FENDER Custom Shop VS. a modded $220 AMAZON guitar
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- Heya friends! Well, originally just a mod video, I decided to get a little spicy and pit my budget-minded, point-of-diminishing-return-centric geetar against the gold standard of Stratocasters. A big thx to my buddy, Dallas Dillard (ATX based guitarist and bandleader) for lending me this GORGEOUS Strat. I'll add chapters below asap, but for now there's playing, specs, mods, A/B'ing... all the nerdery I could muster. Thanks for watching and happy playing!
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I think people are missing the point of taking a cheap guitar, and turning it into something great. Doing what you are doing to that guitar is another way to express your creative side. When you're done, you have a one of a kind guitar, that mostly just cost you some time. Great job!
Welcome to post 2020 - the era of people "missing the point" of just about everything, except THEIR point.
Yep, well said Dan. Not to mention there is something admirable about learning all the ins-and-outs of your instrument, how to maintain it, intonate it... understanding why certain parts exist and their function. Nothing but positives can come from it.
I have a 1994 MIM Strat and turn it into a space ship..... I change everything except the wood
Agree 100%, been playing for 5 decades and I've loved Fender USA Strats over the years. Now the industry is upended with the discount CNC'd generic strats, and Fender is fully about stuffing the pockets of the board rooms. The cost of a USA Fender is INSANE The best out the box guitars I've found are the FireFly guitars, great for moding.
Grats on getting through Chemo!
Man, you’re a great guitar player. Awesome video, cheers.
Be well, my friend.
My nerdery meter just pinned the needle on this one! Woo!! Loved everything about this vid. Thank you, sir!! All the best to you - and congrats on wrapping up that Chemo. God bless you, Rog!!
Very interesting video - and good luck with the treatment.
I really appreciate your practical approach to the components (ie. pickup specs). It's ok for us to acknowledge where things are similar *and also* appreciate the great things about more expensive options.
Absolutely!
Well spoken, sir. I love cheap guitars and the fun of modding, but I'll never begrudge someone else their guitar tastes... so long as they PLAY them, and not just hang them on the wall! 😹
I ordered an AIO TC4 (Tele) a few weeks ago....$390....which is a budget guitar with nice bones (Mahogany body, ebony FB, bone nut, locking tuners, Wilkinson brass comp saddles) and set up to supposedly "Custom Shop standards" by AIO luthier/techs (mine was exceptional!!) ...and with some Fender CS '51 Nocaster pups, killer guitar. BUT, sounded even better when I dropped in a set of Suhr Classic Ts (that I was selling but decided to give it one more shot). The Suhr's really brought the guitar to life! Must be the mahogany body which complimented the bright Suhr pups. Overall, plays and sounds similar to my $4500 CS Closet Classic. Love this little budget AIO/Suhr beast.
Great job! I love what you've done with that little Amazon strat! I never buy cheap guitars, but last May I was with my dad at a music store and was so impressed with a $200 Jet T style guitar that i bought one. I even made a special trip back to the store to get the blue one. I picked up my dad, we went to the store, i played it, and i bought it. I later wondered why I did it? I never buy cheap guitars. Turns out, that would be the very last time my dad and I would go anywhere and do anything together. He got sick the very next day, and on June 22nd, he passed away. He was 80. After watching your videos, im inspired to do the same thing with my $200 jet. Sounds like a lot of fun, and my dad left me all his luthier tools. I just have to figure out what does what, lol.
So sorry about your dad. I haven't played a Jet yet but from everything I've read and heard they look like great guitars! It's great you have your dad's tools. That adds another level to learning and doing the work yourself.
Great video and beautiful playing! Keep fighting the good fight 💪
Very Nice Guitars and playing, you rock dude
I bought the same KGD guitar and I was very surprised and pleased at the results for the price.
First, wishing you the best of luck with the health issues. Second, thanks for the video. And third, great playing!
First time seeing your channel. Well done. First let me say, I listen to a lot of guitar RUclipsrs and your mic'd amp sound is dialed in! It sounds terrific! Second thing I'll say is that I have been a fan of Artec pickups for a while now and I put them in a lot of my builds. You did a great job of demonstrating the tremendous value of these pickups. Great channel, great sounds, great chops. Cheers!
Looks absolutely great👍🏼
Absolutely brilliant video and playing. You have a new sub and a like. Thank you!
First off, I pray your cancer treatments and health progress well. One the video, very excellent video and GREAT playing….very informative and entertaining….awesome tones. I would love to buy one of your pieces of work if possible, let me know how….and last, keep the videos and playing coming!
Thanks for this! Great job on breaking it all down for us. I did buy one of these KGD's and agree with your assessment. But if you're not married to the appeal/ status of owning a Fender and just looking for a very good and solid guitar, then this guitar is a good bet. I'm of an age where I was just starting out when Fender was bought out by CBS so have owned my share of vintage, pre-CBS models. Finding something like this KGD scratches the itch for me- appreciate your tips & suggestions on modifications. Thanks again- wishing you continued recovery and healing! AND BTW, love to hear you play!!
I would take a wild guess and say that a blind side-by-side sound test of the two guitars would not result in an absolute ability to tell the difference between the 2. Both sound very good. I listened to the vid without watching (made the conscious decision to listen with my ears first and not my eyes, LOL). The guitars to my ears did not sound demonstrably different (barring the fact that I have the ears of a 73 year old guitarist that has been playing since age 15). Thanks very much for a great vid and all the hard work and effort you put in to it. Wishing you all the best and continue the good fight against cancer! Cheers from Canada.
Cheers! Yeah, absolutely. There are differences but, in a blind test and without having spent time with each, I don’t think I could’ve told you which was which now.
Good god the man can play!
Thanks for putting out great content! Thoughts and prayers on the cancer front. Did a deep dive into your band Mingo Fishtrap after your song "On Time" got me hooked!
Great playing
What a great video, thank you!
nice to hear from u mate, and very good vid
That guitar is stunning. The "cheap" one. In that regard, it blows away the CS.
Everything said is completely valid I think. Nice playing… get well soon buddy…
Love the Green color
Try Mohawk instrument lacquer on top of shellac. Shellac is the trad sealer for lacquer. Skip the rattle can, get the pint can, mix it 50/50 with lacquer thinner and "rub" coats on like you do for French polish with shellac.
I'll do about 15-20 wiped on coats for a neck. I'll knock a stickier gloss off with 1000 grit but playing does the same thing. Nice stuff.
Love Artecs. Formvar would take you back to pre-CBS spec, if you're truly pickup sniffing. The ones you got spec like the very last pickups before gray bobbin enameled wire, nice stuff. Put a steel backplates on the bridge pickup, see if you like it. I like plates on all 3, changes the bloom thru a tube amp
With You, Man!
Nice work, detailed description, and excellent play. I can't help but think that KGD and Fofill are very similar. Wishing you a full recovery.
As fate would have it, I actually modded a Fojill Strat copy at the same time as this one. Def some similarities, but the Fojill is more “traditional” in its geometry and cuts, etc. Aaaaaand, it’s cheaper! Both came out great. At some point I’ll get a vid up with that (as well as a Fojill Tele mod to be a Nashville Tele layout).
Great video as always!
nice playing dude : }
Marvelous
never seen your channel before, but well done on the treatment.
Guyker has some very intelligently designed modern bridges that have the bridge plate and block holes elongated thus reducing contact and friction where the string comes in through the block and exits the bridge. Gotoh had a similar design that so expensive and very difficult to manufacture ( this is why they stopped making them). How in the hell Guyker did this and doesn’t market them heavily is beyond me.
Nice work
I bought one of these after seeing your last video. I put a VegaTrem, Fralin Hot 60s pickups, and Tone Ninja locking tuners on it. It's a pretty cool guitar, but I like my Jet strats more as far as cheap guitars go. Pickups are really the only thing I have to replace on those.
I haven't had a chance to play a Jet, but they look like a great value!
Praying for you
Wow! What a,great mods to that $200 strat. If you ever want to sell it. Please contact me first. I like the headstock and the sound of those mods. Thank you again and hoping for your full recovery. FYI don't forget me if ever you sell your mods strat 🙂 I'm a serious buyer! Thank you
another difference is that a modded cheap guitar will always (unfairly) be worth less than the sum of its parts. A custom shop will have been appreciating for some time.
Great vid, it is always about how the neck feels, the ascetics and the way it sounds will be secondary and an easy fix for a low cost.
Will a custom shop make you play better? Hopefully it will make you play more.
You can pickup a great amp, and make a good recording setup plus take wifey out first a great dinner to boot, with the cash your not spending on the custom shop, lol
That guitar came out great Rog! One thing I noticed that you possibly did but didn't mention was rub out the body? Mine had a semi-flat finish, and it looks like you maybe rubbed yours to a more glossy finish. I've done that with other "relic" finish guitars that come sprayed with a dull flat finish that although looks less like glossy poly, isn't really realistic aging either, so you don't get the believable ancient vibe thing happening. A guitar from the 50's shouldn't look like it just had a fresh coat of flat clear. I also used the Guyker big block trem but I'm even cheaper than you 😆 I used the chrome non aged, although Guyker has a lot of options. But the trem is great and rock solid! Over the years I've come up with my own process to age chrome that's pretty convincing, without so much of the sanded, steel wooly obvious "scratched" results I see in so many "age hardware" videos. Looking at loads of actual old guitars that come through a luthier friends shop and pictures in books helps get an idea of natural age. So I just aged all of the chrome hardware and the shiny new Guyker trem. Like you say it's an aesthetic preference anyway like the checking which I also do with blades on poly! Love all your videos, you're the reason I got the KGD! Oh, also one thing I use that actually makes those fret markers look almost identical to that Custom Shop is furniture markers either brown or mahogany, but they really get dark. I was waiting for this video, glad to see you here and also congratulations on ringing the bell!!
Mine was fairly polished out of the box. I’ve knocked that back and rebuffed (probably a few times now). It’s def trickier with polyester. Even polyurethane would be easier to get looking/feeling “right”. But, ya know, not a deal breaker for me at this cost and all.
@@MusicNerdStuff Absolutely! I think next string change I'll rub out the finish a bit more and add some checking. I was in a bit of a rush to play it😄I thought about shining it up, and after seeing your video here I really like the bit of additional shine you ended up with. 👍👍
Treat your nutrition there is a lot of information nowadays it's very very important for your situation..Very nice playing-review I wish the best
It is very difficult to hear a difference between the two guitars! I would take the one less zero every time. I have done the same to several higher end used Squiers, which I picked up for a "song" with great success... They play and sound great, and I love them. I prefer them new looking, though. Thanks, be well. Gale
Yeah, see I'd have to have the one with with 22 frets.
Same here.
There's probably a 99% chance that the Artec wire is polysol, not formvar. Polysol is what Fender uses on most of their pickups, more than formvar or enamel.
Fender says the Fat 64s are enamel insulated. Only a couple pups in the CS design guide are polysol (the noiseless stuff and the "Non-Hand Wound 65 Stratocaster"). I don't have that info for their pups outside of what's in the CS design guide, so you may well be right re: production line pups. For the years that Altec published those specs, their vintage voiced SC pups were listed as Heavy Formvar for "regular" sets and plain enamel for "pushed" sets. Their catalog changed in 2013 (which is a shame), and they don't list the wire now, but as of 2012 the equivalent pup set was formvar. I've reached out to them for clarification but haven't heard back as of typing this.
Great comparison!!! Thanks for sharing… subscribe to the channel..👏👏👌🏼
Looks great, what color trans tint dye did you use on the back of the neck? I have the same guitar and may duplicate
Both sound and look great what is the difference in feel and playability? Thanks.
It lacks tone only thing it still has technical sounds good 🎉
Place the Custom shop pickguard is the $200 guitar and how many people would be able to hear the difference?...not many if any. It then comes down to feel and playability. With Fenders current prices, its obvious some guitars are/were for Playing and performing with...and some are for collectability and egos.
I would have reshaped the headstock. It just looks weird.
Ok.. Now if you REALLY know what your doing, you can do fret jobs, leveling, crowning, tung oil on the neck, right? You know how to intonate a guitar, etc. etc.. You can take a cheap guitar and make it awesome. I agree.
But.. I don't think many of the people that would be interested in buying a $220 instrument is going to be able to take that guitar and do to it what you did to yours. I mean.. You look skilled in working on guitars.
Try a noob... They're never going to know what to do with that thing. I bet you pay a guitar tech $300 to set that thing up.?
For me man.. If im going to do that kind of work.. Id rather just start off with a good kit.
Everything he did is pretty simple to do if you have any skills working with your hands. A lot of people buy these guitars and do exactly what he did; there are lots of guitar mod pages dedicated to this stuff. Setting up a guitar is relatively easy, too many people get freaked out by trying to do it themselves, but if you take your time it's not very hard and it's fun to do.
I always advocate that the cost of a trip to a local tech be factored in to a new guitar purchase (assuming someone not comfortable with doing the work themselves). $100 can absolute get most guitars into great shape. And, for the rare occasions when that isn’t the case (and especially when we’re discussing a beginner) that tech can advise to return or exchange.
Also worth mentioning, this guitar was very solid out of the box.
The KGD it's like japanis F strat less low mid less compress
Great playing