Cort CL-1400

Bought the guitar used (2004) from a music store/consignment piece. Made in Korea, manufacture around 2000. Two humbuckers (neck, bridge), combination bridge/tailpiece (adjustable), and master volume and tone controls (tone has pull/push pot to split the pickup coils to single coil mode). 22 med. jumbo (or maybe jumbo) frets, set in neck, transparent green over flamed maple. Mother of pearl block inlays with triangle green abalone inlays centered in the middle of them (inlays within inlays). Very striking guitar.

I have had the advantage of having owned this guitar for over a year and have played several gigs with it as well as home practice and rehearsal. I've put in enough time with the guitar to weed out the good and the bad, positive and negative aspects. Fortunately, if you're looking to buy one of these guitars, they are a great deal for the price. Mine had nicely finished frets, good quality build, and very nice sound. A note about the "chambered body"...this would leave you to believe that is is a semi-hollow. The truth is that is a hollowbody. A thin hollowbody, kind of like an older Gretsch. However, the top, back, and sides are thicker than usually found on a true hollowbody. This equates to a bit more sustain and punchy sound. The guitar sounds great clean and (up to) moderate overdrive/distortion levels. It will handle high gain/modern distortion as well, but you have to be careful where you stand in relation to the amp and also have control over string damping (covering with your hand once in while) if you are planning on running raging distortion thru your amp. That is to be expected with a hollow body. It has rather large 'F' holes and this is the only negative in my opinion (this probably contributes slightly to feedback at high gain). Overall, this guitar is near perfect, and in my case, I have Gibson '57 PAF reissues in it, so it really shines. I give it a 9.5 but am rounding up to 10 because its a great guitar and has a nice full tone, awesome clean sound, and really sounds great at low to medium overdrive levels.

The guitar plays really nicely, easy on the hands. As stated above, build quality is excellent, overall feel / mojo is excellent, and the guitar is a best buy at this price range. I would recommend getting over the stigma associated with the 'Cort' name and try this guitar, or the Matt Murphy model or M600 (or the hollowbody/chambered version of it). I changed my attitude about the 'Cort' word once I bought the guitar. By the way, I bought it straight off the rack (used) solely based on the striking looks, feel, and construction. I never even plugged it in before I bought it. Speaks highly of the guitar I would say.

I have never had issues with the guitar. I agree with one of the reviewers that the strap buttons are kind of weak (very small and your strap will slip off). At this price range, and the fact that new/good quality strap buttons (or locks if you choose) are inexpensive, this is a non-issue with me. I deduct no points for that, but offer the advice that these should be replaced unless you only sit on a stool and don't move when you play. I have put the guitar thru its paces (including bending the neck for trem/vibrato effects occassionaly) and its never let me down. Its a great guitar.

I have never had to deal with Cort because I haven't had a reason to call them or e-mail.

The 1400 includes basic features of any Korean guitar, including an inexpensive bridge, cheap tuners, and weak pickups. The bridge does its job (as does any fixed bridge), the tuners stay in tune rather well, but allow the high E string to slip out from time to time. The two humbucking pickups sound acceptable, but have a considerably low output level. If I choose to upgrade, I'll put in Rio Grande Bastards (P-90's that fit into a standard humbucker slot.

The guitar is very light weight with average sustain for a completely hollow guitar. The neck is very thin (compared to my Les Paul), but very comfortable. I lowered the action and play with .11 strings, so there is no buzzing, great tone, and great action.

I give it an 8 for features because it doesn't have top of the line components, but for the price and overall quality of the guitar, the features are very good.

My style is basically improv jazz/blues/rock. The 1400 sounds great clean, and even better with low-gain distortion. I've played it thru many Fender amps, including the Hot Rod Deluxe that I own, and it sounds great with a mellow early breakup overdrive thats suitable for jazz and blues. Thru high-gain amps and Marshalls, it sounds pretty much like any solid body guitar. Once I change the pickups, It will sound near-perfect.

From the factory, it came very playable, but not perfect. But, no guitars come perfect from the factory, and perfect for me is not perfect for anyone else. Because this category is very subjective, I won't base my rating on action. The finish was excellent. Carved flamed maple top with a heritage cherry sunburst finish. Actually it is a pressed laminiate top with a flame sheet under the finish. It looks amazing though.

This guitar will withstand many years of live playing. Though the stock tuners are acceptable, I recommend Sperzels or other high quality tuners if you plan on playing live. I've found Sperzels on Ebay for all of my electric guitars for under $40. A guitar's finish does not reflect its durability. If the finish never wears off; Great, I've got a great looking guitar for a long time. If the finish wears off quickly; Great, I've a great playing guitar with tons of character.

I've been playing guitar for 5 years, and bass for 4 years. I primarily play bass when I play live, but I also play lead guitar with a few other side projects. I always have different gear, so it would be useless to say what I own. Though since buying this guitar, I've realized how high quality of guitars Cort builds, and I just purchased an Earth 900 acoustic guitar that is an awesome guitar for the price I bought it for on ebay ($260). The CL 1400 plays like an $800 guitar rather than a $450 guitar. If you find one cheap, BUY IT. If you don't find one cheap, play everything else and consider what the best value is. Remember that value isn't the cheapest instrument, but it is the best sounding and best playing instrument for the price paid.

It's mainly the same as the Cort CL1500, yet it misses the Tree of Life inlay. I chosen this one for 2 simple reasons, 1: the CL1500 is much more expensive. 2: I think the inlay in the neck makes bending the strings harder as it slides less easier.
I think it is made in Korea, but that doesn't matter anymore these days, if you look at the workcraft it is almost flawless ( I found one error in the painting job and so I had it cheaper ) you can easily compare it with usa handcraft. The thing is that guitars from Korea are mostly cheaper as the building cost is lower and the products they use are cheaper and easier to get their hands on (wood etc)
Guilted mapple top,
body, mahogany with tone chambers with F holes
2 PAF style pick ups
1 tone and one volume knop (The tone knob (coil tap) also adds the feature to make your humbuckers act like single coils pick ups) and a three way tone selector.
A very thin Mahogany neck (24,75") I really love this..... I have small hands and so does my gf, you don't need to have any strenght to bend the strings ala santana does.
A PAF style humbucker from mightymite H/H (covered alcino pick ups) Mighty who? Well they do their job very well, the sound is very lovely, although I am thinking to replace them
I can't describe the body style with a comparison with for example fender, it is just a totally new design, althou you probably will think it is a PRS the first time you see it.
It's a tune-O-matic bridge.
Sadly you can't buy any cases are extra's from Cort, this way you'll have a hard time to transport them. My advise is to buy a good gigbag, lately there are some very ugly but strong bags, I won't mention the brand, you can email me if you like to know.

I won't give it a ten as the lack of many knobs is a minor point, but further I love the guitar.

I mainly play Blues, blues rock, some jazz and anything I like to play, that means I also try to cover Eric Clapton, Santana, Jewel and Alanis Morissette, etc etc. It gives a wide range of sounds, I compared it with the newest PRS Santana II and didn't think the higher price of the Santana was worth competing with this guitar. You get an almost PRS sound for half the price.
I mostly play it clean, sometimes I do use it with a zoom, but that pushes down the sound of any good guitar. I use a Marshall JTM as amp. I think it suits most of my music styles. The distortion of my marshall (tube) is enough to make this baby scream very loud.
I dislike the fact that the sustain isn't that good as I hoped. If you start to play any good songs of Santana you'll notice the tone just doesn't keep on as long as you intend it to, I was able to get the right sustain on the prs but heck that one is twice the price I paid for this guitar.
I don't think the guitar will prevent any1 of finding a good sound, the setup of knobs is okay, the fact that it are only 2 knobs is very sad, that makes it harder for people to find the right sound but it is in there, I did find more sounds then I thought I would be able to find in this guitar. Mainly because of the coil tap and the suprising mightymite humbuckers.

What can I say?? This guitar was set-up perfect.
I am happy there was a flaw in the paint job, this way I was able to get a price off. I don't care that much for looks, although I like a guitar to be goodlooking

I think this guitar will withstand live playing, I haven't tested it yet, but it's strong, and I don't know why it wouldn't be able to sur5 live playing. I use all my guitars live, none went broke.
I think everything is solid on this guitar, it hasn't broken in my hands yet, while I often brake everything except for my guitars, I wouldn't buy a guitar if it could brake in my hands.

This is going to be the sad part. First I contacted Cort by email to inform them they had a error on their website (they are giving the same details for the CL1400 and CL1500 including the tree of life inlay, check it at www.cort.com) they answered my email within 4 hrs (amazing) and thanked me for the correction and would correct it directly, hm well it's still not changed...
I got my guitar for a few weeks now, and I have noticed a weird resonance at the back of the guitar. When you plug it in you hardly hear it, but when you play it unplugged (also a rather good sound, but not as good as a Taylor *duh* ) I was really annoyed and noticed the resonance (some sort of fibe don't know the correct word for it) was getting worse and started to show up when I played at various neck positions. I send another email to Cort, but still I haven't had any reaction yet. Tomorrow I am going to my local shop, where I bought it *the seller is a reall jerk, but he got hell a nice guitars* and see if they can help me.

I own a Guild Bluesbird, a Fender reissue '52, a fender standard usa strat, a marshall JTM 312. I owned a Marshall valvestate a Dearmond m65c(lovable guitar at that price range) It is sad Cort doesn't give more support for this guitar or give more feedback and details to users.
If it were stolen, I might buy it again, it depends whether I haven't got enought money by then to buy a PRS hollowbody. :-) Anyhow I can't imagen any1 going to steal my guitars, I almost live in a safe, if you can get into it, I'd have to give him a big applause, but probably I'll brake all his f*cking bones, I am rather peacefull but when it comes to my guitars............. hm nvm.
I wished it had more sustain and a good leather case, then I would really have a asome guitar!!!!!