Artist Guitars?

[Zaulkin]

I've got a Grungemaster. Had to grab it because I regretted selling the last one. Have tried the tele also which was nice.

The GM was totally fine stock - tuners and pickups were great and everything. Great neck, good sized frets. I had some parts sitting around so I upgraded mine. Very pleased to have it as my backup guitar and for jangly noises.

[Slowy]

Sweetwater sent something to me addressed: Conway Paton, Flat 2, Auckland, New Zealand.

I received it fine.

But you're famous.


Or is it notorious....

[Slowy]

I
That aside, would I try one of their guitars? Yeah probably. If it plays and sounds good I’m not going to get hung up on what it says on the headstock. I had a cheap Haze Les Paul once, paid $300 for it and it was bloody great

I genuinely don't care what it says on the headstock. I find it offers little guarantee that I will like the instrument.

The one exception is Lowden. A headstock with Lowden on it is always an assurance of something wonderful.

[foal30]

Artist Guitars are no oil painting

[foal30]

I bought 3 tweed hard cases couple of years back

Sturdy, smell good, look rock and roll

[Slowy]

Artist Guitars are no oil painting

Excellent! Neither am I.

[captainfruitbat]

I have an Artist strat - one of the nicer ones, an ST62. Nice guitar, good value. I changed the pickups, but only because I wanted to go HSS. Bridge is decent, big trem block, locking tuners are good, neck is comfortable. I've had a couple of the bullbucker-equipped teles in for setup. They are also very good, but very heavy. The cheaper guitars are pretty much what you expect from a budget guitar, I.e.. nothing special.

[Slowy]

I have a mate's Grungemaster here at the moment. The neck is slightly too narrow for my paws, but it's ok.
Intonation and setup are pretty good so it plays well.

The pickups are not too hot so there's a range of clean to dirt available; a bit on the light side given the guitar's name. They're definitely a bit lacking in top end definition but if you're trying to master Grunge, it won't matter.

Finish is excellent, weight is friendly, strap balance is good. They're easily a $900 guitar.

So at $299, they're a steal!

Add a professional setup, (probably) new pots and a pair of decent P90s and it would be a beautiful thing to have.

Impressed.

[Bg]

Picked up the GM from Crowey earlier, just had a quick tootle on it and I found it very inoffensive, nothing to dislike about it really! Artist may even take over from my favourite cheapey - SX.

I have rio grande pickups ready to go in, may upgrade pots etc further down the road. Will give the frets a quick tootle, but they're pretty good as is. Bone nut too maybe, see how many blanks I have left.

Have missed having a P90 guitar, I really need to get the Ash custom back up and running but its been in the todo pile for about 4-5 years now... may as well use the pickups

[The Scarecrow]

Picked up the GM from Crowey earlier, just had a quick tootle on it and I found it very inoffensive, nothing to dislike about it really! Artist may even take over from my favourite cheapey - SX.

I have rio grande pickups ready to go in, may upgrade pots etc further down the road. Will give the frets a quick tootle, but they're pretty good as is. Bone nut too maybe, see how many blanks I have left.

Have missed having a P90 guitar, I really need to get the Ash custom back up and running but its been in the todo pile for about 4-5 years now... may as well use the pickups

Glad that's been on point for ya Beeg! I had a little strum on it before you came over and had to remind myself why I was offloading it

(The reality is I don't use single coils for what I play).

I picked up one of these: https://www.artistguitars.co.nz/buy/art ... tive/70448
It won't be everyone's aesthetical cup-of-hot-beverage but for something with I can I can downtune to Drop A that has decent sounding active pickups, locking tuners, a great neck profile and balanced body weight that's hefty but not crippling for under $400... zero complaints aside from the fugly headstock, which I got over fast when everything else was basically on par with an LTD EC401 or similar which is going for 2-3x the price...

[hamo]

Picked up the GM from Crowey earlier, just had a quick tootle on it and I found it very inoffensive, nothing to dislike about it really! Artist may even take over from my favourite cheapey - SX.

I have rio grande pickups ready to go in, may upgrade pots etc further down the road. Will give the frets a quick tootle, but they're pretty good as is. Bone nut too maybe, see how many blanks I have left.

Have missed having a P90 guitar, I really need to get the Ash custom back up and running but its been in the todo pile for about 4-5 years now... may as well use the pickups

Glad that's been on point for ya Beeg! I had a little strum on it before you came over and had to remind myself why I was offloading it

(The reality is I don't use single coils for what I play).

I picked up one of these: https://www.artistguitars.co.nz/buy/art ... tive/70448
It won't be everyone's aesthetical cup-of-hot-beverage but for something with I can I can downtune to Drop A that has decent sounding active pickups, locking tuners, a great neck profile and balanced body weight that's hefty but not crippling for under $400... zero complaints aside from the fugly headstock, which I got over fast when everything else was basically on par with an LTD EC401 or similar which is going for 2-3x the price...

You could always file the top of the headstock flat...

[The Scarecrow]

Picked up the GM from Crowey earlier, just had a quick tootle on it and I found it very inoffensive, nothing to dislike about it really! Artist may even take over from my favourite cheapey - SX.

I have rio grande pickups ready to go in, may upgrade pots etc further down the road. Will give the frets a quick tootle, but they're pretty good as is. Bone nut too maybe, see how many blanks I have left.

Have missed having a P90 guitar, I really need to get the Ash custom back up and running but its been in the todo pile for about 4-5 years now... may as well use the pickups

Glad that's been on point for ya Beeg! I had a little strum on it before you came over and had to remind myself why I was offloading it

(The reality is I don't use single coils for what I play).

I picked up one of these: https://www.artistguitars.co.nz/buy/art ... tive/70448
It won't be everyone's aesthetical cup-of-hot-beverage but for something with I can I can downtune to Drop A that has decent sounding active pickups, locking tuners, a great neck profile and balanced body weight that's hefty but not crippling for under $400... zero complaints aside from the fugly headstock, which I got over fast when everything else was basically on par with an LTD EC401 or similar which is going for 2-3x the price...

You could always file the top of the headstock flat...

Ha ha I’m pretty much be grinding my fingertips off at the same time given my level of manual dexterity with tools these days #Iommi

[bassegg]

Has anyone tried their 335 style? The cherry red looks pretty noice for the $$

[Gitar]

I've had one of their parlour acoustics, great solid top guitar for not much money!

I've bought a Harley Benton HB35+ though and its extremely good, the only thing I'm changing is the tuners for locking ones, the pickups and other hardware are great, as is the finish and build quality, had Alan Farrow set it up for me and apart from getting the action to my liking and fixing the intonation he didn't have to do anything else to it! Amazing.

There are some astonishing well price guitars out there now. I wish things were so easy in my day. I had a crappy expensive piece of trash with sharp frets and learnt to play by ear as we couldnt afford guitar lessons.

Ive looked at Artist and I cannot see anything out of place about them, and the price is real sharp. I am considering a grungemaster (love p90s) and maybe a thinline. So until Ive held one Im not able to comment, the only thing I would say is be aware of what is in stock and how long until stock is expected again.

And I agree, Harley Benton are making some incredibly, insanely good guitars now for a fraction of what you pay for big brand or custom. Ive considered buying one of the newer Fusion III FR models, with the tiger striped quality baked Canadian maple necks and using the 1000 series floyd rose, which I believe is a Korean made version of the OG FR. In saying that I also like the ST20 active model strat as a project base, put in a vega trem and new EMG ceramic actives. Way too many positive reviews out there both in text and on youtube, so clearly not fake.

Look at the amount of positive reviews for many new brand mass produced Amazon guitars in the US.

Of course, you are going to get an occasional lemon with any factory made and delivered guitar, the same can be said for any of the big brands including the likes of PRS where I have seen minor faults on youtube etc. In fact I personally havnt had what I consider a lemon since before my first ESP in the late 80s. But part of learning guitar should also be how to set them up and correct minor issues by owning a few tools and knowing how to use them, imo.

[jeremyb]

Has anyone tried their 335 style? The cherry red looks pretty noice for the $$

I have a Harley Benton HB-35+ 335 upgraded with locking tuners and a hard case I would consider selling, it’s an amazing guitar, has coil splittable humbuckers too.