Grant B. on 12/04/2018
I love this guitar! 6 string Merus Neck through with Ebony fretboard, wenge and maple neck with stainless steel frets, Floyd Rose whammy, with Dimarzio pickups. aqua blue with blue burst quilted maple top. I can't gush enough or write enough compliments about how awesome my new custom guitar is that you made me. It is virtually everything I've ever wanted in a guitar. I love it.
I played it at my gig Saturday night and it performed beautifully. Everyone wanted to see it and learn about it. They were impressed, both band mates and the audience alike.
Some cool things: the tone of the guitar is outstanding and during practice on Friday, the band remarked several times how much better it sounded than my other guitars. I have a lot of nice guitars and many have top of the line pickups installed, so for this one to stand out as much as it did in their minds is a testament to the amazing high quality of this guitar. I love all of the tonal options and the ability to switch between them easily. I'm still getting used to it and I haven't tapped in to all of the options yet, but so far, so good.
Usually at a gig, I swap between 3-6 guitars for different tones and in some cases, different tunings. Saturday's gig all of the songs were in standard so I didn't need to worry about that. But I ended up playing the new custom guitar exclusively through the whole gig and never grabbed my Tele or any of my Ibanez guitars. It just sounds so good in so many situations I couldn't put it down. I even left my acoustic in the case and played my new custom electric for the five songs I would've used the acoustic for. Neither the band nor the crowd complained!
Next, the feel of guitar is unlike anything I've ever played. The smooth ebony fretboard, the satin finish on the neck, the neck through body so access to the upper frets was easier, the awesome job Brandon did on the satin to gloss transition on the neck felt perfect and shape and contour of the body and neck made it comfortable to play.
It looks beautiful and I still can't get over how gorgeous the color, bindings and fret inlays look. The headstock looks super good, and it is, the whole guitar, just a gorgeous piece of art. I'm impressed. In fact, I caught myself staring at it while playing almost losing myself while playing!
The whammy bar plays just the way I want it too. Tight but loose, if you know what I mean. Somehow, you struck the perfect balance. Even better is the ability to yank that thing up & backwards, I really appreciate the extra effort you took to deepen the cavity so I can do that.
All in all, this is an A+ guitar that has everything I've ever really wanted/needed in a guitar. Every time I play it, I'm in heaven. It really is amazing what you guys have done. Never before have I been able to get all of these features in the same guitar, from the tone woods, the neck through, the shape, the feel, the finish and look, the pickups, the controls with coil splitting and hi pass filters, I mean it is crazy good.
There are some website options that I think can be improved: the neck I chose includes Purple heart but the website doesn't mention this. I personally am really glad that this turned out the way that it did, but it would have been nice to know ahead of time.
Your pickup options: I think you should have Gravity Storms as an option, they sound so good.
More locking whammy options would be nice, Ibanez has a really nice whammy system.
The purple color for the purple burst is too dark on your website, it might be better to brighten it up a bit.
Allow the control configuration that I have: all four knobs for tone and volume and the pick up selector in the same place.
If Satin and Gloss are chosen on the same guitar, masking/polishing options, especially for the neck.
That was an issue I ran into and had I not lived so close to your shop, I would have been disappointed & angry when I got the guitar.
Having the body rounded on the bottom like I have is a great option and I am so glad you made it available to me. Having it as an option for website would be great.
Having a set-up page: how high/low the action should be, how balanced the pickups should be and close they should be to the strings, what type of strings you want, how straight the neck should be, how the whammy bar should be set up, etc, having a page that is dedicated to that at the end of the process would be a cool way to finish the order.
Finally, the ability to paint the guitar different colors on different parts of the body. So, for example, having the bottom of the body be a bright Blue but have it fade into a dark purple towards the top, or something similar would be a nice option on the website. So much of it is visualization and to have those options would be cool.
Obviously, the time it takes to get the guitar done from order to finish is something that needs to improve, and it appears you are addressing that by hiring more workers.