A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

I got this and the Vola at pretty much the same time.

I've also been quite curious about killswitches for a while, but never owned or really even played anything with one.

I poked around on the Firefly direct sales site (GuitarsGarden.com) and they had this thing in stock, as well as the baritone version of the same thing. I already have a blacktop baritone Telecaster though and don't really need another baritone (and I know I wouldn't play it as much as a standard scale one) so I opted for the vanilla 24.75" scale. It took about a week to get here.

I'm pretty impressed with it for the price. It was around $250 shipped. I think it looks pretty nice, I wasn't expecting the binding to be what it is, but it looks pretty cool. It's like an almost transparent looking cream and triple black, the cream kind of surprised me but I got used to it pretty quick. It's not flawless but it looks pretty good, and I don't expect more than that for this price. Visually it's striking like the "real" one, with a bright white paint job, mots block inlays, clear speed knobs, and the red killswitches. The switch wiring is slightly weird (to me, maybe this is normal) in that the one in the normal switch location kills in the neck and middle positions and one closest to the output jack only kills the bridge position. I might open it up and see what I'd have to do to make them both just kill whatever (run a wire directly to the output jack maybe?), but it's not a big deal.

The pickups seem fine, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say that they sound fantastic clean (although they don't sound bad) but for dirt they seem perfectly serviceable. Oddly the pole screw on the B string for the neck pickup is screwed in less than the other strings, but if I can find a screwdriver I can adjust that. Odd, wonder if it was on purpose for some reason.

The neck is a little thicker than I'd have expected but maybe I'm just getting used to that Vola's thin neck. It feels kinda like my Heritage H150 or maybe the PRS SE Zach Myers in shape but with a heavy gloss finish. There is a very slight ridge where the neck binding meets the neck and it seems like a spot that might build up finger crud and look dirty on a cream-on-blinding-white color scheme, but it's not really something you feel while playing. I guess it remains to be seen. The frets are that new style of stainless ones with ball ends and they feel great.

The tuners are unbranded but locking grover style and they felt pretty smooth when I was tuning it up. The strings it came with even seem decent, they look and feel like they might be real d'addarios, feel like 010 gauge. I haven't felt the need to change them immediately as I have basically every other cheap Chinese guitar I've ever gotten my hands on. If I swap them out it'll be more because I want to get some 9.5's or 9's on there than that I think these are bad. Although they did string is a little weird, there are multiple winds on the tiny little tuner pegs even though they're lockers.

It's not light but for an LP style it's not that heavy. I haven't weighed it but I'd guess somewhere between 8 and and 8.5 lbs.

And the star of the show, the killswitches: They're cool as hell and I love them. Not sure how I'll use them or even if I'll use them that much playing with others, but they are fun like a trem is fun--open up the opportunity to make a lot of ear-catching and expressive sounds, and that's what these machines are built for.

I should say, too, I had two Firefly guitars previously and sold them both, the 335 clone and the thinline tele clone, both purchased probably back in like 2018 or so. Those were nice guitars for the price too but they have honestly stepped up their game in the interim, imo.

Looks like a lot of fun. I added a kill switch on one mod project just because, and I agree. It's a fun thing to have on a guitar, even if I don't ever use it in a meaningful way.

I'm not much of a Les Paul guy (my Agile AL-2000 is all I need)...BUT that is a cool-looking guitar! I dig it. If I bought one I'd put a Les Trem on it, cause I need my whammy.

I just snagged a Firefly Explorer off Amazon Resale site. As with all sight-unseen guitars, it needs a good setup. Nut slots are high, pickups sound like doo doo so, they're coming out. Pretty axe, tho:

Buckhead ..is that the one he uses when he plays Atlanta?

Buckhead is the Chinese knock-off of Buckethead.

Oops. I used to work in Buckhead, I'm up in Alpharetta.

To follow up on this one after a little more time: The biggest issue with it is that the pickup volumes aren't balanced, the bridge is much quieter than the neck. Not so quiet that it's unusable, but even with the bridge adjusted as high as it can go without hitting strings, and the neck down at body level the neck is still much louder. I haven't opened it up to try to diagnose the problem yet. I also probably wouldn't use these pickups clean but they seem good enough for stuff with a lot of gain--one of the other guys played it at last week's jam and he had no complaints (his normal guitar is a LP studio).

Nice! I've seen Buckethead live a couple of times. Several years ago, I put kill-switches on a couple of guitars to play around with them. It takes some talent and good legato skills to make it sound right. HNGD!

Oh man nice! I have 3 firefly guitars. Two ff338 gold and black and a distressed Ffmn. All play great. I did have to replace the locking nut on the Ffmn but they refunded me the $$.