When I was a teen a friend of mine knew I liked the old 70s Ibanez Musician basses and anything like a Tobias, so when a Cort A4 got traded in to the music shop where he worked in, he gave me a call to come down and try it out.
It cost me all of the £300 I'd earned in my part-time job and it needed some work, but my playing made great leaps with that bass and it did everything with a great comfy neck.
Last year I went searching for a quality and started looking at G&L Tributes and Squier Classic Vibes, but in the end I found myself back at Cort (ethics aside) and found the G-Series to be consistent with my late A4 - Just add a Vox Amplug and you're laughing.
Check out this £140 guitar jamming with Jeff Berlin...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEk5rZkBxFoI've since gone back to higher end guitars, but the fretwork on the Cort stuff is just incredible when compared with others in that price range. I've had good experiences with ESP Ltd but I haven't played anything of theirs that's sub £500, so I would be interested to hear about those too.
Comments
Compared it to guitars costing double and more and couldn't see anything making it any lower quality than the others.
Reason I went for a cheapo is cause I don't really care about acoustic guitars, just wanted one to record "an acoustic guitar" now and then and it does that job perfectly well.
That FG is nice though and I may have to try one out - I don't have an acoustic.
Cheap Chinese Plank. Cosmetic Finish: Good for the price Tone Quality: Quite acceptable (especially when covered with FX;) )Playbility: OK, except for high fret access Intonation: Good. Best usage: recording a heavy jingle for Ipswich Community Radio
EDIT cost me £100 + a setup by Colin Fulton
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
I imagine the other lucky sods who snagged one at that price agree
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRCeBcKW0AAC9-e.jpg
Donkey's years old £15 JHS Vintage SG (as posted previously on here) - feels great, plays great, neck profile fits my hand like a glove. Love it.
HarrySeven - Intangible Asset Appraiser & Wrecker of Civilisation. Searching for weird guitars - so you don't have to.
Forum feedback thread. | G&B interview #1 & #2 | https://www.instagram.com/_harry_seven_/
It has pretty high frets, plays well, the neck is solid and it sounds decent.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Enjoyed and modded them for a few years before selling on to finance a pre CBS Jaguar.
I changed the bridge saddles for ones with fine tuning and added a nut lock. It was very stable, regardless of how much shred-era whammy wangling I inflicted on it. Now I come to think of it I swapped the middle and neck single cloils for some Kent Armstrong ones.
I retired it when the neck wear became too great to be able to play the high E properly.
I'm not getting misty-eyed with nostalgia.
Almost said Rick Steins in Newquay but then I remembered there’s a fantastic place in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland that gives you a ticket while they freshly cook your order
(They were around £1200 new, so it also counts as “best deal ever.”)
They were made by Godin to Joe’s design/spec. Really nice guitar - at least on par with any of the top Simon & Patrick offerings.