Redid Semi-Hollow Body Electric Guitar RD-100 Jazz Guitar with F-Hole,Maple neck,humbucker Pickups(Orange)

Wow! I've had several budget guitars in the 25+ years I've played and this one was a surprise. I bought the Redid RD-100 in brown. The finish looks and feels great. Only complaint on the finish is I would like to see the grain come through the color a bit more (grain is more prominent in the pics compared to in-person). Tuners feel fine and it stays in tune pretty well. The pickups were a big surprise. I usually switch out cheap pups with something else, but these sound really nice. I took some readings and the neck is 7.3k and the bridge 13.3k. I usually like the neck around 8k but the bridge is a little hotter than I look for. The sound is great, though. Nice, warm sound that I would expect from a guitar like this. I made a few adjustments out of the box; changed strings, oiled the fretbooard and adjusted the truss rod and action. After that it plays really nice. I also switched out the knobs for reflector knobs (I hate the look of speed knobs). I also threw some finger slicers(knob pointers) on. The only real con of this guitar is the pots. They worked fine from the factory, BUT they're the wrong taper. They used linear for all 4(2xvol, 2xtone) and it works OK for tone, but the volume pots are useless after 3 or 4. I switched them out for some logarithmic taper pots from The Art of Tone and the volume works much better. I'm just a guitar hobbyist player and I use semi-hollow for all types of music when I play; rock, metal, clean etc. This guitar does it all. Ask Larry Carlton. From Beatles chime to Alex Lifeson to Josh Homme you can't go wrong with a 335-style guitar. Overall, this was a very satisfying purchase.

Fit and finish was surprisingly good, no discernable flaws. Neck is straight, fret ends are dressed well. The setup out of the box was impressive, the only things I've done to the guitar (aside from tuning obviously) was to lower the pickup height - they were around 3-4 mm away from the strings and I prefer 6-7 - this is as simple as turning a screwdriver so no luthier skills needed. And I did find some excess buffing compound in the f-holes, cleaned up with a rag as I was wiping it down anyway. The instrument is beautiful, a pleasing orange color (as shown in the store page) despite the store page listing it as "yellow." The tuning machines are likely something I'll replace eventually but the 3-4 string split isn't excessive and it's holding tune well. All-in-all I'd have expected to pay 2-3 times as much for an instrument of this quality. It sounds, plays, and looks great!

Pretty, finish is near perfect except for the abrasion across the top of the headstock from rubbing in the box. The guitar tuned right up and played well and had a pretty good sound. I purchased this guitar to modify. First I changed the pickups, the ones from the factory are fine though, then I swapped out the tuners with a set of Grovers off an old broken Gretsch, big improvement, put on a Tusq nut, small improvement, then I strung it up with a new set of Ernie Ball strings and this is now a little marvel. The pots and switch work well enough I didn't change those. All in all, I would buy another one. Great for a beginner, it plays easily and sounds fine and can be gig ready for the road with little cash or effort. My first guitar was a mess and had only one sound, screech and cut my hands and hurt my fingers, that was in 1963 and a lot has changed since, I really don't know how you do it, I make most of my own guitars (Teleholic) and the minimum I spend in parts for a build is near 300.00. This is not a high end Gibson or Ibanez, but it does play like one now and sounds almost as good. I can take this anywhere and play it confidently and not worry if an accident claims it. A good acoustic, a demon rocker, a buzz saw slide guitar and smooth jazz tones what's not to love.

Overall this is a pretty good deal for the money. However, quality assurance at the factory needs work. Mine came with very high action. I found out the reason for this is because the frets were not very level, especially near the neck pickup. I found that many of the fret ends were not seated properly. The frets pulled out of the fingerboard easily. Rather than attempt to level the frets on my own, I chose to send it back. If it were not for the poor QA I would have kept it. The tuners on this one were perfect, I really liked the pickups and overall the rest of the hardware and electronics were fine. There were several buffing marks and compound on the body and neck. I was able to buff them out and clean it up, but there were still several light scratches. Overall this was minor and did not affect my decision to send it back.

Okay. So many features on this guitar are worthy of praise. Cosmetics: beautiful binding work all the way around. The binding is not gouged out along frets like other brands. It’s literally perfect. Gorgeous high gloss finish. Structural: they used a scarf joint! Not a cheap overlay.. Nice clean neck joint to body. No dimples or waves. Hardware: standard issue pots and pick ups for this price point… but I am impressed with the switch, the bridge and tail piece. They are much more substantial than competition. I am so impressed with this product. Set up: if you’re buying guitars online it’s a good idea to learn basic set up. Every guitar regardless of cost moves with shipping and will require some adjustment once settling. This guitar is awesome.