REVIEW: My new Samick KR-660 guitar!

[Nestor]

I was wondering about the SX guitars, which look and sound pretty cool, and are dirt cheap. Anyone using those? Cheers

[garyb]

Nestor, when has anything dirt cheap been more than adequate?

when dirt cheap is adequate it's called a fabulous bargain...

[guppy]

I know that SX basses are very nice for the price.
Maybe things has changed as I looked at them years ago.
I'm sure their strat like are good for the price.

[Nestor]

Nestor, when has anything dirt cheap been more than adequate?

when dirt cheap is adequate it's called a fabulous bargain...

In that case, as long as my investigation goes on, these guitars should be called “fabulous bargains”, because they sound so well… Of course, there are details that you would have to probably handle yourself, like changing tuners, etc.

You are way much more knowable than me when it comes to instruments because you pass your day through them and hearing people talking about them. Anyway, perhaps paradigms are chancing, listen to these ones yourself, those guitars sound pretty awesome, and I need:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sClm2_alVao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb5FWBoai4g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxjQ9GtpTJI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbQKxHjgOFY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSoncnTAMrk

I am between an SX Strat or a Squier Strat, which is more than double the price, because the cheap Squier are pretty bad in general, you need to get to the “Standar” series and up. Cheers

[garyb]

sx strat or squier?

i'm sure sx is fine.


cheap guitars are made on automatic cutting lathes these days. you should get a piece of wood that is cut properly with a neck joint that fits properly. in any case, you should have a working instrument. you won't get an especially good piece of wood but that's not the end of the world. if you are going to install premium tuners and pickups, you should just spend real money and get a better instrument. these days real quality starts around $1000. it's doubtful if spending that amount of money will assure you that people will be more interested in hearing your music.

do you need a $90,000 car to go to the store? problably not. a $1500 car will do the job 99.99% of the time. does that mean that there's no difference between a $90,000 car and a $1500 car, or that the $1500 is just as nice? hell no!

if you ask if the sx guitar is playable, the answer is "yes". let's not get it twisted and call it great. the player is more important than the guitar, anyway, so...

[dante]

Its about playability as well as sound, any guitars can be made to sound great with some pedals or a valve pre with digital fx, but the issues I deal with more than that and pickups are action, and intonation.

Bar chord sounds great on the third fret ? Oops, but now moving the same Emaj shape up to the fifth fret one of the strings is sharp. Easy to work around in the studio, where you can record all the third fret stuff then re-tune for the fifth fret playing then comp into one track. But not exactly workable live.

My strat squire copy at least has locking trem, with small 'fine tuning' knobs at the bridge. It cost under $1000, but even if I were to spend $2000 Id look for the same features, and higher quality wood, full neck intonation, pickups, action etc.

Lock tuning

locktrem.jpg (13.34 KiB) Viewed 5152 times

[Nestor]

the issues I deal with more than that and pickups are action, and intonation.

I am in the same boat than you there! For me these two characteristics are the most important. If a guitar is constantly out of tune, I discard the instrument all together, even if it is a great one.

Which Squier is it that you have?

Cheers

Yes Gary, I will probably get an SX. Now, when I was looking for a new bass, remember? Well, the choices were just a few, but when it comes to guitars, there are so very many, and I will be visiting a few shops the following days, and see if there is something around here that I like. Now, SX guitars may be very cheap and all, but if you told me the first one in the video, the slide demo was a real Fender worth 3.000, I would have believed it, because it sounds so nice.
Of course, playability is important too. I am not a guitarist, but I enjoy and need a decent guitar for my tracks, for personal recording and for work. I will never play live guitar, I will play bass, and the guitar is exclusively for the studio.

Cheers

[garyb]

if you have enough instruments to choose from, it'd be best to just play everything in a price range you can afford, and buy the one that works best for you.

a guitar is about a piece of wood first. any decent guitar should have the frets cut in the right place, and most pickups work...you can't tell a good pice of wood without picking the instrument up. the squier in the same price range is plywood. maybe the sx isn't. you can only know for sure buy looking inside the body cavities.

[dante]

Which Squier is it that you have ?

Dunno but its the black one with a silvery faceplate under the Dante tab here :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_12/gtr_mst.htm

[garyb]

yes, not all Squiers are the same. the best ones were made in Japan...

[Nestor]

Which Squier is it that you have ?

Dunno but its the black one with a silvery faceplate under the Dante tab here :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_12/gtr_mst.htm

Aha..., I think yours is the Delux one, pretty cool

[Nestor]

if you have enough instruments to choose from, it'd be best to just play everything in a price range you can afford, and buy the one that works best for you.

a guitar is about a piece of wood first. any decent guitar should have the frets cut in the right place, and most pickups work...you can't tell a good pice of wood without picking the instrument up. the squier in the same price range is plywood. maybe the sx isn't. you can only know for sure buy looking inside the body cavities.

Good points friend. Yes, this is what I am planning to do, I will go and play as many as I can, then judge and get one.

[Nestor]

yes, not all Squiers are the same. the best ones were made in Japan...

I can tell you that SX are made out of real wood, not plywood, this is an advantage, look at this one for instance:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SX-Hawk-ASH-RN- ... 5af372000a

A Japan made Squire in good condition, will cost you about 500 USD, which I would pay happily, as they are really great guitars.

[garyb]

yeah, the Fernandes factory in Japan(Fender Japan's maker), made good quality instruments.

that guitar is made of 6 or 7 pieces. it's not prime wood, nor are the strips chosen for tone. my guitar is made of one piece of alder, cut in half and then bookmatched. when it was new, it wasn't that extremely different, but now that it's about 15 years old, i can feel and hear the difference that a select piece of wood makes. that doesn't mean that i couldn't use the sx and everything would be fine. i can make some kind of music with almost anything.

part of the reason my guitar has developed an amazing amount of character is because it's coated with yellowing, cracking laquer which is alcohol based and allows moisture to pass, instead of polyurethane, which is waterproof plastic. wood encased in polyurethane won't ever fully cure, but nitrocellulose laquer(like on a Japanese Squire) guitars will improve dramatically as they cure. laquer will also drive the price way up. do you need laquer? no. do you need select wood? no. those things won't make the music good either. they're really nice, if you like the guitar and if you can afford it, however. they also make it easier to play stuff that sounds pleasing to the ear. pleasing the ear isn't everyone's ambition, however.

a for what it's worth, one of the crappiest guitars ever made, the danelectro/silvertone was used on a number of mega hits. it was made of masonite(yes the brown "wood" stuff they make clipboards and other cheap things out of) and shelf paper for decoration(yes, the kind that sticks to the kitchen shelves so they don't look so disgusting). they made a bunch and they sucked, and then they reissued them and sold a bunch more, and they still have a cool, cool sound, even though they're trash.

I’m glad to say that I’ve done a bit of business with guitar virtuoso David Lindley and he ALWAYS uses cheap crappy guitars made in Japan in the late sixties and early seventies just because he loves them. He toured with Jackson Brown and hangs out with Ry Cooder, so I guess it’s ok to have a cheap guitar.

so, there's no need to romanticize the thing, use it and make good music!

[capacitor]

Lindley totally rocks. Someone I knew said that he can pick up any stringed instrument and play it.

One of my favorite guitars is a Turser (free from my brother, didn't want it). This particular guitar sounds great. Like Gary said, it's all about the piece of wood.

[Nestor]

First of all, I really enjoyed reading you Gary. You’re a lucky man to have worked with such people. I think his music is, above all, very honest, and this is saying a lot already.

Well, for the guitar thing… I’m done brother! Yehaaaa!

I went to many shops and played many guitars. I was so surprised at the horrible quality and tone of many of them… I could not believe the market has gone so low… Yes, because older guitars were MUCH better than those made nowadays, I did not tried them for many years, and can tell...

I played some Yamaha for about 380 USD and they sounded like crap. Then I played some 250 USD Ibanez, and it was enough for me to handle them in my hands to see that they were very bad guitars, nevertheless, I tried them all in a little isolated room with a very good amp, just to understand it better. I told the guy, "hey…, can you bring me something better please? What do you have there?" And he started to handle me one after the other…, I did not like them at all, not even one of them… Tone was very rough, playability uneven, but uneven in a way that you will not solve these problems with a good setup (don’t forget that I am a bass luthier myself, so I know what I am talking about). I was very disappointed at the quality and wondering about poor musicians around, could not believe it. Well, he handled me that last one, which was about 600 USD, the top of what I planned to spend…, I did not like either…

I said, “man, I will have to spend a lot of money to get something decent, or search on eBay USA and wait for a month or two for the thing to come, go through customs and all this process, with the danger of not liking it because you didn’t tried the instrument first hand". Agrrrr

Disappointed, I went to some other shops, all selling these hundreds of guitars all made for the crappy rocky heavy kids… no way!

Fortunately, I entered a shop and could see a second hand Samick R-660 that got inmediately my attention: beautiful, really nice and in almost perfect condition, top of the line wood, etc. I got it in my hands, and was surprised because it is pretty heavy for what it is, even with a slim body that it has.

These are the specs:

Samick Superstrato KR-660. Made in Korea year 1993. Volume, Tone, 5-way selector. A fantastic Floyd Rose Push-Pull System, two single coils and one humbucker, with a pretty hot and also sweet sound, exactly as I want it to be, and if you want to, it can sound lmuch like a standard Fender Strat.


The Samick KR-600 is the top of the line guitar of a series, the one you can see in this picture:



I asked the guys if I could try it out, and they let me play it. WOW! That is a guitar I say! That is a good, even, balanced sound, great playability, great electronics, fantastic body and wood. I went to the cashier immediately and go it for 270 US, to me, a fantastic deal. I love this 20 years old guitar!

Here you have a couple of videos from youtube about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn3CZFoX ... dded#at=26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMhzbJnAFSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... lI4CmKKA-s

When I am done with setup, I will upload some photos, so you can see it. I'm pretty happy guys, thank you for your help!

Cheers, and happy playing…

[garyb]

great!

iirc, Samick made instruments for most of the name brand instruments about then. they were actually the maker of a good majority of the guitars made at that time including Epiphones.

[Nestor]

great!

iirc, Samick made instruments for most of the name brand instruments about then. they were actually the maker of a good majority of the guitars made at that time including Epiphones.

Yes, you're right, I have found this out and it is true, Samick is one of the largest builders of instruments, the companies just stick their logo on it.

I'm going to clean my baby now, see you later... Her name will be "Diana", the Diva...

Then I will put Diana and Resurrection toguether so they can make a golden baby for me... And they wil...

[Nestor]

Meanwhile, clean sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r7ZSuFbbdA

Really cool!

[Nestor]

I'm setting up Diana like crazy... little time left, so far so god... It sounds pretty cool.