Axl Guitars

The AXL Badwater series of guitar is a line of guitars that you usually see for sale for around 300 bucks. They are made overseas and are pretty decent for the price. recently AXL has introduced a couple of USA made guitars for fans of the compny who want something a bit more high end. They have a strat style model and a Les Paul style model. This is the Les Paul style model which is one of their most popular models. It is called the USA 1216. The guitar is a lightly distressed finish overall. The body is made out of mahogany and the set neck is mahogany as well. The fretboard is rosewood with 22 medium frets and block inlays. Up top on the headstock you get Grover Rotomatic tuners. The bridge is a locking Tonepros Nashville tune-o-matic. The pickups are a set of Seth Lover Seymour Duncans. The controls on this guitar are pretty special. The pots on this guitar are very high end CTS units. UTILIZATION The hardware on this guitar is really good quality. There is a Graph Tech nut which is slightly compensated for being intonation up and down the neck. There are some fit and finish problems with the guitar. There was some stain or dye that got onto the binding that wasnt cleaned off and the distressed finish had some rough spots on it that I do not think were on purpose. The fretwork is good and it lets you have a nice and low action. The guitar is pretty light as well just over 8 pounds for a single cut. The high end CTS pots mean the volume knob acts like a true master volume. When you low off the volume you dont lose all the high end in your tone. The eq stays flat but it is just quieter. SOUNDS The Seth Lover pickups in this guitar really save it. These are some of the most classy Seymour Duncans money can buy. The Seth Lover is one of Duncans more old school pickups. The Seth Lover is named after an old pickup designer in the 50s who designed the early PAF pickups for Gibson. This is just another hint into the nature of this pickup. This pickup is very vintage in tone. These pickups come with old school Alnico II magnets which were more common before ceramic magnets and more exotic magnets started being used in pickups. Another vintage touch is that they are not wax potted. The pickup also only has single conductor wiring which is another vintage touch. This helps get the vintage tone and feel but makes the pickup very noisy in high gain situations. The clean tones with this pickup are great. They really ring out and you can hear all the harmonics and every string very clearly. They retain the awesome clarity but without sounding overly bright. The clean tones are clear but fat also which is hard to find in a pickup. The dirty tones are good because the eq on this pickup is very even. This is great for a mid to low gain situation but as you get more dense with the sound you may get lost in the mix with a pickup like this. The tone overall is a bit dark but it has a very vintage attitude. OVERALL OPINION If you are really caught up on having a USA made guitar this is a good bargain. If you do not care where your guitar is made there are better guitars out there for the price. Even though I am from the USA I know that USA made does not guarantee quality. There are some USA made low end Gibsons that are garbage when compared to Epiphones of the same price. Being made in the USA below a certain price point can be a detriment because you will be struggling to keep the costs down where as on a guitar made in Asia you can can do more for fit and finish and the cost will stay lower. If you are looking for a good solid singlecut this guitar alright. The only real selling point for this guitar is where its made.