Abilene ALK35

Not sure of the year, or home. 21 frets. Solid top. 2 tone, 1 volume knob. H/S/S, no namer pickups (sadly, trying to look up the serials, as they are SUPER!), passive. Unknown wood, transparent deep sea green finish, slab cut, VERY pretty. Body is remeniscient of the Jackson Dinky or Soloist, light and small. Vintage non-floating trem (great for dive bombs, lowers a whole 4 steps!). Grover non-locking tuning (now replaced with locking Sperzels). Slightly thinner than average neck, nice action.

This guitar suits my repetiore of songs, I play a hair metal/ driving rock category. The tone knobs work almost to an absurd degree, almost like fat control. The sound varies on where those knobs are. IT IS COMPLETELY NOISELESS!!! I turned it all the way up, the amp (a Peavey 45 watt practice amp jerry rigged with two 12"s and two 4"s in addition to its 10") as well, and only got the slightest buzz when I kicked on over-drive at those positions.

The action, beautiful.
The pickups, flawless.
Everything was perfect.

Only two minor flaws:

When dive do a dive bomb (dropping the sucker ALL THE WAY) the strings have a tendency to go a little sharp after ward (about 2-3 cents), but the locking tuners fixed it.

Also, I got it used for $85, and there was a 1/2" ding in the finish at about 10 o'clock from the bridge, but a vinyl decal of a pinup mermaid fixed that.

It is one of the most solid things I've seen. I've whanged it on walls before gigs, onstage, and have not had a single pop, hiss, sizzle, or hum. I think it may be made of Kryptonite...

I want to contact this company to hand them my kudos...

Not to fix the guitar...

This guitar is my pride and joy. A practical steal for the quality; I've played on $300 guitars that don't sound this good and that don't hold their looks and sound this well. I would suggest this piece for ANY guitarist, ANY style, ANY time. I also own a bass from Abilene, and it, too, is the same.

This guitar is one of two and is as equally versatile for shredding. The other I own is a ESP/LTD KH-203 and is primarily specialized for metal.

I purchased the ALK35-DOS from Zzounds.com. It was made in Indonesia either in 2002 or 2001. I got the cherry sunburst, which looks better in person than from the pictures on any website. Shipping was free since I bought another guiter with it. This guitar came with a cheap cable, strings on it, and a few small wrenches for making adjustments.

I give it an 8 in the features catagory. I'm sure none of the stuff the put in this guitar are the best, but they get the job done well for the price.

Here are the features listed at the Zzounds.com site:

Features:
Body: Contour-cut solid wood with natural oak grain top
Headstock: Angled with color matched to the body
Neck: Maple neck
Fretboard: Rosewood
Scale: 25-1/2 in.
Pickups: 1 humbucker, 2 single-coil
Switching: 5-way pickup selector
Controls: 1 volume, 2 tone controls
Bridge: Vintage tremolo
Tuners: Die-cast
Hardware: Chrome

I was very surprised and impressed with the tone of the guitar. Fabulous in my opinion, even if the guitar would have cost more, I would still rate this guitar as having great tone. However, the pick ups are noisy, which would not be acceptable in a more expensive guitar. For $129, I still give it a 10, because the great tone and the small price outweigh the noise from pick ups. It has a warm but distinct tone. I mainly played it clean, but the little I played with distortion sounded great too.

I used my tube Marshall half-stack and a small 15 watt Marshall amp. Honestly, it sounded better on the smaller amp, but I might be crazy.

Back to the noise from the pick ups - the two single coil pickups are noisy, but the humbucker on the bridge is a lot quieter than they are. So if you play with the bridge pickup, the guitar isn't even all that noisy and you may be able to gig with it.

Oh yeah - the tone knobs don't affect the tone as far as I can tell, so they are basically useless. It doesn't bother me much though cause I usually leave them up all the way anyway.

I pulled the guitar out of the box, tuned it up and played it. The neck feels good and the set up was good. I haven't made any changed to the set up yet. It is set up better than my epiphone les paul standard was when I got it.

The finish is gorgeous. It really is. Very nice.

I've only had the guitar for a few weeks, so I can't say too much on this topic. The tone/volume knobs seem really solid though. I would play this guitar live as a back up guitar.

I have made two seperate orders from Zzounds.com. Both times I was pleased. I've never dealt with a person from there, but the website seems friendly enough ;) Seriously, it's easy to order from them and free shipping makes me happy.

I'm 20 and have been playing guitar since I was 12, so that's about 8 years. I have a Fender Strat (mexican), an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, and a Schecter S-1. This guitar I bought for my girlfriend for her graduation present as a beginner guitar for her to last a few years.

Overall, this is a great guitar for anyone as long as you are not anal about a little noise. It's wonderful to practice with, though I would not gig with it unless I had to. Really, the only set back to this guitar in my opinion is the noise from the pickups which you only notice when you are not playing the guitar.

Fantastic value. A great sounding, great looking, great feeling guitar for $129.

Solid mahogany body with one eighth inch thick veneer on top and back.Not sure exactly what type of veneer it is,it was advertised as oak but doesnt look like oak.dinky size,cherry sunburst,finish is nothing less than flawless.vintage style tremelo with narrow spacing.humbucker bridge,single coil neck and middle pickups.nice enclosed machines,graphite nut,one volume,two tone controls,all three are500k pots.made in indonesia.21 jumbo frets

the bridge pick up had to go i imagine it would make a nice neck pickup,replaced it wita a dimarzio super distortion.the neck and middle pickups were beyond my expections,very fenderysound for cheap pickups.ill stick with these.with several adjustments on the neck bridge and nut the guitar plays and sounds great,rivialing a guitar that you would pay several times over for.as i recieved it out of the box i give it a rating of the following.

the finish was flawless.the action is what i expected for out of the box.after afew hours of play the nut fell off the input jack,tightented up fine.the bridge screws were not in all the way nor would they all screw in all the way,thescrews were murder to get out had to use vise grips to get one out,replaced them with new screws.the fret work is exceptional,it just needs to be raised a little above averadge on the trebel strings to avoid fretting out on bends.my main gripe is some strings ball ends wount seat all the way in the bridge holes,this can be remedied by carefully drilling out the hole,mark your bit with tape so you drill the proper depth.the neck is very nice rounded back as opposed to flat.

very well built guitar,after several modifacations and adjustments the guitar sounds and plays like a dream.

despite the minor flaws i still give this guitar the following rating.

A 21 fret, "see through blue" (basically a nice green with a little
blue and a nice dark wood grain) agathis bodied, mapled neck guitar.
A hum/single/single config, with *nice* sounding pickups. More on that
later. two tones, and a vol. The two tones are for each of the
single coil pickups, but the one for the top pickup only works
when on 4 or 5. Otherwise, on 3, the bottom tone works for the whole
pickup sound. Passive pickups, nice strat shape with tummy cut and
forearm countour, and the bridge is a regular 6 hole vintage
style bridge. Very nice looking chrome. Not the look of a cheap
Squier. Tuners are non-locking, but they stay pretty well in tune,
except for the fact that of course that's only if you never actually
use the tremelo. Thin neck, medium frets, rosewood fretboard.
a small cord 8ft cord, but it's pretty nice because it's light and
very quiet. The stock strings were light, and they were good, but
I put on my $3 Carvin strings because their better (of course)
A wrench thingy for the neck and the tremelo looks nice.

Everything basically is adjustable, hight of everything, intonation,
lots of features. A 10 rating would have a blend pot in some way.

Oh yeah, gotoh chrome standard tuners, chrome dome knobs, and black
pickups.

Well, I would *prefer* a guitar that would sound bluesy, rock,
clear like bells, and all between, but I don't think I could afford
one like that! It's got a nice sounding light bluesy/light ska/rock
sound. I play through a peavey rage 158. If it can sound good out
of that, i think it can sound good out of anything.

Noise? what noise? I had some single coil DeArmond Harmony pickups,
and man were they noisey. These pickups are very tall. They look like
DiMarzio stack pickups, and on every setting, there is no hum.
(that I can hear) The humbucker alone has a overdriven/compressed
sound, and from 1 to 5 position, it goes from that sound to more of
a mid/high punch. On 3, it has a nice full sound.
2 and 4 could be used for ska/blues or something like. Distortion
makes the humbucker alone sound like heavy rock like Floater or
something of the like. (Floater rules.) Much variety. With great
pedals it could sound like anything. Nice bluesy sound mostly.
Mainly like the background rythm guitar in Offspring (Americana).
A ten of course is....impossible.

The humbucker is slightly tilted. not straight.
Plastic black nut. nice plastic. not the crap I've seen on some
guitars before. Mother of plastic inlay, normal dots. nice. I put
about almost all except for 4.5 inches of the string on the
tuners, and it stays in tune well.

The pickups I think are DiMarzio Virtual Vintage Blues,
with a high height and high upper output. Not much for the bassy
side, but that can be EQ'd out. I like the sound on my amp when
it's like this: Bass-10, Middle-2.5 and High-2.

Action is low. I raised the bridge slightly, and re-adjusted the
truss rod right away. It sounds very nice now. Pickups were adjusted
good, and I played around with the height. My suggestion is that
all the pickups are lowered to about 1/2 an inch from the strings.
(low) because they have high output. I mean high. I had the
humbucker raised slightly and it was extremely punchy.
So I lowered it and it's really nice now. No flaws.
Good quality wood. The other one I was going to get had a oak
venere top, but I think from what I can see it doesn't. Controls
are not scratchy, and everything looks great.

I would reccomend this guitar, it's $139 of the www.doctormusic.net.
They are in illinois. it took me a week to get my guitar. also,
that $139 was *with* shipping. Also, right out of the box I adjusted
the bridge springs, so that they are totally screwed in all the way.
The clamp the hold on to and the bridge, I put the clamp all the way
to the body in the cavity. The springs are still bouncy. Nice.
This guitar comes in trans blue, black, cherry sunburst (NICE!!!)
and a very sweet brown sunburst. I would reccomend any of these
finished. They are the best I've seen in their type.

Live playing? uh... I wouldn't know about that. I play in church.
Hardware is extrememly nicely wired! really! I took a gander and it
was color coded and very well soldered. grounding on it is awesome.
If it wasn't, my amp would tell me. It's not very well grounded.
I've never seen strap buttons this big before. They look nice.
If it got broken i would buy another one. I would gig with it.

Yes....I had one problem. What happened to my 20 ft cord I bought?

Other than that, he was very nice. I simply emailed him to find out
when it would be sent (like when, and maybe when it would come)
and he asked me, "We've only got it in Trans. blue. I can send it
today, if you email me fast." well...today was actually at 11:00 over
in illinois! And he sent it UPS online. sweet. Warranty is from
the manufacturer, and lasts for a year, from normal wear and tear.
will replace anything that breaks in under a year, or replace the
whole thing.

Abilene is basically a samick with nicer looking parts and greatly
finished. Seriously, the finishes are nice.

Of course, I hate Fender guitars, but the nicest one I've ever played
would be kicked in the dust. I guess that means this is really nice,
or that Fender guitars suck alot. I think the second.
It looks great. In the right lighting it goes from black to dark blue,
to the natural color of greenish/blue tinted with a dark grain.
Very light guitar. a looker.