Hi Paul, good to hear from you and especially all the way from Appalachia, a lovely part of the States. (I lived in Athens, GA for 7 years which is in the foothills of the Piedmont). Are you thinking to get one of these guitars or already have one? It's surprising that the famous guitar maker beginning with "R" hasn't sued the maker/sellers for copyright issues. All the best Rob
I've just bought a fazley from bax as I'm in a beatles tribute and after a bit of intonation setup and restringing it's plays beautifully. Nice video and very informative, thanks Bill.
HI Mark, nice to hear from you. Yes they're OK these guitars. Mine wasn't really well finished but maybe yours is much better? It's cosmetic of course. I've found that strings can make a big difference to its sound too. Normally I will put 10s on but shifting up to 13s really gets more bite on the treble as could be expected but you'll probably have to readjust the intonation. Just a thought. All the best Rob
@@robrobson7101 I took it to get the intonation and put a set of 9's on as I only play rythm. The paint job wasn't perfect but it's not noticeable on stage. Thanks so much for the advice buddy. Take care.
I bought a Fazley T style about 2 years ago it was fine after a strip down and setup and still does my niece well ! I would say you seem to get better quality control with Thomann's Harley Benton particularly with the set neck mahogany models ,I got a Santana style double cut with Grover hardware for less than 150 sounded good , but I succumbed and put some genuine PRS Santana pickups in for 50 off ebay now it is a fantastic instrument. I would add that all needed to be setup, polish the frets(and level some) and a little tidying but are at a price where people can be unafraid of learning these skills.
Hey Rob that guitar sounds great and very close to those 'jangly' guitars and looks nice too! Did you smooth the fret edges? I have a Fazley Outlaw series Tele and my fret edges are a tad rough but otherwise besides a setup and string change plays great a lot of guitar for little money including string through body, Graphtec nut, Wilkinson bridge!
Hi batphinik, good to hear from you. It's a nice guitar which Fazley now sells as I'm sure you know. Mine was bought from Gear4Music in the UK. The finish was very good generally but I did some work on it including the fret ends which did need smoothing. It's quite a small/light guitar and it's not with me just now as I've given it to my young grand daughters who are guitar players who wanted to try an electric guitar. Fazley are selling a good range of guitars in lots of finishes. I haven't bought anything from them (yet!). I quite fancy the Jaguar-like guitar they sell. All the best Rob
Hi Rob, Nice guitar, and demo. I just ordered a Fazely like yours from Bax music this afternoon. Didn't know they were originally marketed through Gear for Music. It will look nice next to my Hofner violin bass! Yes... I am a Beatles fan.
Hi Colin, yes this is not a bad copy of a "325" so hope you'll be happy with it. Yes, so this guitar has the look of course. The finish on mine could have been better but a little bit of TLC and it's fine now. I think G4M sold this originally and as far as I can tell Bax/Fazley is a relatively new music warehouse/brand. Actually mine is now on permanent loan to one of my two grand daughters both of whom are carrying on the family guitar tradition. The other one has one of my Squier Strats. Must be nice to have a Hofner bass. I'm a Beatles fan too of course. I have an Epiphone Limited Edition EJ 160E/VS electro acoustic guitar. Nice instrument. I'll put up a RUclips video about it when I can get round to it. What's next ? How about an Epiphone Casino? All the best and vey nice to hear from you Rob
@@colinstuckey1053 I don't have a Casino but I do have an Epiphone Wildkat. A bit smaller than a Casino but still semi hollow and with a Bigsby. A very nice guitar. I think it was a reissue like the Nighthawk. The world of guitars eh!!!
Thanks for your reply Mr. Robson. I have a little guitar called a Brownsville Thug. It was the Same Ash house brand guitar a few years ago and has two truly toaster style, single coil pickups that sound quite good, I think. Being a 74-year-old fellar the Beatles figured prominently in my early years. I've always favored the earlier songs with their pure guitar tones and lovely melodies. John's percussive, bright rythm parts were just so good I've always been intrigued by his guitar of choice. Please look up the Brownsville guitars. They're really very nice. I hope you're doing fine.
Hi Paul, very nice to hear from you. I straight away looked up this guitar because I'd never heard of them. It looks really nice with a great many nice finishes. It's kind of similar in shape to a Les Paul but the upper bout looks smaller and resembles a B&G Little Sister (do you know these wonderful but expensive guitars?). The Choirboy also looks very interesting too and more closely resembles the Rickenbacker 325 in pickup combination and it also has a F hole. I guess you live in the US as I don't think they were sold in the UK as there are none for sale on Ebay except in the US. It's a bit amusing that the brand chose almost two opposing names for these guitars..."thug" and "choirboy"!! Well I'm a 73 yr old fella and grew up with the Beatles of course and my young grand daughters are guitarists as is my daughter. The three play classical guitar but the elder granddaughter has one of my electrics and is trying to form a little band. When asked what songs they'd try to learn she said Beatles songs. Again, very nice to hear from you and hope you have a very good 2023! All the best Rob
Hi, yes it does sound like a R........... just a pity about the overall finish is poor but I guess you get what you pay for. Thanks for the comment Holidaythailand2010.
Hi Rob enjoyed your video , I bought a black one of these called Fazley from Bax music a few years ago worst paint job ive ever seen on a guitar some of the frets fell out when I took it out of the box it came in, packing was terrible last week I decided to strip the paint off and do it cherry red and discovered two major cracks in the neck managed to repair it and done a fret level on it they are selling for £128.00 from back music if are prepared to practice your Luthier skills. anyway you must do some more videos, nice and relaxed a pleasure to watch Thanks.
Thanks for the comments Gary. Sounds like you had a bad one there but it confirms what I feel about the factory producing these guitars and the poor quality control standards that Bax and Gear4Music expected from the factory. The other thing is that the guitars come into the music superstores in their packing and never get checked. They just get sent out. So, it's a double failure of quality control then. The question is, how much more would it add to the production costs to sort out such things About the cracks in the neck you found, that could have been a big problem sooner or later and I always think that anywhere where you can't see the underlying wood (painted over), films used etc then you can expect the worst wood to be used. Frets should never fall out but I heard from another guy about a diferent guitar I cover in my reviews (the very popular Harley Benton mahogany travel guitar) that he had one with the frets falling out and other problems. And in a different comment, someone said that if he was advising someone to buy a first guitar with no luthery experience or tools, then avoid using these big store direct marketing products and pay that bit extra and go into a store and take a guitar friend who can check out frets, intonation, etc etc. My borther-in-law bought a cheap guitar on the internet a few years ago, tried to learn for a bit but gave up because the fret ends were cutting his fingers and the thing wold never stay in tune. So he gave up for years. I gave him an old one of mine which I'd worked on and he's playing away like billy-oh now!! Thanks again Gary : hope your ("not a rick 330 copy") gives you some pleasure now you've done so much work on it. Rob
Thanks JIggersotoole. Much appreciated. This song will be on my next CD as it seems even more topical now with the drought here in the UK not to mention the war in Ukraine! Think it needs another verse. Thinking....... All the best Rob
I've had a "Ricky 330" copy for about five years, it's black and white, has "Gear4Music" emblazoned on the stock/head... and it seems to be practically impossible to find any information about via Google. I've never actually used it for recording, but having dusted it off, restrung it and played it today, I think that'll change. For something which cost about £125 it has a nice action and selection of tones, and no discernible fret buzzing. I'd say the 300 series (and decent copies) make for good rhythm guitars, and also ideal instruments to learn on due to their relatively small size.
HI Mikey, thanks for the comment and nice to hear from you and your experience with the Gear4Music version of the Ricky 330. It's interesting that the manufacturer is selling the same kind of guitar through BAX under the Fazley brand. Thomann also have a kind of copy under their Harley Benton name. It's interesting that Rickenbacker haven't stepped on these versions (yet!!!). Quite a long time ago, the budget brand "Encore" made a really nice copy of these guitars which I still wish I had bought but had no cash at the time. I gifted my Santa Ana guitar to one of my grand-daughters and its a nice guitar for a 12 year old because its quite small and light and I agree has quite a nice range of tones. So, as you say, a good guitar to learn on. Nice to hear from you and hope you have a happy new year. All the best Rob
@@robrobson7101 Thank you for your reply, Rob, it's much appreciated. I'm thinking that Rickenbacker are a bit like The Beatles and Apple Records (etc) in that unofficial produce and media on RUclips will be around for a while, then a "cease and desist" will inevitably be issued. It seems quite likely that it's the exact same instrument, or near enough, will keep being made and it simply gets renamed. I hope your granddaughter enjoys her guitar. My first guitar was a horrible thing which cost me about £25 in 1979 and the action was so high I could barely play it. It was rough all round and wasn't a copy of anything in particular. I remember the name Encore: I might have had a guitar by them actually, but all I recall is the name. Best wishes. Mike.
Hi batphink2655, nice to hear from you. We're still getting these scam calls, 3 or 4 a day. Yes we can block them but they always use different numbers so that's useless and a waste of time. It really puts us off answering the phone when it might be an unknown number but with something important. What gets me is that the phone companies could fix this: They can (and must?) monitor phone usage and could easily identify the kind of traffic scammers generate and they could surely block it or better still inactivate the sources. My view is that they are enabling the activities of scammers and criminals often from outside the UK (in my case). This could also apply to "legitimate" cold-callers who could be asked to apply for a license to do so and have to adhere to strict rules of operation. Am I hoping for too much: but after all we are living in the AI world. All the best Rob
Hi Bill, good to hear from you and thanks for the comment. So, I have spoiled her rotten! She's just got to 13 and wants to do recording. So, we set her up with a DAW (REAPER of course) which she took to in no time, an interface, a small midi keyboard, a dynamic and a condenser mic plus stands. we uploaded several vstis (drum machine, keyboard sounds, synthesizer, sampled orchestral instruments and, you'll be very pleased to hear, the BluCat guitar amp simulator). So the gal is set to "GO". Be interesting to see what she cones up with!! All the best Rob
@@robrobson7101 well spoiled sir I don't have kids (couldn't find a woman to put up with me sadly) but I have five niece's who have born fruit and a nephew likewise they all get ukuleles , harmonica's and sometimes a bohdran (not sure of spelling) one niece's Irish hubby was quite impressed found a small one on Amazon infect them young I say you must be proud my friend 👍
Hi BeedWaxMinder (interesting name by the way!) thanks for the watching the video and for the question. Not open tuning just standard. I play open tunings on my acoustic gutars but not on my electrics (apart from playing slide guitar (badly!). Don't know why really. So the little high riff at the start of the second bit of the demo is (going from 6th to 1st string) is x,x,10,12,10,12 then x,x,3,5,3,5. then x,0,x,5,3,0 then full barred F and G. Several picking patterns used. All the best and Happy Christmas! Rob
@@robrobson7101 thank you so much, Rob, for taking the time out, especially this busy time of year, to explain and also happy Christmas and best wishes for the season to you and yours👍
Hi Jamie, thanks for your question and it's nice that you might like to buy this guitar. However, it's now on more or less permanent loan to one of my young grand daughters so it's really not mine now. It's a pity there isn't a "sunburst" version made by Fazley. Originally , Gear4music sent me a black one by mistake which I could have kept but I didn't really prefer it. So, sorry, keep looking. There are other older Ricky "sunburst" copies around so if you're searching you could look for an old Encore version. I played one a long time ago and it sounded more like a Ricky. Nearly bought it but didn't have two beans to rub together then. And of course Rickenbacker effectively protect their copyrights so no one can produce "copies" for long. Sorry All the best Rob
![COLOMBIA vs. CHILE [4-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TDjN4W3yy1k/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks so much, friend. A really helpful demo and well-delivered. Cheers from KY Appalachia.
Hi Paul, good to hear from you and especially all the way from Appalachia, a lovely part of the States. (I lived in Athens, GA for 7 years which is in the foothills of the Piedmont). Are you thinking to get one of these guitars or already have one? It's surprising that the famous guitar maker beginning with "R" hasn't sued the maker/sellers for copyright issues.
All the best
Rob
Great, very informative review - thanks!!!
Glad it was helpful! All the best Rob
Your playing is gorgeous mate.
I have the Black version, I like it's small size and sound.
I've just bought a fazley from bax as I'm in a beatles tribute and after a bit of intonation setup and restringing it's plays beautifully. Nice video and very informative, thanks Bill.
HI Mark, nice to hear from you. Yes they're OK these guitars. Mine wasn't really well finished but maybe yours is much better? It's cosmetic of course. I've found that strings can make a big difference to its sound too. Normally I will put 10s on but shifting up to 13s really gets more bite on the treble as could be expected but you'll probably have to readjust the intonation. Just a thought.
All the best
Rob
@@robrobson7101 I took it to get the intonation and put a set of 9's on as I only play rythm. The paint job wasn't perfect but it's not noticeable on stage. Thanks so much for the advice buddy. Take care.
I bought a Fazley T style about 2 years ago it was fine after a strip down and setup and still does my niece well !
I would say you seem to get better quality control with Thomann's Harley Benton particularly with the set neck mahogany models ,I got a Santana style double cut with Grover hardware for less than 150 sounded good , but I succumbed and put some genuine PRS Santana pickups in for 50 off ebay now it is a fantastic instrument.
I would add that all needed to be setup, polish the frets(and level some) and a little tidying but are at a price where people can be unafraid of learning these skills.
Hey Rob that guitar sounds great and very close to those 'jangly' guitars and looks nice too! Did you smooth the fret edges? I have a Fazley Outlaw series Tele and my fret edges are a tad rough but otherwise besides a setup and string change plays great a lot of guitar for little money including string through body, Graphtec nut, Wilkinson bridge!
Hi batphinik, good to hear from you. It's a nice guitar which Fazley now sells as I'm sure you know. Mine was bought from Gear4Music in the UK. The finish was very good generally but I did some work on it including the fret ends which did need smoothing. It's quite a small/light guitar and it's not with me just now as I've given it to my young grand daughters who are guitar players who wanted to try an electric guitar. Fazley are selling a good range of guitars in lots of finishes. I haven't bought anything from them (yet!). I quite fancy the Jaguar-like guitar they sell. All the best
Rob
Hi Rob,
Nice guitar, and demo.
I just ordered a Fazely like yours from Bax music this afternoon. Didn't know they were originally marketed through Gear for Music. It will look nice next to my Hofner violin bass!
Yes... I am a Beatles fan.
Hi Colin, yes this is not a bad copy of a "325" so hope you'll be happy with it. Yes, so this guitar has the look of course. The finish on mine could have been better but a little bit of TLC and it's fine now. I think G4M sold this originally and as far as I can tell Bax/Fazley is a relatively new music warehouse/brand. Actually mine is now on permanent loan to one of my two grand daughters both of whom are carrying on the family guitar tradition. The other one has one of my Squier Strats. Must be nice to have a Hofner bass. I'm a Beatles fan too of course. I have an Epiphone Limited Edition EJ 160E/VS electro acoustic guitar. Nice instrument. I'll put up a RUclips video about it when I can get round to it. What's next ? How about an Epiphone Casino?
All the best and vey nice to hear from you
Rob
@@robrobson7101 Good idea about the Casino, and not as expensive as a Gretsch Country Gentleman!!!
@@colinstuckey1053 I don't have a Casino but I do have an Epiphone Wildkat. A bit smaller than a Casino but still semi hollow and with a Bigsby. A very nice guitar. I think it was a reissue like the Nighthawk. The world of guitars eh!!!
@@robrobson7101 Ha, at least it's a bit closer than my "Mockenbacker" is to its original...
Thanks for your reply Mr. Robson. I have a little guitar called a Brownsville Thug. It was the Same Ash house brand guitar a few years ago and has two truly toaster style, single coil pickups that sound quite good, I think. Being a 74-year-old fellar the Beatles figured prominently in my early years. I've always favored the earlier songs with their pure guitar tones and lovely melodies. John's percussive, bright rythm parts were just so good I've always been intrigued by his guitar of choice. Please look up the Brownsville guitars. They're really very nice. I hope you're doing fine.
Hi Paul, very nice to hear from you. I straight away looked up this guitar because I'd never heard of them. It looks really nice with a great many nice finishes. It's kind of similar in shape to a Les Paul but the upper bout looks smaller and resembles a B&G Little Sister (do you know these wonderful but expensive guitars?). The Choirboy also looks very interesting too and more closely resembles the Rickenbacker 325 in pickup combination and it also has a F hole. I guess you live in the US as I don't think they were sold in the UK as there are none for sale on Ebay except in the US. It's a bit amusing that the brand chose almost two opposing names for these guitars..."thug" and "choirboy"!!
Well I'm a 73 yr old fella and grew up with the Beatles of course and my young grand daughters are guitarists as is my daughter. The three play classical guitar but the elder granddaughter has one of my electrics and is trying to form a little band. When asked what songs they'd try to learn she said Beatles songs.
Again, very nice to hear from you and hope you have a very good 2023!
All the best
Rob
It certainly sounds like a Ricky, good video, good for Indy tones
Hi, yes it does sound like a R........... just a pity about the overall finish is poor but I guess you get what you pay for. Thanks for the comment Holidaythailand2010.
Hi Rob enjoyed your video , I bought a black one of these called Fazley from Bax music a few years ago worst paint job ive ever seen on a guitar some of the frets fell out when I took it out of the box it came in, packing was terrible last week I decided to strip the paint off and do it cherry red and discovered two major cracks in the neck managed to repair it and done a fret level on it they are selling for £128.00 from back music if are prepared to practice your Luthier skills. anyway you must do some more videos, nice and relaxed a pleasure to watch Thanks.
Thanks for the comments Gary. Sounds like you had a bad one there but it confirms what I feel about the factory producing these guitars and the poor quality control standards that Bax and Gear4Music expected from the factory. The other thing is that the guitars come into the music superstores in their packing and never get checked. They just get sent out. So, it's a double failure of quality control then. The question is, how much more would it add to the production costs to sort out such things About the cracks in the neck you found, that could have been a big problem sooner or later and I always think that anywhere where you can't see the underlying wood (painted over), films used etc then you can expect the worst wood to be used. Frets should never fall out but I heard from another guy about a diferent guitar I cover in my reviews (the very popular Harley Benton mahogany travel guitar) that he had one with the frets falling out and other problems. And in a different comment, someone said that if he was advising someone to buy a first guitar with no luthery experience or tools, then avoid using these big store direct marketing products and pay that bit extra and go into a store and take a guitar friend who can check out frets, intonation, etc etc. My borther-in-law bought a cheap guitar on the internet a few years ago, tried to learn for a bit but gave up because the fret ends were cutting his fingers and the thing wold never stay in tune. So he gave up for years. I gave him an old one of mine which I'd worked on and he's playing away like billy-oh now!!
Thanks again Gary : hope your ("not a rick 330 copy") gives you some pleasure now you've done so much work on it.
Rob
@@robrobson7101 Hi Rob Thanks for taking time to reply, all the best Gary.
Nice playing 👌
Thanks JIggersotoole. Much appreciated. This song will be on my next CD as it seems even more topical now with the drought here in the UK not to mention the war in Ukraine! Think it needs another verse. Thinking.......
All the best
Rob
I've had a "Ricky 330" copy for about five years, it's black and white, has "Gear4Music" emblazoned on the stock/head... and it seems to be practically impossible to find any information about via Google. I've never actually used it for recording, but having dusted it off, restrung it and played it today, I think that'll change. For something which cost about £125 it has a nice action and selection of tones, and no discernible fret buzzing. I'd say the 300 series (and decent copies) make for good rhythm guitars, and also ideal instruments to learn on due to their relatively small size.
HI Mikey, thanks for the comment and nice to hear from you and your experience with the Gear4Music version of the Ricky 330. It's interesting that the manufacturer is selling the same kind of guitar through BAX under the Fazley brand. Thomann also have a kind of copy under their Harley Benton name. It's interesting that Rickenbacker haven't stepped on these versions (yet!!!). Quite a long time ago, the budget brand "Encore" made a really nice copy of these guitars which I still wish I had bought but had no cash at the time. I gifted my Santa Ana guitar to one of my grand-daughters and its a nice guitar for a 12 year old because its quite small and light and I agree has quite a nice range of tones. So, as you say, a good guitar to learn on.
Nice to hear from you and hope you have a happy new year.
All the best
Rob
@@robrobson7101 Thank you for your reply, Rob, it's much appreciated. I'm thinking that Rickenbacker are a bit like The Beatles and Apple Records (etc) in that unofficial produce and media on RUclips will be around for a while, then a "cease and desist" will inevitably be issued. It seems quite likely that it's the exact same instrument, or near enough, will keep being made and it simply gets renamed. I hope your granddaughter enjoys her guitar. My first guitar was a horrible thing which cost me about £25 in 1979 and the action was so high I could barely play it. It was rough all round and wasn't a copy of anything in particular. I remember the name Encore: I might have had a guitar by them actually, but all I recall is the name.
Best wishes.
Mike.
I forgot over 'ere' in Canada we get about 10-20 scam calls each day drives me bonkers!
Hi batphink2655, nice to hear from you. We're still getting these scam calls, 3 or 4 a day. Yes we can block them but they always use different numbers so that's useless and a waste of time. It really puts us off answering the phone when it might be an unknown number but with something important. What gets me is that the phone companies could fix this: They can (and must?) monitor phone usage and could easily identify the kind of traffic scammers generate and they could surely block it or better still inactivate the sources. My view is that they are enabling the activities of scammers and criminals often from outside the UK (in my case). This could also apply to "legitimate" cold-callers who could be asked to apply for a license to do so and have to adhere to strict rules of operation. Am I hoping for too much: but after all we are living in the AI world.
All the best
Rob
Make sure she gets a couple of pedal's and an amp go on spoil her rotten your her grandpa it's your job !👍👏🇫🇴
Hi Bill, good to hear from you and thanks for the comment. So, I have spoiled her rotten! She's just got to 13 and wants to do recording. So, we set her up with a DAW (REAPER of course) which she took to in no time, an interface, a small midi keyboard, a dynamic and a condenser mic plus stands. we uploaded several vstis (drum machine, keyboard sounds, synthesizer, sampled orchestral instruments and, you'll be very pleased to hear, the BluCat guitar amp simulator). So the gal is set to "GO". Be interesting to see what she cones up with!!
All the best
Rob
@@robrobson7101 well spoiled sir I don't have kids (couldn't find a woman to put up with me sadly) but I have five niece's who have born fruit and a nephew likewise they all get ukuleles , harmonica's and sometimes a bohdran (not sure of spelling) one niece's Irish hubby was quite impressed found a small one on Amazon infect them young I say you must be proud my friend 👍
Are you using an “open tuning” there, Sir?
Hi BeedWaxMinder (interesting name by the way!) thanks for the watching the video and for the question. Not open tuning just standard. I play open tunings on my acoustic gutars but not on my electrics (apart from playing slide guitar (badly!). Don't know why really. So the little high riff at the start of the second bit of the demo is (going from 6th to 1st string) is x,x,10,12,10,12 then x,x,3,5,3,5. then x,0,x,5,3,0 then full barred F and G.
Several picking patterns used.
All the best and Happy Christmas!
Rob
@@robrobson7101 thank you so much, Rob, for taking the time out, especially this busy time of year, to explain and also happy Christmas and best wishes for the season to you and yours👍
Would u be interested in selling this guitar??
Hi Jamie, thanks for your question and it's nice that you might like to buy this guitar. However, it's now on more or less permanent loan to one of my young grand daughters so it's really not mine now. It's a pity there isn't a "sunburst" version made by Fazley. Originally , Gear4music sent me a black one by mistake which I could have kept but I didn't really prefer it. So, sorry, keep looking. There are other older Ricky "sunburst" copies around so if you're searching you could look for an old Encore version. I played one a long time ago and it sounded more like a Ricky. Nearly bought it but didn't have two beans to rub together then. And of course Rickenbacker effectively protect their copyrights so no one can produce "copies" for long. Sorry
All the best
Rob