Santa Cruz VJ

I got a 2000 VJ and loved every aspect of it. The tuners are awesome, the wood is great loved it in general. I say 9 because 10 means perfect, like Brazilian and Adirondack.

I would call it a 9.5 on sound. I am a blues player more than anything and I sat in a dark practise room with 5 guitars at a time. I had it dark so I would only chose by sound and feel and not be influenced by name or looks. I played about 6 Collings and 4 other Santa Cruz'z and about 8 Martins. The D-18GE was the closest but time and again I liked the VJ the best.I put in an I-beam pickup and it sounded great plugged and un-plugged. The only reason that this is not a 10 is because after buying it I got to play a 1946 Gibson J-45 and it sounded better. Am I being too picky?

Every thing was great, in action, playability, fit....My only complaint is that Santa Cruz doesn't do a very nice sunburst. I like sunbursts but if you compare the top of this guitar with a collings sunburst, or some other comparable guitar, they are notably better looking.

Santa Cruz makes the lightest guitar I know of. Thats great, but it really moves around in changing climate conditions. If it dries out a little it starts to buzz. I live in Colorado and that affects things a lot. I am not saying I would change anything, but if you want a bullet proof guitar, this is not it

I visited the factory and not even Grandma seems that happy to see me (cousin Mikey was always her favorite, that little bastard!!!). All jokes aside, everyone was awesome, the tour was very cool. I haven't had to return my guitar for anything, but everyone who dealt with them on a technical issue says they are awesome.

Super great guitar. I feel priviledged to own one.

Made in Santa Cruz USA, I took delivery early January of 03. The VJ is designed after early slope sholdered Gibson J35s. It has an Ebony board, spruce top, mahogany neck, back and sides. Tobacco sunburst nitro-cell finish, EXCELLENT Waverly tuners, and a hard shell case.

I don't play any particular acoustic style, I am in an instrumenatl surf band, and when I get on the acoustic the music I play runs the gamut from fingerstyle to flat picking to jazz... etc. The great big bass and complex tone is what attracted me to the VJ, you can coax just about any tone you want from this guitar, depending on where you pick, what the composition of the pick is etc... I have to give this a 10 because I tried many guitars in my search some costing as much as $8,000 and NONE of them were up to the tone of the VJ, even very expensive rosewood guitars... my Santa Cruz has the reputation at the local repair shop as the best sounding guitar in our town.

This guitar came from the factory set up PERFECTLY. The neck is functionally perfect. I wouldn?t mind a thinner profile, but would that improve it dramatically? No. The frets are perfect, you don?t even feel them when you run your hand down neck. The top wood is beautiful!!! As is the sunburst finish!!! This is my only beef with the SC. There was some sanding marks in the finish, a few embedded bits of metal shavings, finish cracks on the four corners of the bridge, and it looks like a small chunk of something under the pickguard. This is a $3000 guitar... I understand that it has a fair amount of hand labor, and you have to look VERY close to see any of these things... but I still think it could have been just a little closer to perfection.

I have only had this guitar for a little less than a year, so far it has been trouble free, it is built so lightly that I am very careful not to bump it, a good knock and it could explode. But that is where it gets it's great big voice!

Santa Cruz was happy to have the finish cracks fixed by a local luthier, since I just can't part with this instrument, I have opted to leave it as is for now. I sent them my own material for the nut and bridge and they used it at no extra charge. Richard Hoover is a VERY nice person, and has been happy to show me around the shop, and Aadam Stark (the finish guy) took time out to talk about finish options. Overall these guys rock.

I have been playing for 30 years, and have an extensive black face fender amp collection, a 63 strat and a 60 Les Paul special. If the VJ was lost or stolen, I would get another in a heartbeat. I really believe that this model will be a holy grail in 10 years. Try one, buy one.