Guild Starfire I SC With Guild Vibrato Tailpiece Semi-Hollow Electric Guitar Snow Crest White

As the title says, it's a very good guitar for the price. While I definitely don't use all the features, mainly the coil split, the humbuckers are tastefully loud and the vibrato is quite the addition.

I bought this as a gift for someone with neck, arm and hand nerve damage and it has been perfect to play. It's also beautiful and sounds wonderful. Very pleased with my purchase...

This is my first imported Guild, and the first non-USA Guild I've owned. They've been through several owners since the old days. When I received it, the little G thing that goes in the tone pot was missing. It was laying on the styrofoam in the shipping box. The action was WAY high, like high enough to stick 4 Quarters under at the 12th fret. I've got it lower over the last seveal days, but not sure if I have enough adjustment left to get it where it needs to be. The intonation is also WAY WAY out. As it stands, it looks like it's out of range because the bridge is aparently not where it needs to be. I'll recheck it if I can get the action lower. The volume/tone pots have a weird taper. I constantly use mine to do volume swells, or go from clean to dirty by having the pickups set up differently. Usually the bridge is full, the bridge tone rolled back a little, the neck volume rolled off enough to where my single channel amp cleans up and tone almost full. That way I can switch pickups (and pic attack) to go from clean to dirty like we did back in the old days. That don't really work with the pots in this one. Also, the push/pull pots for the coil cuts is a cool idea but in practice it just makes your guitar quieter and not sound so much like a split coil in say my Gibson Jimmy Page Les Paul. The nut needs recut, when using the trem, the G, B and sometimes D go instantly sharp, and that's doing old style trem work, not dive bombing. The frets need dressed, they've not done that well, and the fret ends, while not sharp, you can feel them, and that's extra true the higher up the fretboard you go. I know it's a new guitar for under $600.00, but if other brands can have superior quality control to this, this Guild can as well. These don't come with a bag or case. A few years ago they did. Not sure how high you need to go up the food chain but some of the more expensive Starfires have cases with them. Tonewise, it absolutely does not sound like my old Starfires but I didn't expect it to. It sounds good into my Fender Princeton Reverb, I can get a decent jazzy tone out of it. I use a pretty simple set up, mostly a guitar right into an amp and get most of the tonal variations I need with my fingers and/or pic. It'll get some old school country twang, do surf or rockabilly good enough. No idea how it sounds distorted, I almost never use any. These are made almost full hollowbody, but they do have some small blocks, certainly nothing like say a ES335. It's much more hollow then that. It still don't play very well, but I'll give it a few more days to see if I can get it settled in. If not, back to GC it goes. The factory strings are 11-49 D'Addario's I think, they're much better then most cheaper guitars have out of the box. If I decide to keep it and it intonates, I'll put a set of 12 or 13 flats (Chromes) on it to get a little more of a jazz tone.

There are lots of things to love about this guitar. The action and intonation were spot on right out of the box. The open gear tuners feel substantial with no slack. The Bigsby style vibrato is responsive and the guitar returns to tune even with vigorous use. The downfall is the volume/tone pots. While the push/pull coil tap is a nice feature, there is NO TAPER! Off, 2-8 are the same low volume/tone and then 8-10 is the only usable range. All in all a good guitar for the money.

Finally pulled the trigger and bought this. Wow. Great right out of the box. The Bigsby is like any other and very soon I'll put on a roller bridge for better tuning stability. Three p90's and a 6 way switch give this all the versatility you need for tone. It feels great on the fingers with the skinny frets and factory installed .011 string set. I'll probably got down to 10's. This thing is such a pleasure to play and is a great and retro looking instrument to boot.

I've been playing (and buying) guitar for over 30 years and this has got to be the worst new guitar (QC-wise) that I have ever purchased. First, it was missing the washer and nut to secure the output jack to the body. After scrounging one up that fits, I then noticed that a 1/4" plug will not seat properly, so you dont get a snug fit / "click" when inserting. No matter... It still played. After fiddling with the controls, I noticed that the neck pickup tone pot is not secured to the body at all, in fact the plastic cap is all that keeps the tone control in place. Another missing nut and washer. Speaking of controls, the neck pickup volume control is labelled "TONE" which means I have three knobs marked "TONE" and one marked "VOLUME." I guess the factory was out of washers and low on "VOLUME" knobs that day!!! I will admit that the Snowcrest White model that I have is a very attractive guitar. There were some finish issues around the f-holes, however, and some areas where the binding wasn't properly scraped. Tone-wise, I found it is best played clean, when adding *any* dirt, the sound gets very muddy, especially with the bridge pickup. So, fairly dull and lifeless, will benefit from a pickup and electronics swap. The action is a little bit high and this guitar will likely require a setup.