Washburn Oscar Schmidt OE30 Reviews 5

I saw this guitar on sale on musicians friend and thought the price was way low or it must really be junk. After reading all the web reviews I could, it seemed everybody was well pleased with it after purchase. I purchased mine from musicians friend for $150 plus shipping, total $161.69 . The guitar arrived and man was I impressed! I could almost not believe the guitar made it undamaged considering the single layer cardboard box it came in.

This guitar plays good,looks good and has decent hardware.{excellent for the price} It was playable out of the box and only needed a little work. The neck was dead straight so I loosened the truss rod to give it a lttle relief. and lowered the bridge to get the action right,low but not too low. I set the intonation and I am real happy with how well the guitar stays in tune. It has a nice finish {no visable flaws}and looks as good as any high dollar guitar from a few feet away. Mine came with black hatbox style knobs rather than the gold vintage knobs as shown in the picture on musicians friend. It also didnt have the huge DELTA KING on the headstock which is a wise move on washburns part. The neck has a nice feel, very smooth and the frets were nicely dressed. I prefer wider frets than whats on this but its still easy to bend strings. Its capable of producing some nice tones from rock to jazz and anything in between.I have been playing for about 20 years and I bought this guitar to play at my church. My les paul standard was my first quality guitar and now lives at home and my mettalic gunmetal gey jackson soloist with floyd rose doesnt exactly suit church duty(conservative southern baptist). I once owned a well worn and battle scarred 68 es347 that I bought from my guitar teacher for the paultry sum of $150 bucks. (he was practicly starving at the time) That guitar looked terrible but did it have tone! In the eighties at the peak of heavy metal a gibson es wasnt cool so I stupidly sold it. To only know then what I know now.

I wish it had a set neck for pure snob appeal instead of a bolt on but this is not really a dislike. I currently own a setneck gibson les paul,a neck through USA jackson soloist and a bolt on neck japanese charvel and Im not a purist for any particular type. The pickups are no seymour duncans but they certainly arent terrible either. At the moment I cant see putting $200 dollars worth of pickups in a $150 dollar guitar.

The guitar is well constructed and I feel it will last many years. In looking through the f holes certainly no glue was spared in securing the center block on either side. The hardware is of good guality for an instrument at this price. I personally dont think you will find better hardware or electronics on a $ 500 dollar guitar. The guitar doesnt sustain like a better quality instrument but I plan to replace the cheap plastic nut with bone and I think it will help.

After doing a setup on this guitar I am extremely pleased with it. The action and playability is on par with my profesional instruments. I think its an incredible value at $ 150 bucks,but not so much at $ 300. The ibanez artcore is a better guitar and is currently selling on musicians friend for$ 299.00 plus shipping. Ive been looking at guitar center and sam ash etc. for a beginner electric for my son and this guitar blows away everything else Ive seen and played at$ 150 dollar price range. I will rate it a 5 for pure bang for the buck at $150 dollars. Get one while you can you wont be disapointed.

Rick rated this unit 5 on 2004-02-07.

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