Cort SFX6W

My Cort SFX6W has a natural finish with no pickguard. It's a single cutaway and the body is very slim with a slightly arched back. It's fairly light in weight and has a slim neck with a rosewood fingerboard... very playable and can stand up to quite a hammering! The tuners are specified on the website as die-cast with black knobs... I assume these are Cort stock tuners. Anyway they work well enough, the guitar is easy to tune with precision.

I got a hard case included in the price of the guitar. I bought the guitar while I was in Cape Town, South Africa because I knew I would get a decent guitar for a lot cheaper there than in London. It cost me 3000 Rand, which at the time was about ??270, or approx $550. The rrp for the SFX6W in the US is $699. Apparently the case alone was worth 1000 Rand, and I worked out the same package in the UK would have cost me ??450-??500, so quite a good bargain I think.

I don't know what year it was made, but I bought the guitar new in May 2007. I'm also not sure where it was made, but I believe Cort's main factories are in China or Taiwan.

It has 20 frets, cedar top, walnut back and sides and a mahogany neck. It has an onboard tuner (VERY useful!), an onboard 3-band EQ, plus volume and brilliance slider. The pickup is a Fishman Classic 4T Blend.

I give features an 8, partly because I had never before experienced the delights of an on-board tuner, but also because I think it is a well-thought out and designed guitar. The electronics and components (I am referring to tuners and pins here) may not be absolutely top of the range, but I think if you want more, you have to expect to pay more.

I really like the sound of this guitar. I have to say that I haven't experimented with it to a great extent playing plugged in... I generally play punky rock and tend to stick to my tele for that, but I have done a few rehearsals and gigs using it with a full rock band, and it has really added a clear depth and almost percussive edge to the songs. I've also used it for acoustic open-mic nights going straight into the PA and it has coped fine... that's when the EQ sliders are really handy as often at those kinda nights there is nobody to tweak or mix your sound at all! I think the guitar is definitely bright sounding if you leave all the EQ's at 12, it can actually sound a little tinny and scratchy but the sliders are really sensitive and it is very easy to make it sound full, clear and rich if this happens. I sometimes use a compressor with it if I am playing clean, (a maxon CP-101), this rounds the sound off nicely and I don't think it hinders the dynamics. I haven't used distortion effects with it enough to comment on that aspect of the sound. I have also done a bit of recording with this guitar and it really stepped up to the plate, sounded lovely and distinct and the tone really came through and represented the true sound of the instrument.

But playing the guitar unplugged is what I really love about it. It is pretty loud for such a slim-bodied thing... my style of playing is naturally quite loud and aggressive and I have irritated my neighbours plenty of times! The sound is bright, resonant and well-balanced, the bass notes ring out nice and full and the highs can bite or sing depending on what you wanna play... soft melodic strumming or arpeggios are beautiful and warm sounding especially if you strum closer to the neck, this guitar really can produce a broad spectrum of sound.

The only thing I can think of that I don't like about it is that because it had such a slim neck, the strings are pretty close together which can make technical fingerwork a bit more challenging and prone to mistakes, but maybe I just need to practice more... ;)

I thought the factory set-up was OK, but before a gig my friend set it up for me backstage as a favour, and I fell in love with the guitar all over again. He found a lot more flaws in the original set-up than I did, but then he is a trained tech... The action was a bit too high for my style so he lowered it, which made playing physically and audibly easier. He also spent quite a long time filing down the nut and the saddle, to make them smoother, even and more stable. I am breaking less strings now by far! He took the edges of a couple of poorly filed frets but on the whole they were fine. He also taught me the proper, professional method of putting on strings, something that now I can't believe I never properly learned in 10 years of playing guitar. We strung it with 12 gauges at that time, but now I use D'addario 11's as 12's were just a bit too much for my girly little fingers! The finish on the guitar is great, a very light natural blonde cedar. The bookmatching is decent, not perfect but it looks very nearly like one piece of wood.

My friend who did the set up was very impressed with the guitar, which I was pleased about not only because he is one of the best musicians I have ever met, but also because he also really knows his potatoes with guitars. His opinion was that I had got myself not just an excellent bargain, but a very good guitar in general. In fact, after the gig that night he played it for hours, it was hard to prise it away from him!

I'm going to give this a rating of 7, as I am taking it more from the factory set-up than how it is now.

Here is where I will have pretty much my only gripe about the guitar. When I played it in the shop, there were no problems with the electronics whatsoever. I played it again through an amp a few days later, and it was fine. Then I went home to London, and didn't plug it in again for about 2 months, when I took it to an open-mic night and got up to do my 3 songs... Surprise! It didn't work. I took it into the repairs shop I normally use, and after a bit of poking around the guy said he was sure it was just a dry joint and to come pick it up in a week(!). We had some discussion about warranty, which I'll explain later...

So I returned in a week, picked it up and paid my ??20, and it was fine for a while after that. Then a month ago I lent it to a friend to do his own open-mic night thang. When he gave it back he said that it hadn't worked and he'd had to borrow someone else's guitar... bummer. He said he thought it probably just needed a new battery though, and so I changed the battery... but still nothing. Then I found that if I jiggled the volume slider around a bit, it would work, although not between volumes 4-7 approx. I haven't had it looked at yet, as it is still useable but this long anecdote leads me to give reliability/durability a rating of 5. Aside from these problems, which I expect aren't common to every SFX6W (just a bit of bad luck for me) the guitar is fine... I would consider replacing the tuners for Grover or similar and maybe to get some better quality pins, but nothing else is pressing and I guess can wait until I make it big! The 2 strap buttons are totally solid and I have really thrashed this guitar while playing with no ill effects... I would not feel comfortable gigging it without a back-up though, until these electronics problems get sorted out once and for all.

Problems here which I think again are particular to my specific situation. I did get a warranty but because I bought the guitar in South Africa, I'm unsure as to how much use it'll be. In any case I have mislaid the receipt AND warranty, so I can't remember how long it's for or what and where it covers me. Trying to find out would cost a lot in long-distance phone calls and probably be fruitless anyway, so I have pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I will be paying for all repairs as if I had bought it used. Oh well!

Never actually had contact with Cort, so it wouldn't really be fair to start slating them...

I've been playing guitar seriously for about 12 years. My other gear consists of a 1967 Fender Esquire, 80's Pink Paisley Strat, late 70's Shergold Masquerader and a Tanglewood acoustic. Amps are a 70's Fender Twin Reverb, Tech 21 Trademark 60 and a Session Rockette 30W. Various pedals (big fan of Electro-Harmonix). Before I bought this guitar I wish I had asked more questions about the warranty! If it were stolen/lost, would I buy another one... hmmm, I think I probably would actually, if I could find a bargain. It would depend a lot on my financial situation!

I love it's sound, and how it feels to play. Many other people who've had a go on it agree that it is a really nice little guitar. Everyone thinks it was much more expensive than it actually was, I'm often asked where I got it and how much did I have to part with. I would say my favourite feature on the guitar is the tuner, it's so handy! When buying it, I played loads of guitars including lots of other Corts... it came down to a/b-ing it with another Cort, except the other one was about 5000 Rand... ??450 or about $850. The other one was really above my price range but I was considering it... I went away and came back the next day, did a comparison with fresh ears and immediately knew it was the SFX6W for me. In an ideal world some better machineheads would be nice but really, at the price that is just unrealistic. I think for me, as someone who is more of an electric guitar player than acoustic, it is perfect because of the size and shape not being overwhelming by comparison. But although it is on the smaller size, I tend to really attack a lot of the time when I play and it is not a lightweight guitar by any means!

I would definitely recommend this guitar to anyone because it is a pleasure to play, whatever level of playing they are at and whether they paid the rrp or got cut a deal.