or - 'bum' (slightly different spelling - without the second 's', same phonology). So, I suppose it's better having a KLS guitar after all :) Thanks for the review Arnold!
I’m glad he put the little disclaimer in saying there is no relation to Aviator guitars. Because Aviator makes killer fucking guitars, not hot trash like this.
That's why i was super confused when i saw the saddle wiggle clip on FB, because it said Aviator.. and I've never heard negative feedback about Aviator guitars..
Man, you crushed this review. Ive had my eye on two of them from the day they hit reverb. My thoughts were exactley as yours. I thought is was a bad ass looking and thankfully non traditional guitar. The neck is my biggest let down. Thats flat out lying. Its likey carbon impregnated plastic, which as you noticed, is absolutely not the same as traditional carbon fiber like they are trying to market it as. What blows me away, is that companies still try and pass this shit off on us, and knowingly send reviewers guitars with findemental flaws, such as the bridge? I mean, did they expect you, as a guitar player, to just not notice the fucker was out of tune after every strum? I wouldn't touch one after seeing your video. Thank yoh so much! I had two of them in my reverb cart.
I was attracted to these aesthetically and i like the idea of unconventional materials but it seems like it was designed by a group that has no real world ideas of how a guitar should function. Hopefully they watch this video and take notes. Maybe a Version 2.0 will be worthwhile.
and I am 100% down for someone to take the helm and put out a solid instrument under this moniker. But from what a former employee has informed me, that's not likely to happen. Then again, Halo did a complete 180, so there's really hope for everyone.
Damn man this is crazy, I got one with the standard tremolo like a strat (I think most people don’t even know they offer a standard one, Koloss is awful at advertising their lineup) and it’s perfectly fine, neck on mine is super stiff and straight feels like a phenolic resin rather than plastic. 2020 has been a bad year for overseas QC, seems companies are just shipping out anything without looking them over, and Koloss seems 50/50 regarding getting a decent instrument. I figured the Aviator bridge was going to be an issue glad I dodged that bullet. I’m completely satisfied with mine but seeing more and more people have problems I feel I can in no way endorse anybody buying from this company until they get their shit sorted out.
It really is a bummer because they really do look awesomeeee but seeing the frustration of you building the kit and seeing you talking about this one you can hear the genuine pain from this experience lol
I feel bad for anyone that spent money on those man. I don't even think they would even be a good mod project. I do have hope for the company though in the future and maybe they'll improve.
They could probably do a different bridge entirely, like a TOM or string through. The pickups and access to the pickups sounds like a bigger chore entirely if they had say a different model. All that being said. It’s easy to promise a million features and throw up some CAD models on a site
When he played the Neck pick up, I honestly thought it was the Bridge pickup and it's passable... But then he went to the actual bridge pickup and it just got worse, and then the coil split made me lose all hope for it. Just the very fact that the pickups have such an abeyance of any sort of balls that the Neck could be mistaken for a Bridge is just straight up depressing.
Damn dude, I think this the first guitar you haven't been able to do a demo song with. That says it all right there. I have a bronze series warlock I got for 30 dollars ten years ago and it's a million times better than that thing. How could they feel good about selling these things? It's like they made a guitar, but didnt bother to ask anyone to try and play it before it shipped. Like, yup looks like a guitar to me, send it. That's awful. Nice work man.
A guy who I believe was the owner was on a few guitar groups on FB and was shady as shit. I asked him about ordering and all sorts of stuff, but when I asked what country the parts are sourced from, completely ignored me then blocked me. No joke. Tried emailing and other contact I could find and nope...no luck. Shady as shit
Demo a Badstroke guitar. They are right up your alley. Great pricing, modern specs, great looking. They’re actually doing a run of semi customs with discounts right now but it ends in 5 days.
We have to thank the stress reviewers like Arnold go through to protect consumers like us from crap. I looked at this website before and as tempted because of the visual impact. Glad Arnold saved me.
I was thinking about one of these but I really was disappointed they don't offer anything hardtail, except maybe the headless but I didn't look at the headless ones, carbon fiber with fret buzz?? I would say how and why?? so really thankful for your review before I dived into buying one so awesome review man
I like that you took the time to complement the frets and nut and go into the nitty gritty of the wiring ands switches for good or ill, and even critiqued the logo. None of that stuff is a deal breaker on a $300 guitar. The bridge and the neck not working are the real headline, but it’s nice to know about the rest...
I have the chrome one with a roasted maple neck and don't have any of the problems you had with it. The pickups are pretty decent too. Not very high output but decent sounding.
My mouse pointer was hovering over the buy now button, then I decided to do some research first......yours is the 3rd review I watched, should have just watched it first, the other two were likewise, thank you for saving me a whole lot of headache.
I bought one of these back in November, I love the overall look and feel but you're right, the bridge is complete trash! Thanks for identifying (the biggest) source of tuning instability! It helped me find a cheap fix (ignoring that when you set the intonation it'll probably be past the end of the track and I had to replace the springs and you'll have a different form of the same problem) Short answer: Take the tuner apart and put heat-shrink tubing around the body of the shaft. Short how-to video with more details in the description here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rTsIyZvkbqE.html
Holy shit!! I wanted to get one of these. Between you and Chris I am really glad I saw your reviews! I had to stop the video at 1:59 because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t hear what you were saying. You’re awesome dude and this guitar must be FETID!! 🤣 SYL
we'rent those advertised to come with fishman fluence pickups ? Tbh , i kinda had a feeling about these being shit.when they finally hit RU-vid and the word got out i felt a little sad. it would have been cool to see a new company , with a different spin . i mean , the design of the body was at least something fresh , even tho it wasnt my taste. Sadly ,now that i think about it , it kinda feels like they were trying to catch that Aristides Vibe , only cheap and terrible
Exactly, I work in aviation also and we got a caliper the other day that was made from carbon fiber. I’m not even sure why they ordered made from CF but I saw the invoice for it and was like wtf.
This is a 3D printed carbon impregnated plastic, squirted into a neck shape. Nothing wrong with new idea's, but if the outcome does not meet current manufacturing efforts what is teh point of making the same thing but far inferior.
Compare it to a Trussart - many come with Arcane pickups in them which seem to be pretty great. Trussart excels in making metal guitars out of literal metal.
I believe you could work a little on the lighting, I love the new dark background but some details are hard to see, for example the gig bag was a big blob of black, other than that, great review
Arnold, thank you for the video; I was considering picking up the headless version, until I saw this review. Any opinion on the headless version? Do you feel that based upon your experience with the two Koloss guitars that you received that the headless version would have the same tuning instability issues as the ones that you tested and filmed?
I am of the opinion at the point that it is 100% not worth my time to check out their headless model. 2/2 instruments I’ve been sent have serious issues and I feel like if they can’t be bother to send playable instruments to someone who might make a very public review video, then they have a ton of problems to iron out and there should be a moratorium on content for them so they have time to iron that stuff out.
@@ArnoldPlaysGuitar thanks for the reply. Just found your channel a couple of days ago. I look forward to watching more of your very honest gear reviews.
What is going on with this brand? Out of nowhere there are multiple negative reviews from multiple big time RU-vid channels. Strange how they all came out recently too. Really not sure what Koloss was thinking sending all these guitars out for review. As they have ALL received garbage reviews. Again I say....Strange. That control cavity alone...wow, just wow. Total rats nest. Acceptable for low level Rondo, Epiphone, etc, but that’s about it. They really got little 11 years olds soldering that shit and charging $1k
The M4 Koloss with the roasted maple neck and Strat bridge makes much more sense once the output jack is relocated. Not sure where it says the neck is carbon fiber. The site says it's a SCTP solid carbon teflon polymer Neck. I'm not sure what the teflon is doing for playability. My guess is it's graphite teflon mix in a polymer base, sorta like epoxy holding it all together. Lots of necks and fretboards are made similar to this like Richlite fretboards on Martins and Gibsons and Stratabond necks on Martins.
I got one off Reverb 2 months ago and returned it in less than 24 hours: damaged neck, sharp frets, bridge pieces was moving, sounded so-so to begin with. Glad I got my money back.
According to the website the neck is "solid carbon teflon polymer", not carbon fibre. My guess is it'll be some sort of binder resin with carbon strands or graphite powder thrown in. Not sure about the Teflon, I guess you can mix that stuff in somehow because Graphtech use it in their saddles. Teflon is a brandname for PTFE which is just a slippery, hard-waring plastic. PTFE is also a polymer, so it covers that base in the buzzword bingo description.
