Keiper Guitars 100BL

Superstrat, Floyd Rose style trem, locking nut. Two humbuckers and a single coil. Five position switch.

Really nice looking guitar with gold hardware and a blue translucent body.

Didn't sound particularly special. The clean sounds had little character. Distorted was better but that just hides the real sound of the pickups.

I have some nice guitars. This isn't one of them. OK, it was very cheap but it played terribly when I got it. A pickup surround was broken.... replaced by the supplier but took a long time to arrive

A few loose bits of hardware - nothing that a screwdriver couldn't fix.

I did a setup on it, changed the strings etc but I could not get the action to a point where I enjoyed playing it.

I don't have it anymore. It didn't inspire confidence in me. Nuff said?

I got a replacement for the broken pickup surround but took several weeks and several emails.

I have some nice guitars and I've been playing a long time.

I wanted a knock-about guitar but this just wasn't up to it. Sure it was cheap and looked very nice but I've had better cheap guitars.... I dismantled the Keiper and sold the parts and then bought a second hand Epiphone superstrat for only a few quid more. Much, much better.

Sorry Keiper! Maybe I was just unlucky. I did read some reviews here before buying this guitar and some people have said that their guitars are OK. I hope that mine was just a bad one.

Superstrat style guitars made in china, Floyd Rose copy trem, H/S/H pick-up congiguration, 5 way switch, vol & tone control, Alder body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard,650mm scale length,Fender size frets.

The pickups are generic chinese & to be honest are very poor,the bridge humbucker doesn't have a lot of drive or tone,it's not tinny just a bit flat & un-inspiring, the single coil middle pickup is tinny & has the most brittle top end of any single coil pickup I've ever played with, The neck humbucker is again flat & un-inspiring but it's also very poor in picking responce & sounds very muted as though it has a tone control turned down to seven on it.I've used this guitar with a Marshall TSL100 & 2x12" cab (celestions) & also into my recording setup, which is Line 6 Pod,Boss GT6 & GT8 into mixer/amp/monitors etc
My regular guitars are Fender/Ibanez/Jackson/Tokai. which is what I'm comparing it to.

When I got these guitars they were only basically set up,The first thing I did was to change the strings & adjust the necks etc & that's when I really started seeing the flaws in these guitars.Both necks were slightly warped,all guitar necks will warp to varying degrees over time as the wood dries out & becomes more seasoned,but to see this much warping on new guitars is unacceptable,one neck had a twist in it,it twisted down on the bass side by the nut,the other one was worse,it was warped downward by the nut & also had a dip in the middle of the fingerboard,it was impossible to set up any relief on these necks with the truss rod,this latter neck rattled & buzzed on the first two frets & buzzed again in the middle of the neck,I had to set an action of 3/16" at the twelfth fret just to minimise this fret buzz.The wood used on these necks I suspect has only been kiln dried to furniture standards & not the standard required of musical instruments. Next we come to the hardware!! the locking nut is made of a soft alloy & the threads stripped within a few minutes of trying to lock the strings down,you're probably thinking I'm hamfisted but you're wrong,I've been repairing guitars & amps since the late sixties & this is the first time I've ever stripped a thread on a guitar,by the simple nature of locking nuts the strings need to be well clamped to stop any movement,on my Ibanez guitars the locking nuts are also made of alloy but have hardened steel inserts & high tensile steel bolts to do the job properly,I've not stripped any threads on the Floyd Rose style trem yet but I suspect this is also made from the same soft alloy as the nut,Don't be misled by pretty pictures of these guitars,these Floyd Rose style trems are not of the same quality as those fitted to Ibanez & other japanese guitars, even though they may look the same.. The same goes for the machine heads,they look like the same smooth tuners fitted to japanese guitars but again they are very poor.When it came to tuning up I found the tuners were binding up like they used to do on cheap Futurama guitars from the sixties...I thought that kind of crap manufacturing had gone forever.. but obviously not!!

In my opinion these guitars won't stay playable for very long,that's if you're lucky enough to get one playable from new,I bought two & they're both very un-playable!! The Trem/Locking nut/Machine heads I suspect will give the owner the first signs of trouble,followed by the neck as it dries out over time,The finish looks quite good & will probably be ok,The pickups are very poor sounding but I don't think they'll be unreliable.. Mind you looking at the rest of this guitar you can't be too sure.

After I received my first guitar from Keiper I e-mailed them & they did reply within a week,they offered to send me a replacement guitar for a small fee,which I agreed to & that's how I came to own another
Keiper Powerstrat,but to be honest I'd rather own none!! I've just e-mailed them again about the problems with the second guitar & so I'll have to wait & see what they propose to sort out that problem.

I've been playing guitar since 1968 & repairing them since 1970,I did build a few in the 70's but it's just too time consuming & I'm really a player not a guitar builder,Ive owned just about every type of guitar & amp over the last 37 years & still own about 10 tons of the stuff,My flavour of the month at the moment is a Tokai Superstrat into a Boss GT-5 or Boss GX700 into a Marshall 8008 power-amp & 2x12" stereo Marshall/Celestion cab.
These guitars are cheap but they're also crap,I've bought cheap guitars before & they don't have to be this crap.
I got a S/H encore strat before xmas for a friends son (xmas present) it cost me #40 has a straight neck & a great action,it's about four years old & has a few dings in it but it plays great & the pickups sound a lot better than you'd imagine
If you're looking for a cheap Powerstrat then I'd advise going for a Fender Squire Stagemaster or Showmaster with a Floyd Rose trem,I own one each of these guitars & they really are well made & playable,the stagemaster that I own is excellent both in materials & hardware & sounds as good as the best Gibson Les Paul I've ever owned,that's not bullshit,I have excellent ears & the sounds I get out of this squire are as good as any guitar I've ever owned