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So, I saw that Long and Mcquade, duuring ROCKTOBER had reuced the price of the Kramer Baretta Special to $259 plus HST. I had a $100 gift card. Seems obvious, no?
Came with lots of nice little things (I bought the strings and the nut).
The mission statement is clear:
And it was sent with love (or a perfunctory inspection).
Now to the good stuff:
Yep, that colour is something else. And it was almost in tune out of the box, even if the action was a smidge high.
As for tone, I found it a titch muffled, so pickup adjustment may be in order. The famed "on-off switch" (aka, volume pot with treble bleed that does nothing until it is almost completely rolled off) is in the house, although it never totally turns off. At zero volume, I get what I would normally expect at 2. I will snip the cap, and may even go so far as to put in a new pot if this one is bad. As well, a set of stainless or brass saddles could wake it up a lot. I am even considering upgrading the bridge -- some interesting stuff out there if you know where to look. Or....rhymes with Lloyd Nose.
The neck....I can see why these are so popular. This is a very swift neck. Think Fender medium C, but a little thinner, and with a flatter radius. And the frets are bigger than anticipated too. The one I played previously felt like it had smaller frets (medium jumbos) but these look and feel bigger (that's what she said). At any rate, I can play quickly on this guitar even with the high action.
The body is nice and light -- almost toy-like. I will have to investigate whether the body is "mahogany" or maple. It was made in Indonesia, but I am not sure what that means in terms of woods. It sustains decently and plays well on the stock strings. A set of my usual upgrades (stainless steel or hardened steel fasteners wherever possible) may help with this.
Tuning stability is not the best. Cheap tuners, a plastic nut, with heavily angled strings will do that to you. Hopefully it will improve with the Tusq XL nut, though I gather that even then, it won't allow for heavy trem work. And if I am getting into the tuners, might as well do more like change the hardware colour, etc. That's not why I bought it though really.
In short, this thing is basically a no-brainer if you catch one on sale. Pick the colour you like, roll with it, and have some fun. It's a hoot.