A Korean (or in the case of the one I got, Chinese) strat copy. Amazingly cheap ($84.99). You get what you pay for, as far as bits and pieces like the pegs, trem, selector, pots and pickups are concerned. But it’s well put-together, the neck’s quite decent, and after an hour or so of playing the hell out of it I really started to like the thing.

13 years ago I bought a Squier Strat, which cost me more than twice as much even then. I’d say the Kramer was definitely a match for that instrument in terms of quality. I preferred the finish on the Squier, which was a deep red – the Kramer is a sort of spangly electric blue, which I can live with. On the other hand, the Kramer has the better trem system. And they do make them in with other finishes.

If you live in the US, you can get the Kramer from MusicYo.com. I actually found it good value to buy from them and pay the cost of having it imported to the UK; even after shipping and duty, it came in at under £100.

It’s as good a starter guitar as any I’ve played, and an acceptable backup for my Aria semi (more than a backup, really, as it provides a single-coil twang I could never get out of my main instrument). Did I mention how amazingly cheap it was? Must be some ethically horrendous sweatshop labour involved at some point, surely…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2004 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Guitar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.