Brian Moore Guitars i21

I haven't put any significant time into this instrument, yet. Maybe never; read on.

What isn't advertised about this instrument ANYWHERE is that it's Chinese made. Their bnig secret, not literally, but no one goes any length to mention it. So, when I received my guitar and it was in a "Made in China" box I was immediately turned off. I thought I was making a stretch to purchase what I thought was a Korean made instrument. So, already going back for that reason alone. However, to be far to the guitar, it's finish and binding are okay. Not great. My maple top has no depth to it. And of course the reason it is getting a failing grade here is that the top arch, or non-cut-away body area next to the neck is cut crooked. It has two subtle dips in it. To have received this guitar with a detailed factory QA check list and then to immediately catch this MAJOR flaw in the cutting of the body just STINKS!!!! It's third rate: bottom line. To make the flaw even worse, the binding excentuates(Sp?) it. So, found this and boxed it up. Going back.

I purchased for what I thought was a decent price of $399 from Sweetwater Music. Their customer support seems great in that they have communicated with me throught the purchase process with emails. The guitar came with a limited lifetime warrantee. Not bad.

This is Brian Moore's version of the Les Paul, with set neck, made in China. Two alnico humbuckers, controlled by a 3-way slide switch (neck, neck+bridge, bridge), a master volume, and a master tone knobs. Fingerboard is rosewood with medium jumbo frets, LP scale of 24.75", LP-type tune-o-matic bridge. Tuners are Moore's own brand. The body is mahogany, capped with a highly figured maple top in Moore's unique cinnamon color. Input jack is Moore's unique design and is located in the back of the guitar. However, this design prevents you from using some, but not all, wireless transmitters. I am not able to use mine. A deluxe gig bag is included aht protects the guitar very well. I have to detract points because of the input jack location (while some others might add points).

The sound is no surprise for those familiar with Les Paul guitars. The stock pickups do their job very well and will give you all the LP sounds you want. If you want the LP sound, there is no need to change the pickups. Through either tube or solid state amps this guitar sounds like a LP should. I do not find them deficient in any way, and replacement is not in my plans.

Brian Moore high standards are reflected in this Chinese-made guitar. I have not found any physical flaws. The cosmetics, as far as I can tell, are 9.9 out of 10. I don't think there are any 10/10 guitars out there. This Brian Moore is the equal of any guitar you buy off the shelf. The nut was cut a bit too high for my personal taste.

The low factory action is unbelievable! It is the lowest, buzz-free action I have ever experienced from a mass-produced guitar. It came with 9's and I changed to my preferred 10's strings, and no truss rod adjustment was requred. Picture in your mind the best Gibson Les Paul action you have ever played, and this guitar matches or beats it.

This guitar is built as strong as any Les Paul out there. The finish is the typical polyurethane on all modern mass-produced guitar, and should protect the guitar well. If you don't abuse your gear it should last a lifetime.

Limited lifetime warrant to the original owner. That is all I know, and I have not had the need to contact Brian Moore. Therefore, no opinion here.

I was not in the market for a Les Paul copy, but when I saw the close-out price from Musicians Friend I decided to try one out and return it if it did not meet my expectations. This guitar exceeded all my expectations. At the time they also had purple ones at $299. I'm an age where it would not look right for me to hold a purple guitar unless I get a few tattoos, so I opted for the higher-priced cinnamon color. No regrets -- this color plus the flamed maple top make the guitar look absolutely gorgeous. The action is unbelievable. The sound is everything you want from a Les Paul type guitar. I'm detracting a point for deviation from the typical LP controls layout, but that is just my personal preference. In a way, fewer knobs makes it look less cluttered and more elegant.

There ain't no more of these guitars at Musicians Friend at close-out prices. People grabbed them all up, and I am glad I was one of them.
However, these guitars are still availabe at normal discounted prices.

I don't mean to knock Agile LP copies, if you are familia with Agile, but Agile prices have escalated to the point where their top of the line models are in the $450 range. This Brian Moore LP copy is in that price range, and it is my personal opinion that this is a much better deal.

Chinese import, 2 covered "'iM Classic" humbuckers (stock, non Duncan), 22 Frets, not sure of the year. Glued in mahogany neck (3 piece) and body, thin contoured tiger striped maple cap, rosewood fingerboard. Basic controls (more like PRS): 3 position slider, volume, tone knobs. Stock "iM" tuning machines. Tune-O-Matic bridge, stop tailpiece. Wider neck but not a baseball bat, (neck and scale reminiecent of a Les Paul). "Medium" radius fingerboard (flatter than a Fender, a good bit rounder than a Carvin). Recessed rear mounted jack. Nice gig bag.

Your basic stuff.

Soundwise, the pickups were on the quiet side. Very mellow, but not a lot of life to my ears. A bit indistinct" to my ears. I replaced them the next day with a Seymour Duncan Alnico 2 Pro neck, and a Pearly Gates bridge. So it was basically a "custom upgrade" to the i2 pickups (not crazy about the JB). Also did a lot of custom wiring of the electronics but I won't go into that here. I'll stick to the basic humbucker tones for the most part. The new pickups really brought out the tone of the wood. I was surprised at the complete change of tone! The APH-1n (Alnico 2 Pro neck) had a milky, warm sound. When distorted 9moderate to higher gain), it reminded me a lot of earlier Clapton. More or less, it's "THAT" sound. Maybe not as girthy as a Les Paul, but very much in the same neighborhood! Nice sustain on the fundamental note. Clean, it does a great non-Strat blues, and tone rolled back, it does a good solid body jazz tone. Single coil, lot's of snap to the tone, either coil.

The PGb (Pearly Gates bridge) might be just a bit of a tonal mismatch with the APH-1n (especially with one tone control) but it isn't that much of a hardship to do a quick tone knob adjustment. It nails that Robben Ford tone as well as the "middle period" Larry Carlton tone (it doesn't beat my 335 though). Run through a Barber LTD (reviewed in HC as well) and into a ZVEX SHO boost, the tone is very full (tone rolled off a bit) and very dynamic. Going straight into a Mesa Boogie Mark 4 Widebody, clean channel, nice big clean blues tone. SIngle coil mode can get pretty ice picky in a way that is a little different from a Tele.

With higher gain, very long, very controlable sustain. Not chunky (more a function of the pickups, I guess) but not thin at all. With the Duncans, this one is a big 10, but reviewing the stock pickups, I have to give it a 5.5. Not a bad tone at all, but it really didn't make me sit up and take notice at all. The Duncans made it a completely different animal, the quality of the wood was brought out by the Duncans.

A friend heard it & tried it with the Duncans and said ". . .don't change anything, I'm tellin' ya'. . ."

Once bought, it's worth it to replace the pickups and add a master coil split push/pull knob!

Maple cap is well matched. Not "AAA" vibrant and deep, but still 3 dimensional. Coffee stain on top, cherry/wind body stain. Very pretty. Some small imperfections in the stain noticeable around the neck bindng where it meets the body. Didn't notice any filler around the inlays. Binding is nice and tight. Still smooth fret job, no sharp fret edges sticking out. All routing work was clean and crisp. Very clean, neat wiring job. Foil shielded on the inside of the top only.

NOTE: if you decide to replace the black plastic bezels with cream or chrome, be aware that the Brian Moore pickup bezels (rings) are not the standard Gibson size, so you'll have to probably deal with Brian Moore directly for replacement parts.

If you decide to drill holes for mini toggles, be careful, the finish is brittle!

The stock "iM" tuning machines had a pretty strange ratio, they did not feel very precise for fine adjustments. I replaced those with a set of locking Sperzels, again, what amounts to an "i2 upgrade" (NOTE:: Make sure you don't order the Sperzel 6 in line tuners as the shortest 2 will be too short to come through the thicker headstock. Order the 3x3 set and simply dismantle one tuner and flip the worm gear and knob assembly to the other side and you'll have a set of "2 over 4" ).

The action was just a touch high when I tried it out in the store, so I did a complete setup/neck adjustment and the action became effortless (felt like the other Brian Moores I've tried out). It's gone through a summer and winter wit me and only one minor neck adjustment. Haven't had to touch it since (as opposed to the more "climatctically temperamental" Carvins which seem to need adjustment with major seasonal changes). Other than that, I can't really comment on the factory setup.

With .010's it is buttery and just about as effortless as my Carvin DC135T. With .011's it was still nice, but seemed stiffer than my Strat which is strung with .011's, so it's back to .010's.

Tweeked out though, the feel is great!

The thing is used with a few scratches, but the finish still looks good. Polished it looks just about new. It still feels rock solid, and can take hard playing. While I wasn't crazy about the tuners, they felt solid. The pickups were still working fine as well as the entire electronics. No real problems with string breakage. The strap buttons were well seated still, but I replaced them with Schaller Straplocks anyway. Definitely dependable. While I usually take a backup, this one is definitely reliable. It's already broken in and has proven itself. I thik I first tried it the day it came in and bought it that next Wednesday, so don't think anythig was done to it, not even a string change,

Had one email session with them about the possibility of upgrading it to a 13P. They explained that it is basically a "different guitar," from the 13 or P series; the neck is set at a different angle. Prompt, polite response.

Been playing about 30 years. Own a bunch of guitars including a couple of Carvins, a few Fenders, a '65 ES335 (traded a 3 p/u Les Paul SG for it). If lost, stolen, or broken I'd get it again even at 500 dollars. While I didn't like th epickups or the tuners, Everything else was very sweet. The action, and the tonal quality of the wood came through with some care and tweaking. I keep shaking my head that I got this much guitar for under 400 dollars. . . With all the replacement parts, I still come out ahead, ending up with "up scale" model options for a ridiculous price.

Took it to a regular private jam and a friend brought his favorite Les Paul (a nice early 80's he got at a trade show) in (he's got a few guitars, all of 'em nice) (strung with .009's, and this one compared favorably with his Les Paul. The action was on a par (I preferred the .010's). The neck tone was full and warm if just a bit more presence in the upper mids the the Gibson stock neck, and the bridge was more aggressive than the stock Gibson bridge which had more bottom end.

Also have a friend's Epiphone Les Paul Gold Top bolt neck that I'm working on. It felt decent on it's own, but the i21 definitely outclasses it in feel (Epi felt a bit clunky) and solidity (that glued in neck). Tonewise, the Epi p/u's were darker, microphonic, and not even as nice to my ears as the "iM Classics."

To give you an idea, I added a master coil split push/ pull volume pot, a Fender TBX tone control with a larger value capacitor for a darker rolled off tone (you'll have to ream out the hole for the tone pot to the larger Fender sized shaft; not a beginner's job with the brittle finish around the edge of the hole). I also added 2 mini toggles to allow me to reverse the phase of each pickup to get either the inner or outer coils in single coil mode, and 3 out of phase options (2 single coil, one humbucking). Also added the Kinman mod treble bleed circuit on the volume pot to keep the treble from rolling off as you lower the volume pot.

If you find a used i21 in decent condition, and like a Les Paul-ish/Hamer-ish style guitar with a better feel than a bolt on Epiphone, this is the one to get. Because it is such a good platform to start with, it will customize very nicely. This one has come with me on every gig and studio session I've been to since I've gotten it if not as the main guitar, then at least as the second one picked.

I'm still shaking my head and grinning over this one! Yeah, for what I paid out, and what I ended up with? An honest 10 (. . . that "pawn shop treasure" cliche. . .).

Purchased from Musicians Friend for $399.00 it's emerald green and this is a model they are closing out. This is a Brian Moore i21 dual humbucker guitar which is part of the i1000 series. It has a mahogany body with maple top. It has two humbucking pickups and a 3 way selector. It has a stop tail piece and is a Les Paul style body. Mine is an emerald green but it should be noted that the tops are not as nice as the tops shown on the website.

* Comfort contoured body
* Brian Moore headstock
* Set neck construction
* Mahogany body
* Beautifully figured bookmatched maple wood tops
* Ivoroid binding
* 22 fret, 3 piece Mahogany neck
* Rosewood fingerboard with pearl fret markers
* 24.75" scale 12" radius
* Chrome covered Classic 'iM' Alnico Humbuckers
* Chrome Hardware
* 'iM' precision tuners
* Tunomatic bridge
* Brian Moore rear output jack

I play all types of music from Jazz to Blues to Funk to Metal. I'm using a variety of amps and effects ranging from a customized Peavey 5150 Combo (modified by John Bessent in Austin, TX) to a Fender Hotrod Deluxe. My effects range from Line6 to Boss effects. It's a quiet guitar and when using the neck position it has a full rich jazzy/blues sound on a clean channel and it works well for metal as well. My only complaint is that it didn't come with a coil tap switch but other than that there's nothing to complain about. It has a bit more weight in the body than the higher end models and a slightly thicker neck than the higher end models which makes it feel a bit more like a Les Paul.

The guitar is set up fine from the factory. I play 11's on all my guitars and so all guitars end up getting set up by Walter at the Musical Exchange in Austin, TX. The guitar is a great value for the money and I would buy a guitar like this before I'd buy guitars over $1000.00. The biggest complaint is that the top is not as nice as on the website but my opinion is that it doesn't matter how pretty the guitar is, if you can't play you still can't play...even with a pretty guitar. As with all new guitars straight out of the box this guitar had the standard plastic protectors on it. Due to the new-ness of the guitar it needs time to settle in and make it's own adjustments for the climate and adjustments it will make itself as it's played more and more. Otherwise, when I opened the box the guitar was in impecable condition.

I think this guitar will withstand live playing. I like it as much as my other Brian Moore which is in the i2000 series (i2). It seems like a well built and solid guitar. I'd definitely use it at a gig without backup.

I've dealt with the company via e-mail and I've felt they were as helpful as customer support could be from a distance. I've never tried to get the guitar repaired because it's brand new. The warranty is a LIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY to the original purchaser only and is non-transferable.

I've been playing for about 17 years and I own Seagull acoustic guitars, Ibanez acoustics, Peavey Wolfgangs (American Made), Charvel Model 5 (with Kahler Tremelo), Brian Moore i2 (from the i2000 series), and Schecter guitars. Since I bought this guitar over the phone you can't jsut ask the operator/salesperson how it plays and their personal thoughts of the instrument. For the price of the guitar I'd definitely buy it again. I'm stacking it up to guitars all the time and it has its own personality as all isntruments do. I have been playing my Brian Moore i2 guitar for several years (bought it used in Seattle) and I definitely think this guitar stacks up to it and the other guitars in my collection. I chose this guitar based on price and the playability of my other Brian Moore. I wish it had a top much closer to the one displayed on the website.