Product: Chandler Futurama
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
08/14/2008
at
08:44am
by
Brett
Features
:
8
A Strat like guitar with high quality woods including a beauty birdseye neck w/ pau ferro board. UNsure of body wood but guessing alder. Mine is cream with tort pick guard,wilkinson trem,3xsingle coil,5-way switch. Much like a Strat but feels more ergonomic and a bit smaller. Very light and resonant,neck pickup is fabulous sounding. A very good American made guitar.
Sound
:
9
Sounds much like a Fender Strat. I once forgot a spare guitar and just brought this out on a big gig and it was great. I normally use a Tele for most stuff, and this for some stuff. I used it all night and while it did not have the big mids of the Tele,it was fine. Stayed in tune,bridge pick up was fine,but I loved the neck only setting, fabulous. Big and dark sounding in the neck.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
8
Seems well made. I did ntoice some shims had been placed in the trem set up ,but now it is back to normal,working fine.
Some finish flaws, possibly a knot or finish imperfections. You ahve to tilt the guitar to see them. I dont care about such things but it is clearly from the factory,not the result of mishandling. Surprised this made it out the door,actually. Should have been refinned or rejected.
Otherwise, it ireally is a good guitar. It is stageworthy,and is fun to play. My wife thinks its the sexiest of the 5 guitars I own and calls it the "girlfriend".
It has the best volume and tone pots of ANY guitar....ever! Including my PRS. This Futurama has the best volume pot...its fast and easy and voiced perfectly. My number one Tele is not even close.I use it a lot when I play it,lots o'swells. So in that way, the guitar is around for a reason,it makes me play a bit differently, whihc is great.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
Pro level instrument. Equal to any regular Fender strat,and better than most copies. I had a 83 Squier Strat that was just excellent, not sure why,but it was stolen.This is not quite as sonically alive as that guitar was,but it is a very good Strat inspired guitar with cooler lines,IMO.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
I emailed them to ask for info and quoted the serial number. I did not hear back from them. They did make it well though.Guess they dont like to talk about them once they are sold.
Overall Rating
:
8
a Solid 8.5 for this one. Sure the finish thing is not ideal,but as far as performance goes it stays in tune and rocks the house. The original pick ups are good, the trem is good, the woods are top notch,the playing experience is Stratty,but ergonomically better.The 5 way is on the top of the pick guard,way cool.It looks cool,kinda Jagstangy,if thats a word.
Maybe a bridge pick up with a bit more output or dimension to it.But it is voiced nice and only required slight tone pot tweaking.I think I will keep it as I NEVER see anything about these, and never see on eBay.
