All user reviews for the Washburn N3

From all the info found on the internet, I believe it's a korean made washburn nuno model.

specs:
Alder body
birdseye maple neck with ebony fretboard
22 fret, stephen's extended cutaway neck joint
grover tuners
'original' floyd rose trem by schaller
bill lawrence 500Xl bridge pickup
seymour duncan '59 neck pickup
1 volume
buzz feiten tuning system
reverse strat-like headstock

UTILIZATION

This is basically a super strat with lots of personal mods that Nuno wanted to see in a guitar. The shape is smaller, and curved slightly leaner overall. The overall body is definitely a smaller strat, to suit a player of smaller stature, which is fine cause some guitars are just too big anyway!

This is comfortable to play with the proper stomach contour, and the awesome stephen's extended cutaway! Feels EXACTLY like a neck through would! But with the sturdyness of a bolt on! No problems playing ANYWHERE on the neck with this!

The buzz feiten tuning system only works if you've got a tuner that has a feiten tuning preset, otherwise it's pretty much useless. I use peterson tuners and I find it's plenty accurate.

The floyd is great! I know it's a schaller, it's labeled original but it's hard to honestly tell nowadays considering how many types of 'original' floyds there are. However this one is quite good and decently stays in tune.

SOUNDS

Ok sounds! First i have to say that I'm not a fan of the pickups in this guitar, they don't suit my playing style at all, though i know some people will disagree. Don't get me wrong, I like the '59, I've had it in a few different guitars and it's great, same with the lawrence also! It just doesn't work well with this guitar! Too sterile, bright tinny and lifeless!!

so, my review will be based on the stock pickups that were in this guitar, even though, I modded it a few times with other pickup combinations.

neck pickup (clean):
The '59 is thick, and clean. Like the neck pickup on a les paul, really PAF, vintage, thick and juicy sounding! So thick I don't play any leads until i get past the 12th fret! But it's a good clean!

neck pickup (dirty): Soaring, thick and juicy also! very nice output and very thick. Great for single note-leads, but too mushy for fast shredding stuff unless the gain is backed off.

neck+bridge: I rarely used this so I cannot comment.

bridge pickup (clean): The lawrence is a very high output pickup. It's also very sharp in general. The clean is bland and breaks up easily if you're not careful with your right hand technique. Nothing to write home about here.

bridge pickup (dirty): This is where all the money's at! Super shred-tastic time! High output, very bright, very sharp and clear. Great I think for heavy brutal metal tones or hard rock if the guitar's downtuned. Though I think a lot of the times it's TOO bright. I've had to put the treble knob on the amp to 2 the highest to tame the brightness! It can get REAL shrill. Nuno's tone is not a type of tone I personally like. But this would be it!

This pickup with this guitar doesn't sound too great to me. It's a bit too much. The pickup combo is meant to be versatile since they're so popular opposite which I understand, but even so. Having a versatile guitar doesn't have to resort to SUCH extreme (HA) resorts!

OVERALL OPINION

The thing i like most about this guitar is the body size, shape and the neck joint. I find the neck to be a little too thin and flat and wide for me. But the neck joint is very comfy and so is the body. The floyd is also good though I've grown out of trems nowadays.

Sound is so subjective so I've given it my most honest opinion. I still kept this guitar and changed the pickups, I was better off! I've actually owned a few different nunos all at different times, something just kept making me come back to the nuno guitars! Not for the sound but for the comfort and playability.

I've gone through 3 different nunos and have found them all to be rather consistent. Though I wouldn't get another one since my tastes have personally changed. This is a good guitar, however I've always known signature guitar to be a little too customized to the point where a player like myself, will find something wrong with it. In this example, it'd be the pickups. No guitar is perfect, I understand that. Though I bought this guitar for the playability features and not because I'm a nuno fan, actually I'm not that big a fan, but his guitar is quite good! It's a good super strat with a pickup change, without, it's not my thing. Thus the 7.

The fact that it's made in korea makes no difference to me. I've owned the 2 different USA versions and all of them have great fretwork and the body shapes and stephen's extended cutaway stays true on all models!