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King Loudness « Great for a beginner »
Published on 08/10/11 at 20:49These guitars were recently introduced by Squier as a slightly lower market guitar for those who weren't quite ready to spring for a Squier Affinity Pak or a Standard series Strat. It looks and feels very much like an awesome 60s era Stratocaster. It features all the classic appointments of a Strat such as the double cutaway body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard and 21 frets, 3 single coil pickups with volume and two tone controls, as well as a 5 way selector switch for the pickups, fulcrum tremolo bridge and the classic Strat styling all around. These guitars are made in China and sell for about $100 new so obviously the quality of the parts won't be quite to the level of other high end guitars, but for what it is it has a decent feature-set.
UTILIZATION
These guitars are quite light in their construction, so they're easy for a beginner to hold and grasp, and they also balance quite well. Picking one up, I was shocked at how easy it was to play right out of the box. I understand that the setup on these is probably hit or miss but I guess I tried a really nice one. The upper fret access on this guitar is fairly good, if not a little bit clunky because of the Strat bolt on heel.
Getting a good tone out of this guitar is surprisingly easy considering how cheap it is. The pickups have a decent sound and it's worlds above many of the el-cheapo Strat copies from about 10 or 15 years ago. I could set it up for bluesier textures and it worked well, and then I added some gain and it was a decent facsimile of Yngwie or other shredders. Cool!
SOUNDS
I've tried this guitar through various cheaper Fender practice amps as well as some higher end tube rigs (Mesa, Orange, etc) and was very impressed. This particular white one had a very cool Ritchie Blackmore type vibe to it and a convincingly fat bite that I could've sworn wasn't allowed on a $100 guitar. The clean tones are a little bit weaker than they could be, but that's probably the lower output pickups that are installed here. Where this guitar shone for me was in the mid to higher gain tones doing more SRV and Yngwie type textures. Sure the pickups buzzed and hummed, but underneath all of that was a good clear tone that really shocked me time and time again. The guitar sounded like a proper Strat, which is always something I look for in a facsimile of a popular guitar. The pickups offered a genuine punch and heft that I really associate with a true Strat tone. Excellent.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I was very impressed with this guitar. I liked it so much that I later acquired a used but mint black model in a trade. It wasn't quite as nice, but it still played well and sounded excellent. Interestingly the cleans were better on the black one I owned whereas the drive tones were superior on the white one that I tried out. For $100 you really can't go wrong. They seem to be set up well out of the box, and I'm sure the shop where you buy it will give it a once over before you walk out with one.
UTILIZATION
These guitars are quite light in their construction, so they're easy for a beginner to hold and grasp, and they also balance quite well. Picking one up, I was shocked at how easy it was to play right out of the box. I understand that the setup on these is probably hit or miss but I guess I tried a really nice one. The upper fret access on this guitar is fairly good, if not a little bit clunky because of the Strat bolt on heel.
Getting a good tone out of this guitar is surprisingly easy considering how cheap it is. The pickups have a decent sound and it's worlds above many of the el-cheapo Strat copies from about 10 or 15 years ago. I could set it up for bluesier textures and it worked well, and then I added some gain and it was a decent facsimile of Yngwie or other shredders. Cool!
SOUNDS
I've tried this guitar through various cheaper Fender practice amps as well as some higher end tube rigs (Mesa, Orange, etc) and was very impressed. This particular white one had a very cool Ritchie Blackmore type vibe to it and a convincingly fat bite that I could've sworn wasn't allowed on a $100 guitar. The clean tones are a little bit weaker than they could be, but that's probably the lower output pickups that are installed here. Where this guitar shone for me was in the mid to higher gain tones doing more SRV and Yngwie type textures. Sure the pickups buzzed and hummed, but underneath all of that was a good clear tone that really shocked me time and time again. The guitar sounded like a proper Strat, which is always something I look for in a facsimile of a popular guitar. The pickups offered a genuine punch and heft that I really associate with a true Strat tone. Excellent.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I was very impressed with this guitar. I liked it so much that I later acquired a used but mint black model in a trade. It wasn't quite as nice, but it still played well and sounded excellent. Interestingly the cleans were better on the black one I owned whereas the drive tones were superior on the white one that I tried out. For $100 you really can't go wrong. They seem to be set up well out of the box, and I'm sure the shop where you buy it will give it a once over before you walk out with one.