Agile 3000M

This 3000M style has all of the features as the Agile 3000 model, like Grover tuners, Wilkinson Humbuckers, bone nut, Ebony fretboard with trapezoid abalone inlays, but several interesting differences:
the top is 3/4 inch maple instead of the 1/16 inch on the 3000.
there is no binding on the neck or the headstock.
the 3000M Neck feels a little thinner, probably because it is unbound.
the binding around the body is maple? or some other wood, not the triple plastic binding on the 3000.
the pickguard is a fancy pearlized cream with a matching trussrod cover.
the 3000M is noticeably lighter than the 3000.
The body style and controls are based on a Les Paul.
I got a nice, plush hardshell case for $60. Cheaper ones were also available.

I compared this to my Hamer Studio, which has the same mahogony/maple construction and 2 Seymour Duncan 59 humbuckers.Note that the Hamer costs about 5x a much ($2200 vs $410) and sounds slightly clearer and brighter.The Hamer also sounds better unplugged and has better looking wood. But they both weigh about the same, and are equally comfortable to play. The Agile 3000M has a decent clear channel tone ( I prefer my Agile 3000 with the P90's for a clean tone) but the 3000M comes alive with a Digitech Bad Monkey overdrive pedal thru my Fender Blues Junior. It also has great sustain thru the lead channel of my 50w Peavey Valveking and even sounded good on the UK 80's and Boutique Overdrive settings of a 30w Vox Valvetronix (an amp that quickly exposes any hums or other flaws in the electronics of a guitar). In my opinion the 3000M is a well suited for classic rock tones like the Allman Bros and British Blues/John Mayall.

The guitar could probably use a professional setup to get the action a little lower, but it is certainly playable as is. The fit and finish are good to excellent: the Grover tuners look and feel great, the abalone inlays are stunning, and all the miscellaneous hardware seems decent if not extraordinary. The thicker flamed maple top looks better than the flamed maple veneer top on the 3000, the mahogony body and neck have a dark reddish stain that probably hides some minor imperfections. The electronics are all quiet.

This guitar is solid and well built, and should withstand normal wear and tear very well. The finish looks more durable than the 3000. The strap buttons are nicely oversized.

I bought this guitar at the recent closeout sale of Rondo's store in New Jersey, so I got it for half price and also got to compare it to the 2500 and 3000 models in the store. After 2006, the Agiles are only going to be available from Rondo's website and shipped from New Hampshire. That means you have to buy the guitar sight unseen. However, my Al3000 with P90's was purchased online and arrived within a week in perfect condition and well set up. Based on these 2 transactions, Rondo seems to be a good company to deal with .

I have been playing for 45 yrs. I presently own a Hamer Studio Custom, Carvin DC400A, Fender Strat, Xaviere 900, the Agile 3000 with P90's and this Agile 3000M with humbuckers. It's best feature is how light and comfortable it is for a Les Paul style guitar. I also give it a high score for a comfortable fretboard with good upper fret access. It is almost as good and well-made as my Hamer, which is generally rated as equal or superior to a Gibson Les Paul Standard. I believe the guitar is now priced at about $450 on Rondo's website. That's an affordable price for a very nice, well made guitar.

Featured bootiful allthrough cracks where the neck meets the headstock.Plus three nice holes (drilled)where the manufacturer could not make his mind up where to put the jack plug. According to Rondo damaged in transit dah.

sounded broke but never got the chance to play it

dont know, cant play it infact could'nt even tune it

Arrived broken must have been made and packed by monkeys . Sorry monkeys. Junk.

Basic, just Sorry but what can I do. Zilch customer support

How long have I been playing, yonks right up till I got this then stopped.
Is there something I wished had asked. Yes will it work.
If it was stolen or lost would I replace it.I cant wait for someone steal it.I can claim the insurance.
What do I love about it,The way the headstock waves at me.
Why did I choose this one. I am an idiot.
Anything you wish it had. A reputable name on it,then get a replacment.
Anything I would like to share. Oh yes but decency forbids me other than to say I feel CHEATED.THIS IS A PIECE OF JUNK SO'S THE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Agile AL-3000M Cherry Sunburst, bought new when they first came out in 2004. Features: Mahogany set neck with Ebony fretboard and abalone inlays. 3/4" Flame Maple cap over Mahogany body. Nickel finish pickup covers,tuners and bridge. El Cheapo strings.

The guitar sounded good out of the box, but the neck pickup got real muddy at higher volumes, so I put in some Seymor Duncan SH-1 59's. I prefer a bright sound, so the combo of the thick maple cap with ebony fretboard fills the bill. If you want a darker sound go for the regular AL-3000 that has the thin maple veneer top.

Factory set up was good, action fairly low, intonation was easy to to get set properly. I might add a Tone Pros locking bridge and tailpiece later. Fit and finish are superb, and the flame top is well bookmatched. Thick poly finish that mellows nicely with age and sunlight. I like the simple thin maple binding too. The fit and finish of this guitar puts my $2,000 LP Special's laquer finish to shame. The only thing I don't like is the funky pearloid pickguard. I'm going to replace that with a plain one soon.

This thing is built like a tank and weighs about as much. I'm getting up there in years and find that I prefer to use a stool when playing this beast. LP style guitars tend to agrivate my carpal tunnel syndrome, so I trade off with my 52'Tele Reissue to save wear and tear on my old body.

Fast and friendly at Rondo

I've been playing for 30 years now, and have owned way to many axes to list. I usually use this Agile and my 52'Tele for all my gigging. I now keep my LP Special hanging on the wall to impress noobs, and it costs too much to haul around and risk getting stolen.(I had a beautiful Tokai Love Rock that grew legs and walked off) If this one ever walks off I'd replace it with an Agile 3500 with Duncans.
(P.S. Harmony Central needs to remove the bad review written by the Gibson Executive--they are getting pretty bad about trashing everybody elses equipment on the forums. They must think we're all stupid enough to keep shelling out huge amounts of money for their mediocre equipment--how the mighty have fallen!)

POOR FEATURES!!!!!
I BOUGHT 20 OF THESE GUITARS ALL MODELS THINKING THEY WERE GOOD!
WHAT A MISTAKE!!!!!
BUYER BEWARE!!!

NO COMMENT JUST POOR!!!!

WHAT ACTION!ITS ALRIGT IF YOU PLAY SLIDE!!!

NOT RELIABLE!!!!!
THE NECKS BREAK VERY EASY!!!!!

NONE!!!!!!

GREAT FIREWOOD CHEAPER THAN FUEL OIL!!!!

I bought an Agile 3000M in Union NJ in June 2005. These are Korean-made guitars available on the Net as well (http://www.rondomusic.net). This is a high-quality, high-value Les Paul copy with 3/4 inch maple top, and a mahogany body, with standard Les Paul controls (2 Vol, 2 Tone, 3-way switch). Two humbucker pickups. The top is a maple veneer (chosen for appearance) on top of the maple "cap" (added for complexity and brightness of tone). Other Agile Les Pauls may not all have a thick maple top. I "A/B"-compared several 3000M guitars (FWIW the "M" is for "maple") to guitars with maple veneer only, and for my tastes, the thick maple top was a clear tone winner.

The finish is clear, and the top is flamed "honeyburst" (very representative photos on website). Standard ABR-1 bridge and stop tailpiece. The tuners are 18:1 Grovers.

The neck contour is maybe "just less than real fat". No accessories for the $409 price.

I did buy a Chinese "CSB"-brand case for $50. Excellent quality.

I play bluesy rock and jazzy blues...suits me just fine. Use home-made clones of Fender Deluxe Reverb and blackface Super Reverb. Not noisy.

Although clearly a bright guitar, it has lots of midrange complexity. The character and timbre of notes depends a lot on how hard you pick them.

I just remembered: there's a pretty cool analysis of humbucker tone in the March 2005 Vintage Guitar ("Humbucker Turns 50", with Les Paul goldtop geetar on cover)...in a glossary on page 130, the author of a humbucker pickup "shootout" defines "quack" as "when trebles mask the other tones when the string is picked", and "spanky" as "attack which quacks as a percussive effect"...anyway, these are very "quacky", very very "quacky" humbucking pickups...

I'd give the original factory setup a high B+ to A-. No flaws otherwise. I will say that there's a smidgen of scratchiness in the treble pickup tone control, that the edges of the nut were too sharp, and that the tuners are a little "dodgy", as our UK cousins would say...that is, the change in pitch with the turning of the tuner peg seems inconsistent from tune-up to tune-up...

I did seriously consider buying an aftermarket ABR-1 bridge when I noticed that the individual string saddles could move a millimeter or two back and forth from bridge to tailpiece...I noticed that this stopped happening when I learned to intonate the guitar only with the strings slackened far below concert pitch (should I say "Duh !?!?!" now--I'm not sure if I should...)

The finish is a little "silicone slimy" to the touch.

After much repetition of adjusting the truss rod, the guitar plays spectacularly now...it's NOT like it was so bad when I brought it home, it's just that I learned how to do it better than I expected I could...

Nothing about this guitar even suggests a reliability problem.

Helpful sales staff in "bricks and mortar" store in Union, NJ.

I have been playing since the spring of 1969, when I was 13 and 1/2. A very satisfactory and highly cost-effective purchase...I don't know if all Les Pauls and clones are a little neck-heavy (this one is), and they're certainly not lightweight, back-friendly instruments, but I would buy it over in a heartbeat...

This "thin-waisted" guitar is a little uncomfortable to play while sitting...the reason is that the neck is so close to the floor, so the amount of wrist flexion needed in the left hand is a little carpal-tunnel-enhancing...surely this is a class-specific effect with the Les Paul body design, not confined to Agiles alone.

This is a 2005 Korean-made Les Paul-type guitar...they are only available through Rondo Music (http://www.rondomusic.net for online purchases)--I bought it however at their "bricks and mortar" store.

I did not count the number of frets. It has a solid mahogany body with a 3/4 inch maple top, with a decorative maple veneer on top of the 3/4 inch maple top. Like its inspiration, the venerable Gibson Les Paul, it has two volumes, two tones, and one pickup selector switch, and two Alnico V pickups, in a "H/H" configuration. The pickups are "Agile's own", and the electronics are passive.

The neck is mahogany with a rosewood fingerboard, and abalone inlays. The finish is gloss--I have the "Honeyburst" finish. There is an ABR-1 clone bridge and stop taipiece. The tuners are 18:1 Grovers (if I remember correctly). The scale length is the Gibson-correct 24.75 inches, and the fretboard radius (measured in millimeters somewhere on their website) is somewhere just greater than 12 inches, which is pretty flat...

I'd call the neck medium fat...I own a Stagg "El Cheapo" Les Paul clone also, and this Agile has a minimally smaller neck cross-section.

The guitar can be shipped in a double cardboard case, but I bought a CSB Chinese case for $50, which is of surprisingly high quality for the price...no strap, gig bag, cable, etc. for the $409 price itself...

I like to play a hybrid of blues and semi-literate jazz. I play through 5 amps I've made myself (Fender BF Deluxe Reverb clone, Fender blackface Super Reverb "head" clone, Marshall 18 watt head clone, Marshall 2 x 6v6 clone, and a 2 x KT66 Marshall/5F6A mish-mosh clone...)

The guitar is not noisy (though some of the ones I tried in the store had "banging" pickup selector switches). The amp suits my style(s) just fine, and has a complex, rich sound, with a lot of modulation of the sound of a note depending on how hard one picks. Despite being a two-humbucker guitar, it's really a bright instrument, with enough highs to want to roll down the tone controls a little...I happen to like bright complex sounding instruments, but some might find this a little TOO bright, I suspect...I suspect that this brightness is the result of the THICK maple top on top of the mahogany...I did A/B the thinner-topped Agile Les Pauls with the thicker-topped (3/4 inch on the 3000M--the "M" stands for "Maple"), and I thought that the 3000M was clearly more a more interesting-sounding instrument. There's no lack of midrange either, it's just the case that there's a lot of top end as well...

One of the purported differences between Epiphone Les Pauls and Gibson Les Pauls (or so I remember I've read on the Net) is that Epiphones have thinner maple tops...if that's so, then this thicker top is the bees' knees...

Let's just say that this is clearly the Telecaster-player's Les Paul, eh ??

The action was better than acceptable "as was", but I have straightened out the neck (that is, I reduced the amount of relief, by adjusting the truss rod at the headstock), and lowered some of the low-string nut slots, and it has gone from A minus to A. The pickups did not need any adjusting, and the veneer's bookmatching was fine. The bridge routing was excellent.

My quibbles are these:

The bridge saddles can move "back and forth" (from nut toward bridge) a millimeter or two if you push them, and you need to push them all the way toward the bridge to get the guitar to intonate correctly. Once pushed toward the tailpiece (and thus away from the nut), they tend to stay in place, but you have to look at them when changing the strings...

The corners of the nut were very sharp. I felt I had to file them down a little to avoid a "paper cut"-type injury, and did so. Any monkey could do this, even with a fingernail file...NO BIGGIE...

The tuning machines are a little funky...it's not the easiest instrument to tune, since there seems to be a little unpredictability in their "play"...By this I mean that the change in pitch of the string seems to be inconsistently related to how much you turn the tuner key...maybe these will be the object of an upgrade, but I seem to be making my peace with this as I get to know the instrument...

I think there is one mildly high fret (12th fret, first string, an octave above the open E string).

The tone knob for the treble pickup makes a scratchy sound when you turn it from "nearly all the way rolled off" to "all the way rolled off". This is not a terribly useful place for the tone control to hang out, and it doesn't seem to matter to me very much, however...

There's no reason to question this guitar's durability, including the finish, the tuning pegs, or the pots. I did change the strap buttons to Strap-Locks: it's too heavy and too pretty to look at (thus too important not to bang up) not to. The jack does not feel flimsy like non-Switchcraft imported jacks can feel, and usually do...

I would not find a reason to question this instrument's playability at a gig, or its reliability...anything can fail at any time, but this is nobody's idea of the "weak link in the chain"...

The staff were helpful, and tried to lubricate the scratch pot for me at the time of purchase, and it partially solved the problem. No other needs to call Rondo back. (I bought the guitar in early June 2005). Don't remember anything about the warranty.

I've been playing since the spring of 1969...this instrument is clearly better than Epiphone Les Pauls I've tried in stores, for approximately $200 less...unlike many Epiphone Les Paul purchasers, I have NO desire to change the pickups on my Agile, and I like them enough that I might put newly purchased ones in a stock Gibson SG Faded I also own...it's nobody's idea of a lightweight instrument, however, and you have to know this...

If I could order my personal ideal instrument at the same price, I would ask for an EVER-SO-SLIGHTLY rounder fretboard radius, and an EVER-SO-SLIGHTLY fatter neck, for improved playing comfort...I would replace it if it were to be snatched up by a flying saucer, fer sure...

It's also true that the surface of the instrument has a slightly slippery feel, like the final polish put on the instrument at the Korean factory had silicone in it...I wish they had used something else, and have found it to partially improve with the use of a standard guitar polish...

I also own three somewhat owner-customized Teles, a 1982-purchased Fullerton-made Fender 1962 Stratocaster reissue, a 2003-bought Chinese Affinity Strat with a StewMac aftermarket neck (great radius !! great frets !!), and a Hamer Echotone clone of a Gibson ES-335 (another cost-effective upgrade with Seymour Duncan pickups, BTW)...

Maybe I'll get a P90-equipped Agile someday...This present Agile 3000M was a very good value indeed...in comparison, I saw an $800 Gibson raw mahogany Les Paul Studio-type instrument in a Guitar Center in July (2005) whose sanding scratches looked like my seventh grade shop teacher would have given it a "C" for workmanship...what were they thinking ???

my email is msb54doc AT comcast DOT net.