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So you all remember the trainwreck plank that Roter made me during the SS.org run. I've been emailing them back and forth for ages since then, and the deal was that they would make a new guitar, and if they couldn't do that right then they would give me my money back.
The specs we agreed on was basically an RG-ish type body (with a normal guitar's thickness!) made from ash, a proper maple neck, maple fretboard, 4X4 headstock, straight bridge humbucker, and my Q-tuner from the previous guitar in the neck. 30.5" scale length. 3-way switch and single volume knob.
Fast forward to today, i receive the guitar. I start opening it, and it looks like they did it right. I can see bright body wood, straight frets, 4X4 headstock. I remove the white foam sheet and inspect the goods:
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Alright, not pretty, but not too bad, and the tuners can be replaced easily.
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Awwe, rosewood fretboad. i wanted maple. Oh well, it's not BAD, it's just not correct. Let's look at the body!
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It's ash, it looks nice, the body is of a proper thickness and feels solid. The finish looks and feels rushed, and i'm kinda wondering if he used a spray bottle clear coat and didn't do the fine sanding and stuff afterwards? I can see dust stuck in the finish in a few places and stuff like that. I could just do the fine sanding stuff myself though, right? So let's look at the front of the body!
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MOTHER. FUCKER. That's the same pickup that was in the fanned fret guitar! Angled! In a straight scale guitar! AND my fucking Q Tuner isn't on there at all! That was my own pickup that i sent down, and it's not even in the guitar?!
So let's at least go over the rest of the guitar then. It kinda looks short, not at all like my 30" scale 6 string or the 30" scale intrepid i had... Let's measure the scale length! I bet it's 27" scale or something like that...
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STUFF. MY. CUNT. WITH. SAND!!!
So after laughing and shaking my head at the unbelievable lack of fucks given by Roter when "fixing" this for me, i decided to try the instrument out and stuff.
It's actually not a horrible guitar at all. In fact, if i played jazz, this is probably what i would have ordered.
It's not badly set up, in fact it's pretty comfortable, and the frets feel smooth when bending, though there's some fret buzz on the two lower strings. The tension and feel of the low f# isn't bad at all, and had i bothered to intonate the guitar i'm pretty sure it would have intonated without any issues, since there's plenty of room for the saddles to move back. Looks like they did the Caparison "trick" for low tunings by installing the bridge a little further back. The f# isn't floppy, and doesn't bow out of pitch too badly at all. I'm guessing it's not a small gauge, if ya know what i mean!
Upper fret access is great, though the neck joint isn't very pretty. It doesn't really get in the way though.
The pickup is the same, so it sounds boxy and dead, though it's not too bad for clean sounds. The effect of the angle on the sound is surprisingly tiny. I haven't noticed anything unusual about the tone. It probably balances the warmth of the sound across the strings, which isn't a bad thing, though it's hilarious that it wasn't meant to be like that at all :lol:
Here's a clip of me just randomly noodling around with it on a clean sound and a distorted sound that i whipped up in a hurry:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3782113/Roter 8 demo.mp3
If you had gotten some good tuners on there (the ones on there slip all the time, so you'd probably have to retune it every time you play), and then got the pickup rewound by someone good, then it would actually be a nice guitar. It would probably be better for high G/A tuning rather than low f#, especially with the angled pickup giving you warmer highs.
So while it's a shame that it's not the guitar i ordered, it's not far from being totally useful. It's comfortable to play, and sounds alright. It's not too much of a dead plank either, and sounds decent unplugged.
I've sent an email detailing the huge difference between what i wanted and what i got, and got an email back pretty quickly, so now i'm gunna try my best to get the purchase refunded like they said. I can cause some pretty serious annoyances for Roter if not, since i actually have a right to send a formal complaint to the ECC now. So here's hoping Roter will come to their senses and refund me! They can just sell the damn guitar anyway, to help refund me.
So, what do Y'all think?! At least this time there's no need for calipers! :lol:
The specs we agreed on was basically an RG-ish type body (with a normal guitar's thickness!) made from ash, a proper maple neck, maple fretboard, 4X4 headstock, straight bridge humbucker, and my Q-tuner from the previous guitar in the neck. 30.5" scale length. 3-way switch and single volume knob.
Fast forward to today, i receive the guitar. I start opening it, and it looks like they did it right. I can see bright body wood, straight frets, 4X4 headstock. I remove the white foam sheet and inspect the goods:
So let's at least go over the rest of the guitar then. It kinda looks short, not at all like my 30" scale 6 string or the 30" scale intrepid i had... Let's measure the scale length! I bet it's 27" scale or something like that...
So after laughing and shaking my head at the unbelievable lack of fucks given by Roter when "fixing" this for me, i decided to try the instrument out and stuff.
It's actually not a horrible guitar at all. In fact, if i played jazz, this is probably what i would have ordered.
It's not badly set up, in fact it's pretty comfortable, and the frets feel smooth when bending, though there's some fret buzz on the two lower strings. The tension and feel of the low f# isn't bad at all, and had i bothered to intonate the guitar i'm pretty sure it would have intonated without any issues, since there's plenty of room for the saddles to move back. Looks like they did the Caparison "trick" for low tunings by installing the bridge a little further back. The f# isn't floppy, and doesn't bow out of pitch too badly at all. I'm guessing it's not a small gauge, if ya know what i mean!
Upper fret access is great, though the neck joint isn't very pretty. It doesn't really get in the way though.
The pickup is the same, so it sounds boxy and dead, though it's not too bad for clean sounds. The effect of the angle on the sound is surprisingly tiny. I haven't noticed anything unusual about the tone. It probably balances the warmth of the sound across the strings, which isn't a bad thing, though it's hilarious that it wasn't meant to be like that at all :lol:
Here's a clip of me just randomly noodling around with it on a clean sound and a distorted sound that i whipped up in a hurry:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3782113/Roter 8 demo.mp3
If you had gotten some good tuners on there (the ones on there slip all the time, so you'd probably have to retune it every time you play), and then got the pickup rewound by someone good, then it would actually be a nice guitar. It would probably be better for high G/A tuning rather than low f#, especially with the angled pickup giving you warmer highs.
So while it's a shame that it's not the guitar i ordered, it's not far from being totally useful. It's comfortable to play, and sounds alright. It's not too much of a dead plank either, and sounds decent unplugged.
I've sent an email detailing the huge difference between what i wanted and what i got, and got an email back pretty quickly, so now i'm gunna try my best to get the purchase refunded like they said. I can cause some pretty serious annoyances for Roter if not, since i actually have a right to send a formal complaint to the ECC now. So here's hoping Roter will come to their senses and refund me! They can just sell the damn guitar anyway, to help refund me.
So, what do Y'all think?! At least this time there's no need for calipers! :lol:
