Brian Moore Guitars i81.13

Made in China. 22 frets. Cheap flame top. Volume/tone controls, piezo volume, synth controls. H/H, cheap passive pick ups. Body is mahogany, neck is maple, fingerboard is rosewood. Finish is see-thru red. Strat style body. Fixed bridge. Non-locking BM generic tuners. Terrible fret job on the neck. 25.5" scale. Came with a gig bag and stereo cable.

The guitar sounds cheap. It feels cheap. It looks nice on the internet, but, you guessed it....in person it looks cheap. The pick-ups only have a 3 position switch (they might as well have used a toggle switch). The piezo needs an external power source for amplification. The piezo also requires using a stereo cable. Godin's are much better for this stuff (they don't need either one of these extras).

The set-up was decent out of the box, but the neck is pretty much incapable of retaining relief. I have to adjust it all of the time. There was a terrible buzzing, and the frets had to be leveled/dressed. The nut was hollow plastic, so I had to replace that too. The finish is very easily chipped or scratched. The brige is attached slightly askew so that the bass strings are closer to the edge of the fingerboard than the treble strings.

I would not play this guitar live. There is something wrong with the bridge so that strings break in-between the ferrules in back of the body and the bridge plate on top of the body. The hardware is nothing special. The finish will chip and scratch. Strap buttons are about the only thing that work as they should!

They get back to you, but they don't offer any assistance other than "find a local guitar repairman" or "if you do that you'll void your warranty." I bought this from music 123...they took forever to ship the guitar...I waited about 3 weeks to actually get it!

I've been playing for over 10 years. I study music at a prominent music school. I own or have owned at least one guitar from just about every major guitar company. I wish I never would have gotten this guitar. Godin guitars are much better for synth and piezo features.

2005 China 22 Frets tone and volume control

Poor sound. Cheap pickups. Average for a guitar in this price range.
The 1st owner of this guitar replaced the pickups with Ibanez F2 and F4 pickups. Those sounded "hollow". I put in a Seymour Duncan Screamin Demon and it helped. The sound is now quite good. The 3 way switch and volume and tone controls work---That is all i can say about those.

Guitar build was alright. Neck is good. tuners were replaced with Sperzel.
The GREATEST FLAW in this guitar is a HUGE manufacturing defect. The placement of the VOLUME control puts it RIGHT UNDER your chord strumming path, and causes the voulume to move when playing. I am going to have to sell this guitar because it really...is NOT GOOD.
Brian Moore must be a non musician to make ALL his guitar line like this!
Also, The bridge height adjustment screws DIG into your picking hand... just awful.

The hardware was cheap, The finish is average.

Don't know. Don't want to.

I like this guitar for a low end model. But GEEZ the design!! It's just not good. Move the volume and fix the bridge and it is a solid guitar. of course, that will NOT happen , so any one want to buy one? $325

I'll tell you all up front: I was extremely disappointed in this guitar. I bought it new from American Musical Supply; it was out of the box for maybe 90 minutes before I was on the phone getting an RMA to return it. So with that said, here is my review.

Features? You want features? It's got features. Magnetic & piezo pickups, Roland-style synth driver, nice wood, etc. Features for days.

Some of the features are not well thought-out, though. The "innovative output jack position" on the back of the guitar sucks, IMHO. The bridge-side strap button is back there too, and I felt that it put the strap in an awkward position.

The tuners are arranged "two on the bass side, four on the treble side." Would probably get used to this if I had kept the guitar, but I didn't really see the point.

Sound was disappointing. The magnetic pickups were very thin sounding through my 65 Twin RI. The mag sound is probably OK if you're using crunch / distortion, escpially with a small-speaker amp; but for clean tone, not so much.

The piezo pickup sounded like total crap. I used the included splitter cable to run the piezo output through a Baggs Para Acoustic DI to Roland RV-3 reverb, then into full-range acoustic amp. The piezo sound was thin and extremely harsh, and no amount of tweaking with the Baggs could salvage it. Ugh.

I was under the impression that the mag and piezo sounds could be blended, but apparently that is not the case. Either that or the wiring was bad; there was a three-way mini-toggle switch that I thought was mag/blend/piezo, but it did not appear to do anything. The manual had no info specific to the 81.13, so there was no way to tell for sure.

Hoo-boy. As I said, I bought this guitar new from American Musical Supply. In the gig bag pocket was an extensive checklist of all of the QA items that had supposedly been checked at the factory.

What a joke. This was the worst setup that I have ever seen in 35 years of playing guitar, bar none. I am not exaggerating when I say that the factory setup is better on Wal-Mart guitars.

I can't even say this thing had a setup, really, because out of the box the guitar was literally unplayable. The truss rod was so overtight that the neck was actually bowed BACKWARDS, away from the top -- so the strings dragged across all of the frets. It took almost a full turn of the truss rod to get enough relief on the neck to tune the guitar!

Once the relief was set, I had to raise string height on three strings to eliminate buzzing, then correct the intonation. Bear in mind, this is with the factory strings. I spent 40 minutes setting up the guitar so that it could be tuned and played, only to find out that it sounded bad (see above).

QA, my butt. There is NO WAY that anyone could have honestly checked out this guitar and passed it.

And here's a weird thing: the frets were filed completely flat across the top, -- no crown on them at all, especially above the octave. This made a lot of fretted notes sound fuzzy. Bizarre.

Finally, the neck was so narrow at the nut that I could not play the guitar cleanly. I have large (but not enormous) hands, so I prefer a bit more width than the average guy -- but this was the narrowest neck that I have ever seen. Seriously, it was like a 5-string banjo neck.

Didn't have it long enough to form an opinion. From what I saw, the construction seemed solid enough. The tuners were crap, but the rest of the guitar seemed to be well built. The finish was nicely done; cosmetically, it was a beautiful guitar.

It may have had a wiring problem (see "Sound"), but I had already decided to send it back for other reasons so I didn't bother scoping that out.

Didn't bother. If they would ship a guitar in this condition, I have nothing to say to them.

I bought this guitar because I thought it would give me a wide range of tones, and because it could also drive my Roland guitar synth.

There aren't many synth-ready guitars to choose from, and the Brian Moores seemed to be well regarded. There are no Brian Moore dealers in the Cleveland area so I had to order it online. I really had high hopes for the 81.13, and I was very anxious to get it.

When I unzipped the gig bag and saw the gorgeous finish, I couldn't wait to get the thing out and play it. I was shocked at the unplayable setup, but I know how to fix that so no biggie. The intonation was off, but OK, I can fix that too.

When I heard the mag pickups, I was disappointed again; but I thought hey, maybe I'll pick up some Duncans on eBay. Then I heard the piezo, and the pile of disappointments got too high to continue.

The super-narrow neck would have required major adjustments to my playing, and quite frankly this guitar was not worth adjusting to. I didn't even bother trying it with the synth. There was no point.

So off to the phone to get an RA, then to fedex.com to print a shipping label, and back out the door it went. I literally packed it up after less than two hours.

I would not buy another low-end Brian Moore under any circumstances. I might consider a 2.13, but only if it was (a) very cheap, and (b) in a store where I could play it before buying.

goodie, I get to be the first to rate the 81.13 / 2004 mfg China! 22 frets, laminated emerald green top. 1 magnetic pickup, 1 piezo acousitic/ 1 synth 13pin output. 1 mag tone.
pickup config H/H piezo bridge. mag pickups? "2 ching ching changs" humbuckers I guess... 1 RMC bridge pickup. Active piezo, but I'm hard pressed to hear a difference in the acoustic piezo with or without the 9vdc battery. body-Nato Mahogany body. but as light as pine... (ha ha) neck maple, with rosewood fingerboard. finish transparent, body style-exaggerated strat cut, fixed bridge. stock tuners, non-locking. neck ultra thin. accessories. y cable adapter to blend acoustic and mag into a mixer or two amps aside from the 13 pin cable. Replaced the stock tuners with Sperzel locks, had to alter one of the 3x3 as the config is 2x4.

jazz, funk, r&b -Christian music!
amps- Roland JC's 2-55, 1-77, 1-120, Peavey Standard & 4x12 cab, GK ML250, combo of any 2 at a time. Roland GR 30 synth
Very quite on most settings. electronics are so-so.
Sounds, (mag pickups) Hums's - from a thin Les Paul, to a fat strat. Synth, you name it! 1000's of sounds if you can handle it, Piezo on accoustic, no settings, one sound only, must be eq'd by amp. BIG drawback, acoustic cannot be blended into synth output. only Mag and synth. tracking is very good, magnetic pickups, ehhh.. not horrible, crisp, yet lacks full tonal body. dislike? cant get all three voices out of the synth output like the Godin. only mag and synth.

set up at the factory? hahahahah... nearly every screw was loose, action was "ok" not optimized, not overly high or buzzy low. Pickup adjustment height, little low, but I dont think that would have made them sound any better. bookmatched top, good, bridge/ good. Big problem. fretwire ... ouchieee! sharp on both sides of the neck, unless you have leather hands or play like a sissy, your looking at texas chain saw massacre. I had to use an ultra fine board and round off every fret. They either overhung the fret board, or had the angle sharpened like a chisel. Very pissed at that finish. I happen to have a 2001 BM 88.13 korean made and it is very smooth, so needless to say the second I set my hand on this one, I was shocked by the poor finish job. Back to the controls, etc. every screw was about as tight as a 1 yr old could torque. Wood finish was nice. on neck back and the body.

durability... hmmmm. not sure. I think it should be ok as long as the screws are ocassionaly torqued. Humbuckers look, feel and sound a little cheesy, but they should be ok as long as they stay recessed into the rings. Body finish seems thick, neck finish may be a little on the lite side. Strap buttons. I replaced them with Schaller loc's. I have a mini team of guitars. I rarely bring more than 1 to play, but that is a practice I should take up automatically irregardless of the brand.

While I have yet to call for this unit, in contacting for my other BM, they are extremely helpful, email is best as they respond quickly.

player since 74' first paying gig 77'. dances, parties, expo's, concerts, studio work, 5 nite a week club gigs. now only play Christian modern to oldies at church, events, or recording.
Equip: Godin XTSA, Les Paul 77 standard, Kramer Tneck dmz2000, Fender Strat MIJ 84, Fender MIM Roland Ready, Fender custom strat, Brian Moore 88.13, 2-Godin SD, 2 gk2a's currently on custom strat, soon to be on one of the Godin SD's. (amps) Roland Jazz Chorus amps, 2 jc55, 1 jc77, 1 jc 120, 1 GK ML250II, 1, Peavey standard head, 1 Peavey Musician, 1 Peavey Bass. Roland GR30 synth, Roland rack reverse gate reverb,Alesis rack effects, & oodles of foot pedals I dont use at all.
the synth pickups "very good tracking" night and day over the gk 2a, or the roland ready, makes synth playing feel like a regular guitar rather than having to drastically change playing action with the synth hex setups. Brian Moore is so light, you almost forget you have it on. Choose this one as the price was killer, and I like my 88.13, thinking this one would have been comparable. If it wasnt so cheap would have gone right back to the store. This one will probably get dogged and banged around. Still looking for a Godin LGX-SA at the right price.