Encore Strat Copy

Got it from Argos. 22 fret, three single coil 5 way switch,strat copy.
not sure of wood but it looks good and strong. finish is flawless.

WOW. As soon as i plugged in i knew my search was over. I play mostly hard rock and neo-classical shred and it suits my playing great. I run it through a Marshall 1987 Plexi re-issue and a DOD 250 and Monster cables. This guitar really sings and will sistain forever. It has a really dark sound.

Not very good set up out of the box, but i do my own tech work anyway. After a few tweaks here and there it was rockin!!

Ive played a few gigs with thing and it performed great. I this thing should outlive me!!

never dealt with em.

Ive been playing about 17 years and i own a few other guitars and amps (mostly Marshalls and fenders) but I really like this ax. If it were lost or stolen i would replace it. These are really underestimated guitars and more poeple should check em out. Rock on!!

This is a cheap imitation guitar, which has 22 frets, three single coil pickups, two tone controls (for neck and mid pickups), and a single volume control. It also has a really nasty tremolo bridge, and some very cheap tuning heads.

The neck is made out of a really nasty-feeling wood, which seems to be different on 'identical' guitars. The body is under a standard laminated finish, which seems to protect some strange wood-like substance. But it isn't chipboard, contrary to what some people have said (but it could be different for them, since build quality really varies for this!) The strap buttons seems to be specially designed to make short work of any strap you put on it - it's a strap eating monster!!!

The sound... What sound, more like.

Acoustic, it doesn't really sustain the sound for long, and no matter what the action is, you *will* get fret buzz.

When plugged in, it sounds awful. I got this guitar as a Christmas present, and not knowing much about what guitars should sound like, it thought it was my playing. But I was really wrong (well my playing was bad then, but it's massively improved). The tone on it is really displeasing to the ear, which seems to empathize the really nasty high tones, and every tone which is discordant to that. The result: a really dull, offensive sound. And not offensive in the good sense.

Every control on the guitar makes a huge amount of noise, which if it can be controlled, can be a fun sound effect. But the terrible thing is that It Can Not Be Controlled!!! (duh duh duuuuh!)

Bad things aside; the fact it doesn't sound like a good guitar is sometimes a good thing. It you spend enough time with it, you can make some really odd sounds which are unique. And now that I've spent about five years with it, I know what sounds are good or bad. But don't take me wrong - the 'good' sounds still sounds awful really.

This is dreadful. For a beginners guitar, the action is far too high, with a really bad string length. It's like they have tried to make this difficult to play. If you know what you're doing, you can set it up so it is easier to play, and sounds almost consistant (almost, because it never sounds consistant) - but beginners won't know about this. So a lot of beginner guitarists will probably give up.

Even when setup well, it is still more difficult to play on that real guitars.

One major flaw with this guitar is the lack of electrical shielding inside it. It will pick up hums from every electrical source in a 5 mile radius. I've spent some time to put some shiny foil inside it, as well as earthing that, and the hums have almost entirely vanished. I can now play quietly without the *very loud* hum removing all trace of sound. But beginners won't know about this, or do anything about it, so it'll sound awful.

As with most things with this guitar, it is quite a contradiction. The guitar easily breaks in certain areas: The volume and 'tone' knobs fall off very easily; the tuning heads easily crack; the pickup selecter knob also easily falls off; the neck sounds like it is constantly breaking; amongst many other flaws. But it seems to last and last and last.

My guitar has fallen over; the neck hit really hard; I've kicked it many a time; it's been in a buses compartment hovel - and yet it still lives. Very strange.

It does last live playing, as long as you sort out the problem with the lead socket going loose - just tighten this with your fingers, and it plays. When it goes loose, then sometimes it refuses to play. I've gigged this as a lot of gigs, and it played. The biggest problem live is the strap buttons - they eat the strap, which makes the guitar fall off you at the worst point in time.

Can I depend on it - not really, but I have to, until I have enough money for a real guitar. Saying that, it hasn't failed me live yet - same with recording (why did I record on this guitar though!?!?)

N/A

Overall, this is a nasty - imitation guitar. And by imitation, I'm not saying it's pretending to be some brand it's not. Oh no - I mean that it is pretending to be a guitar.

It is meant to be a beginners guitar, but it seems to have been designed to be very anti-beginner. Most of the time, it sounds terrible. It's difficult to play. It breaks easily when you're being nice to it. But if you know what you're doing, then it can sound bearible. But beginners won't know how to do that.

If you are considering buying this then it's either because it's all you can afford, or you want to cheap guitar to piss about with. If you fall in the first camp - save up. Buy a real guitar. If you're in the second camp, then it can be good. It's cheap, so you can mod it to your hearts content without feeling guilty.

So as a beginners guitar - don't get it. As a guitar to use as a test bed for modding experiment, or to abuse to get the best, oddest sounds - then it's cheap, so get it.

So a score of 1 as a beginners guitar, 3 as a cheap guitar-like substance.

I brought this guitar from argos for #150 with a amp and all the other stuff. This guitar was made in korea i think, it has three pickups and plastic tuners (they are supposed to be chrome). The body is made of leftover wood that is squashed together and very poorley.

this guitar came with a crappy kustom 10w amp. If you want alot of distortion this is the guitar for you.

the guitar was set up quite well but that is the good thing about this guitar. The fret wood was wearing out after a month.

after around a month and this is when i took it back and got my money back because the strap holders fell off. Besides this guitar having a really crap body i think it would last along time, but i wouldn't trust it live.

who the hell are encore! no website phone number or address.

now i'm only a beginner and i've only been playing for a couple of months but even i realised that this guitar is one of the worst ones going. there is nothing i like about this guitar.

Poor Start Copy

Bloody Awfull!!!

Bought when all I knew of Guitar would fit on a postage stamp! If anything I belive this guitar impeeded my progress.

Well, I've been mightily hacke off with it at times but it's still in one piece.

Never had actual problems with it.

I bought this guitar in a starter pack. After owning an acoustic for a while I thought I'd have some fun with a 'leccy. I felt a bit intimidated going into a music shop not having a clue. They would of however, stopped me making the mistake of buying it.

It came with a really terrible 10 watt amp. Distorts at half volume, cheap Garoutting strap and Kieth Richards video - good comedy value.

I'm planning on trading it in on this weekend. Still don't know what I want but I will be going to a music shop. Might get #50 trade in.

I have no idea where it was made or what the pick ups ect are. See previous reviews. Cheaply made though. Like most people this was my first guitar brought from a catalouge when I had no idea about guitars.

I thought that it sounded OK at first when I had no idea. Now I play it and it's got a horrid metallic lower mid sound to it. Quite distorted to. I can only bear to hear this when it's got so much fuzz on top it's unrecognisable. But this fuzze sound does cut through though.

I have no idea how the action was when I got it, it's been through my teenaged Sonic Youth fixation with me. Now the action is so high you can't play it, but I may have warped the neck. The neck is very wide and flat and it also makes it very hard to play. Put it like this: I was struggling to play powerchords for ages on this and I got my tele and within a week I was soloing...The only way I can play this now is if I tune all the strings to A and play with one finger.
The pickups tend to flop down an every month or so you have to wind them up again. The tuners are a pain, it doesn't hold it's tuning at all.

I've had a persistant problem with the input jack, the wires keep coming off and I have to solder them back on again. However apart from that I am impressed with the reliability of this guitar. As I said, it went through my sonic youth phase with me and I've done a lot of horrible things to it you wouln't want to know. I still use this onstage as the final song guitar when I'm throwing it all over the place. I've been looking foward to it breaking so I can trash the horrible thing but it will not happen! I've brought it down over my head hard, thrown it ten feet in the air, thrown it all the way off stage, jumped on it wearing stillettos. Paint is chipped to hell now but still works after at least 20 gigs and god knows how many rehersals.

hahaha!

I wish I knew a bit about guitars before I bought it, even gone to a proper guitar shop. This guitar is nearly unplayable, but it will still have a place as my first guitar. I just wish I could trash it now! This is almost like a strange disease that you can't get rid of and yoo get used to it being there.

Fairly sure that its made Korea, yet this is just a guess as the only words on the damn thing are Volume, Tone, Tone and Encore. i mean you would have thought that they would had have the common decency to put were it was made. i dont think that there is decrace in admitting that it came from a sweat shop in the far east. it has the bog standard S/S/S pickup combination, 21 frets, 5-way selector and a strat body. am not sure on the neck material but its quiet thin and has a rosewood fretboard. the body is possibly maple, the only reason i'm saying this is because its about heavy as led. i mean this thing would cut a hole in the back of your neck if you were wearing a crap strap. the bridge is a string-thru body jobby and has non-locking machine heads(tuners)and its 'surprise surprise' RED. i suppose i shouldn't moan cause i did get it given to me by my dads work mate possibly cause he didn't want it. i mean is wasn't even ma birthday or nothing.if i did buy it brand new (which i wouldn't) it would of come with a gig-bag, crap amp, strap, picks and one of those 'play guitar in a thousand and one difficult step' videos which are that annoying that by the time you get to the seventh step, the guitar will be out the window and you will never want to hear the work guitar again.

i was not surprised at the sound. to me it sound very CRAP it isn't the amps fault. that amp is a 'sessionette 90' 90 watt amp and is what i call a neutral amp. it doesn't give every guitar the same sound. or to put it is better words it lets the true sound of the guitar come through. so the true sound of this guitar sounds like a cheap knocked of version of a squier. no variety what so ever. if you are lucky you might here a slight difference between the rhythm and treble pickup. sounds very tinny all the time. if i found some good effects maybe it would be able to suit my classic rock style.

setup was hurrendus when i got my grubby mits on it, fret buzz all the time you see. fixed that bugger with an allen key.
its got:
poorly filed fretwire
por quality wood
loose tuning pegs
poorly cut nut
poorly fitting saddles
noisy pickup selector
loose controls
action as high as everest
but thats what you have to expect from a guitar of this calibre i'm afraid

POSSIBLY the only good thing about this guitar is that can stand a good kicking around. threw it down the stairs once because it wouldn't go in tune and it looked brand new after. paint job is staying on there for life mate. strap buttons are a little shakey but nothing a screwdriver wouldn't fix.if i had to depend on it i would and it would withstand me. the word gig doesn't even enter my head when i look at this guitar. it more like frig, in the sense of friging hell, i wouldn't even be backing on this guitar. or more to the point i wouldn't be seen dead out of the house with this guitar unless i felt like giving it to a total stranger and then i would hide it in something.

warrenty? what warrenty i didn't thing Encore had enough money to offer warrenty? LOL

i have been playing for six years and i own:

GUITARS
Peavey Raptor International Series 1
Fender American Standard Stratocaster
Epiphone Firebird 1963
Gibson Les Paul Special SL Humbucker Electric Guitar
This Crapy Encore

AMPS
Sessionatte 90 90 watt valvestate amp (kick-ass)
Peavey Envoy 110 35 watt Transtube amp
Peavey Rage 158 15 watt Transtube amp

MULTI-EFFECTS PROSESSORS
Zoom GFX-707
Digitech RP1200

i would be pretty pissed if this was stolen, not at the fact that i like but the fact that its mine and that it is just damn rude to steal stuff. i wouldn't by it again because of the fact that it is a twatty guitar. if you are a begginer then sure this package is the jobby for you. it could be really be doing with a better bridge, pickups, pickup selector and headstock. because it doesn't have an original sound, i cant compare it to my other guitars.

Early 90s strat copy made in India, with 2 single coils and a humbucker at the bridge. Contoured body to stop you bashing your arm and belly. Bolt on neck, tremolo, rosewood fret board. 1 volume, 2 tone knobs; 5 way selector. Finished in off white with white pickguard.

Through an amp's clean channel, this guitar is a dog - the cheap build lets it down (but what do you want for this price). Distorted is a different story - if you want a nasty, trashy fuzz sound, the Encore is just fine. Ideal for the sort of music I started paying on in fact. The humbucker is quite spiky, the single coils are actually much better. 6 for distortion sound, probably only a 2 through the clean channel.

Really nice low action, keeps in tune well. For the price.

I've been playing this guitar in practises since 1991. It has a few dents, and the nut needed repairing. The tremolo arm no longer screws in - the threading broke after about 3 years. However, the guitar stays in tune really well, and despite taking quite a bashing over the years, still works okay.

Never contacted them

Encore make cheap starter guitars, ideal for those who can't afford a Squier or Epiphone. They're not the greatest guitars but are a good starting place. With the exception of the clean sound, this is no worse than a Squier strat I've played. I have better better made and nicer sounding guitars now, but the Encore still comes out once in a while - and stays in tune in its bag for months on end. People should stop slagging such guitars off - of course it's not as good as a #700 guitar, but would you really expect it to be? Its good value for the money.

Its got a standard strat shape body, slightly thiiner than the fender, 3 single coil pickups and a standard trem. tuers seem ok, doesnt go out much. I think the body might be alder. Or MDF.

Sound is very dead on clean, sounds ok through my distortion box, but thats with a big custom built amp. Sound bad with smaller amps. Can get a few different sounds out of t, but these just seem very muddy and undefined, only the bridge pickup is of use. I raised the coils up and it gives some more output, that helped the sound a bit

The frets buzz alot, but the action is very low, but for leads its not so good with only 21 frets. The p/u selector has started crackling too.

The strap buttons seem the best part of this guitar, though it has survived bein gigged once, including having a floor tom drum thrown at it, so im quite suprised it still goin.

Haven't dealt with customer support

I've been paying for 6 months now, having started on a 30 year old 3/4 acoustic, the guitar has been good to learn on. I also have a custom built amp and a Danelectro Fabtone distortion. If it were stolen i would be sad, hopefully i'll replace it with an Ibanez RG270

God knows where it's made, it's a cheapo! Usual strat features, probably got a laminated body. Black finish. Cheap hardware/Pickups etc. 21 frets. 3 single coils, trem. Rosewood looking fingerboard. All the features you expect in a beginner guitar.

Sound is much weaker than Fender Strats and the like, but what do you want for under $100? Much better than cheap guitars of years ago. Does a strattish job, but a bit lifeless.

Guitar was second hand, and had a few minor dents, but the neck was straight, and it played surprisingly well. Again, much better than cheapos of 10+ years ago. The frets are quite smooth, may have been stoned by previous owner. The back of the neck is a bit fat, but I've played much worse. Probably a damn good guitar for a beginner, much better than the $10 shit I started on!

I have no intention of playing this guitar live, as I'm passing it on to a learner I know. If you want a picture of it's durability though, I've a story for you. I was a bit bored and drunk a couple of days ago, and I decided to put it through a patent testing programme!! It was plugged in and was performing adequately, when I decided to throw it at the wall! Fired up, I submitted the guitar to what can only be described as a sound thrashing, I dragged it up the stairs, whacking the neck against the wall (a la Pete Townshend) a few times on the way up, then threw it all the way down, where it bounced off the bottom step and hit 2 walls in succession. I then carried on playing it! Yes, it was still plugged in and working, and only 2 strings were out of tune! I carried on playing, tuning, and beating this bastard for a good half hour, throwing it on the floor all ways up, doing an SRV, waggling it by the trem arm, whacking it against the floor etc. Although I wasn't giving it the absolute force necessary to smash it, (as I did with my $10 shit, and an Epiphone Les Paul I later argued with) I just thought I would testify to the unbelievable durability of this instrument. The guitar was working almost perfectly throughout, and had I not finally thrown the guitar face down on the floor, and jumped on it, breaking the selector switch, I believe it would still be in perfect working order! There are no cracks in the wood, the neck is straight, and the tuners are still fine. There are only a few more dents in the paint. In a couple of days, a replacement switch is coming, which I will fit, and I will re-string it and give it to the aforementioned beginner. The guitar is, IMHO, as structurally sound as the day it left the factory. Go Encore!! And I had fun, too!

I wouldn't know who to call, but unless you do what I did, I doubt you'll need to call anyone!

I've been playing guitar for around 14 years, and my main guitars are a Fender American Tele and a Fender California Strat. I play many different types of music, from Indie, to Blues, to Rock, I'm pretty open minded. I'm generally rather dedicated to music, although I am sometimes prone to juvenile moments as you have read above!! I felt it was important to point out, firstly, how pleasantly surprised I was with the quality of this guitar, and then prove that not all cheap hardware is fragile! I wish I could have began on one of these. I'm also glad that someone asked me for this guitar before I f****d it for good! What a waste!

made in korea(probobly in a sweat shop) standurd strat looks, but not the sound or reliability

i play metal this guitar did a fair job of it but that is ONLY FAIR. it was good to begin w/ but as time proceeded the sound began to wear away. now i might as well put rubber bands around a shoe box it would get better sound than this.

action sucked (too high) pickups flat out suck, 5-way selector no longer works and to top it all off i'm broke.

DEFINATELY WOULD NOT STAND LIVE PLAYING. (live playing,huh, it barely withstood my playing in my bedroom) finish has ripples all through it, and the black paint is very thin and chips easily. the strap buttons also suck

do they even have custumor service???

i have been playing for about 2 years now. i own a peavy rage 158, and am soon to own a schecter v-7 and a rocktron r50 rampage. i wish i would have known what i was getting into, i paid more for broken strings for this guitar than i paid for the guitar itself. a complete waste of thim. beginners, intemediates, and exspecially experts, dont even think of getting this guitar