Warning: This is LONG post… It won’t hurt my feelings if you’re not interested in my guitar reviews and go now… (LoL) | |
[Disclaimer: I have not received as a promotion any guitar or music related product, nor am I mentioning anything in this post to secure compensation / income for myself or the manufacturer(s) of the products mentioned. I am only posting about this / these item(s) because I personally purchased it / them and am excited to be learning about music and playing guitar. — kmab] | |
* Guitar Acquisition Syndrome | |
Background: For the last 19 months, I’ve been trying to teach myself about music and playing guitar. To date I have now purchased nine “inexpensive / cheap” guitars. This is the review of my latest: a Fesley “Strat” style Electric Guitar (Sunset color)… What is a “Strat” style? If you’ve ever seen a picture of Jimi Hendrix playing guitar, it was probably a “Strat”. Strat is short for Stratocaster and is one of the two “main” styles of electric guitar. It is characterized by two “cutaways” (one on either side of the neck where it attaches to the guitar body); “horn” shapes which are more reminiscent of bulls horns than of devil’s horns; and, the guitar body is solid (not hollow) with six steel strings. The “horns” are usually of slightly different shape and are normally slightly offset (not mirror images) with the more forward horn on the base-string side of the guitar. The “Strat” was created in the 1950’s by the Fender corporation. The Strat usually comes with three single-coil pickups and may also come with a tremolo bridge. The “pickup” is what translates the steel string vibration in front of a magnet and converts it to electrical impulses which are amplified into the sounds you hear coming from the amplifier. | |
Anyway, as stated in several prior reviews, I’m retired and I have a significant price point and life time (mine) limitation when making discretionary purchases. I haven’t found my music / guitar sound or style (or hero), so I’m playing around at the bottom of the market in search of one, both or all three. For those of you readers who are unfamiliar with the price of music instruments, a decent quality, name brand guitar “probably” runs near USD $1,000. (If you are lucky, you can find the same model used for half that.) At half that price (USD $500), you can also normally find the same name brand (or their subsidiary) selling a new entry-level model of substantially lower quality. You can also go (quickly) the other direction to many times that price before you even get to custom guitars. Specific historic guitars sell in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars! | |
I now have nine “cheap / inexpensive” guitars of various style / types, and, not counting books and accessories (tools, tuners, picks, cables, gig bags, straps, etc), I’m just over the $1,000 “all-in” mark. My wife believes I’m a hoarder and while she supports my trying to learn music / guitar, she does NOT approve of my continuing guitar purchases. I (on the other hand) still feel the need for one last guitar before pausing to concentrate on the “right” one – which I may never find / buy. I will probably get that “last” inexpensive one before the end of next year (2023). I actually have my eye on two types I don’t already have. After that, I will be playing them each, and, over time, upgrading the bits and pieces on them until I’m more or less happy with each. Some, like my three-quarter size acoustic are so minimalist it really can’t have much changed out. Of course, as my luthier skills improve, there is a seemingly endless pool of tools to spend (my wife would say “waste”) money on. And, there are also amplifiers. On the issue of amps, I only have my initial 20-watt amp from the purchase of my first electric guitar. I’m sure it’s “crap”, but I very rarely use it, so it may be some time before I get a second / replacement amp. At the moment, I play my acoustic guitars in the day and my electrics sans amp at night. The main time I use my amp is when I get a new guitar and want to verify the electric bits work. Because I just starting to gain an ear for electric sound, I still can’t tell if the electric guitars are good or not – only if they play at all. As an aside, in my prior reviews, I mistakenly said my amp was a 10-watt amp. It turns out it is a 20-watt. Not that it matters, as it is NEVER turned up, and still rarely used. | |
Start of review: | |
Ordering: I ordered the guitar on Amazon.com. The general price on Amazon varies from $169 to $119 (depending on the color chosen), not including tax or shipping. I have NO idea why the price varies by color!!?! But, of the colors available, the one I wanted was the least expensive anyway. I purchased the item via my daughter’s Amazon membership, so shipping was free. The price ended up: $131.54 (delivered). I “earn” $100 gift cards for Amazon about once every six months by answering questions on a marketing / polling / survey site. Although this is “real” money, it does not come out of my retirement money, and since I’d be answering the surveys anyway – it’s “free” money (to me, but not to the IRS). The price of a “moderately” decent padded guitar gig bag is $20-$30 on Amazon. So, basically, I got an electric guitar and gig bag for the price of a gig bag: $31.54!! (LoL) | |
Delivery: I ordered mine on Thursday 28 July 2022 (evening) and it arrived on 4 August, mid-afternoon. Amazon’s delivery estimate was spot-on. On delivery, the exterior box was slightly crumpled on several edges; the interior box had no damage at all. On opening the interior box, the guitar was inside the padded gig bag and there was no damage at all to the guitar. This is the first guitar I’ve received “double-boxed”. My only comment is the interior box was free-floating and slid around inside the larger exterior box. All-in-all, I am very happy with the delivery. | |
What you get: (Specifications) | |
Brand: Fesley | |
Model: Fesley ST Electric Guitar Morandi Series | |
Style: “Strat” with tuners on one side of the headpiece | |
Price: $119.85 — my price was $32 including tax (out of pocket). | |
Orientation: Right handed | |
Guitar Color: Sunset (Front and back) | |
Weight: 9.73lbs | |
Number of frets: 20 | |
Number of strings: 6 | |
String Material Type : Nickel Steel | |
Guitar Pickup Configuration: H-S-S (humbucker / bridge, single / middle, single / neck) | |
Guitar Bridge System: Cold-rolled Steel Block Bridge with tremolo system (push-in “wammy” bar) | |
Controls: 4 – 1 switch (5 positions), 1 x Volume, 2 x Tone; the three knobs are black plastic with no numbers | |
Color – Black: Zinc Alloy Tuners, a Single String Guide, Cold-rolled Steel Block Bridge, Wammy Bar, Volume and Tone Controls, Inlaid Fret Dots | |
Body Material: Poplar | |
Neck Material Type: Poplar | |
Fretboard Material Type: Hard-maple Neck Info: C-shaped neck profile with satin finish; 20 frets, marks (dots) on the neck and top of the fingerboard help guide / play; 430mm radius |
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Tuning Peg Material: Metal, Kidney Bean shape | |
Nut Material: Unspecified (I think it’s plastic) | |
Pick Guard: None | |
(Package Includes) | |
1 x Guitar | |
1 x Wammy Bar (pop-in style, not screw-in style) | |
2 x Spanner Tool (for adjusting the neck / truss rod and one for setting intonation) | |
1 x Padded Gig Bag Double boxed for delivery |
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First impression: right out of the box, the guitar has a beautiful, dark, rich sunset (sunburst) front AND back. It is thin and feels small and light. I run my left hand up and down the neck. The edges of the fret board are smooth and fret sprout is non-existent! I could NOT feel the frets from the side of the neck. I had to slightly curl my fingers around the edge. They are not rounded on the ends – ball-bearing style – so you still have to be a bit careful running your fret hand up and down the neck, but this is among the best fret work I’ve ever gotten on any of my guitars. It remains to be seen if this continues after the guitar has had a chance to acclimate for a couple of weeks. I don’t think it will be an issue… The guitar was in a plastic bag with the wammy bar and tools rubber-banded to the neck. The strings were paper bound for their protection. There is a little card indicating the guitar was inspected and listing the action height at that time. I will compare this info later when (if) I do a full complete setup with action and intonation. It’s also a useful reference for future string changes… The frets are shiny and smooth and the fretboard looks moist without being shiny. NO crud comes off the frets on my fingers as I check them (sometimes you can get a bit of blackening on your fingertips) and there is no gritty sound on string bending at a few test points. (I’m laughing to myself!) This is the best looking first impression of a fretboard of any of my guitars!! | |
Visual checklist: | |
• neck – straight, flat and not visibly warped or bent; | |
• nut – discolored plastic. Not white, so you almost think it’s bone. The string groove depth seems fine to great. | |
• strings – strum… not in tune, but string ends are not excessively long or wrapped around the tuning pegs. It tuned up very easily. | |
• body – again, beautiful color and shiny (matte NOT high gloss) finish. I don’t see ANY dents or faults!! | |
• pickups – are all magnetic. I can’t tell much else visually. The “visual test” is to hold something metal near the pickup and feel if it is pulled to the magnetic pickup. I would say there is an “unsightly” gap around the pickups. My other guitars’ with single pickup slots are covered by the pick guards, so you don’t see the gaps. | |
• controls – the switch is responsive without being resistant, the volume and tone(s) both turn smoothly. I am able to hear the differences between the pickups on the switch (after it’s plugged in and the amp is turned on). One slightly disconcerting thing is the knobs seem to turn past “0”. I don’t know what that means. All of my other guitars fully stop at “0” and “10”… | |
• tuning pegs – all are smooth and don’t appear to have dead spots. They are the smallest tuners I have ever felt! They are functional, but they feel “tiny” between my fingers and thumb. | |
• action and intonation – the strings seem fine (eyeball test). I will measure them (for action) in the future. The intonation is WEIRD! The intonation is perfect open and at the 5th and at the 12th frets. All up and down the neck with no dead frets on any strings, but ALL of the other frets are slightly sharp. To me, this (probably) means Fesley took extra care to get the open, 5th and 12 frets exactly in the right place but were slightly less exact on the remaining frets. I should point out the difference is similar (if not exact) for all of the other frets and for all of the strings AND I can’t actually hear the difference – but the electronic tuner can. Just slightly… | |
Strum… the strings are all loose and there is no hope this is tuned “out of the box”. I attach my Snark tuner and tune the guitar. Nothing significant to report. (Except the intonation issue mentioned just above.) I’m a happy camper…!!! | |
I plug in the amplifier and plug the cable into it and into the guitar. Both connections seem solid enough. I turn on the amp and increase the volume on both the guitar and the amp. All the knobs on the amp and the guitar seem to work. The slippage on the knobs doesn’t seem to affect anything. When the knob gets to zero (unmarked), whatever is supposed to be changing stops changing. | |
Strum… I play for a few minutes – chords and scales. I spend a few minutes practicing “Ode To Joy“, “Taps” and “God Save the Queen” and then noodle a bit before deciding to pack it in for the evening. The main thing I notice is the guitar is VERY comfortable to play. The neck seems short, I don’t have to stretch to play open chords and the body (depth / width) seems to be made just for me. Mainly the thinner body means it’s easier to hold the guitar body under my strumming arm and against my body. This guitar has a slightly different cut out angle (from the Glarry) at the elbow which seems to make it even more comfortable for me. Now, a point of clarification: This is not a “Full Size” strat style guitar. At least judging by my Glarry 38.6 / 39in strat style it isn’t. Just eyeballing it, I’d say the Fesley is almost an inch (maybe only 3/4in) shorter. FYI: Glarry says their strat body size (38.6in) doesn’t include the strap button on the bottom of the guitar. Standing the Glarry and Fesley face to face, the bodies are the same length, yet, the tip of the head-piece is clearly shorter than the Glarry’s. The difference “seems” to be the bridge on the Fesley is larger than on the Glarry AND it is set farther down the body than the Glarry’s because the Glarry’s pickups are S-S-S while the Fesley’s are H-S-S. The double thickness of the humbucker requires the bridge to be set down the body. I also point out the Glarry is a 22 fret guitar. The Fesley is only 20 frets. Interestingly, this (moving the bridge back) makes it easier to right-hand strum mute the strings on the Fesley than it is on ANY of my other guitars – acoustic or electric! Go figure… | |
Next? | |
Nothing out of the ordinary… Just tune and noodle. | |
Check the fret sprout for about a week and do the light maintenance on it for playability. Then it’s add to the rotation and enjoy!! | |
Final Recommendation: LoL!! Are you kidding me? Very Highly! A beautiful, almost perfectly playable instrument for under $35!!! (Okay, $135 to you…) I’m laughing all the way to the bank. (And, still practicing about an hour a day…) | |
Thanks to anybody who made it all the way through this lengthy post!! | |
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On This Day In: | |
2022 | Maybe We Should Start Over? |
Fesley (Mostly) Full Scale (Electric) Strat Style Guitar (G.A.S. == 9) | |
2021 | Born Again |
Begin Writing (Unwritten) | |
2020 | Nah… I’m Still Chuckling |
Squeaking By With “C’s” (Letter To Me) | |
2019 | Consider Me A Phony |
2018 | Last |
Day 10: Double Digits | |
2017 | Could You Repeat The Question? |
2016 | Still Busy? |
2015 | Why, Just This Morning… |
2014 | Just Kindness |
2013 | Now Shaking |
2012 | Absurdity, n. |
2011 | Minor Changes |
Things I’ve Learned From Life – Nana Carter | |
Acting Out | |
Fesley (Mostly) Full Scale (Electric) Strat Style Guitar (G.A.S. == 9)
August 6, 2022 by kmabarrett
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