Keiper Guitars 115OS Jazz Guitar

I bought this guitar off Ebay for 72GBP. The photos of this instrument on their page looked superb, golden pick-ups, bridge, tail-piece and grover type tuners, a high gloss finish so smooth you could use it as a mirror to shave with. It looks the part no doubt.

It has an arched spruce top, mahogany notch and bottom body. A one piece mahogany, set-in neck with put-on headstock. The neck is rosewood with trapeze inlays and bindings and 20 frets. A height-adjustable bridge with rosewood base, 2 x classic-style humbuckers, 2 x volume controls, 2 x tone controls and 3-Way toggle switch.

Wow! How could I not bid on this, so I did and won it at 72 quid! I was so pleased I bought a hard case from them too so they could ship it safely.

I'm going to give the features a relatively high score because as far as the claims of these features go I can't argue, they are as far as I can tell accurate enough.

So that's the fantasy - now for the reality

I've been playing since I was 15 - I'm now 35. Blues and classical are my forte, I'm not a pro so won't claim to know all there is to know about guitars but I've had a few different axes, some good and others not so good both acoustic and electric. So I've got some experience over the last 20 years.

Acoustically this guitar sounds like piano wire stretched over a rusty bucket. I've put decent Martin 11 gauge strings on it and it didn't improve, I tried an expensive set of flat wound heavies on it and the extra tension pulled the neck all over the shop (more about that in the next section). Very poor resonance; bass strings hardly audible, tone? Not just poor but barely existent. In addition to this the cheap tune-o-matic style bridge buzzed like a swarm of angry hornets, the soft metal saddles refused to sit firmly and the adjustment screws remained loose and rattled badly no matter what I did.

Right then, so let's plug it in and see what happens. I use a PC program called 'Guitar Rig 2' (which I can highly recommend) and amplify my guitars through a high end sound card outputted through a tidy marshal valve amp (you'd love it man!) and haven't had any problems with this set-up till now. Unfortunately the poor quality of the pick-ups on this keiper were unable to push out enough for the sound card and created an annoying delay. It was as if they needed pre amping, I've never had this problem before with either single coil or humbuckers.

Okay I'm going to say something a little bit positive now. I plugged it straight into the Marshal and it did sound okay, I was using the Martin 11's on it and was fairly happy with the sound, the controls give a good variety of tonal options, I played it for an hour or so and if it wasn't for the high action I might have played it a little longer. Read on....

How well was the guitar set-up at the factory? Hang on, I can't laugh this much and type at the same time......... Okay. As with most mass produced guitars you buy the general rule is firstly put some 'real' strings on it and if you can afford to, take it to your local luthier for a professional set-up. Nowadays I do most of this myself, I've set-up my other guitars to a standard I think is reasonably competent, so I went to work on this one. Fixed the intonation (which is fairly easy with a floating bridge and adjustable saddles) and lowered the action with the adjustable bridge. With the Martin 11's on, the action was tolerable but couldn't go too low because the neck raised a little more than it should around the 14th fret onwards and I got fret buzz playing around 9th to 12th frets, but it was okay-ish, if a little high.

Now for the flat wound heavies. As I mentioned earlier, putting these strings on it made the neck bow quite a lot and it was very hard to play. Not too much of a problem, or so I thought. Fixing this would usually be done by some careful truss rod adjustment, so I removed the cover from the head-stock to see if I needed a socket spanner or allen key (hex wrench). What I found was the end of the rod thread and an non-adjustable 'sunk-in' inaccessible square nut. So the flat wounds came off and went in the bin - fantastic.

The finish: Initially it was good, okay it looked nice, the top was a little pale, but over-all I was pleased with the finish. I've had it six months now and all the metal work is deteriorating quite badly, the 'gold plate' tail-piece, tuners, pick-ups etc have oxidized (this started happening about a month after I got it and it's been kept safely indoors in a hard case). To be fair the rest of the guitar is still mint - the wood finish seems excellent.

This guitar is surprisingly light but seemingly strong enough, can't complain about that, I haven't gigged for years now, but I imagine it would be sturdy enough - it's a jazz box so I imagine you wouldn't be taking it to a thrash metal gig and as long as nobody throws a bottle at it (as much as I'd like to see that), it would probably last a fair while. Yeah it's sturdy, so is my Volvo but that doesn't make it a good musical instrument.

It took a month to arrive. I'm not going to harp on about this too much because I should have sent it back to Germany and I would have had a bit more to say about the customer support. If I had paid a lot more for it I would have returned it for sure and complained like crazy about it.

I know what you're thinking: what do you expect for 72 pound? Maybe I got dazzled by the stunning photos on their auction and my expectations were way too high. Yes looks can be deceiving.

I later learned these guitars are knocked out from China by the lorry load to unsuspecting Westerners and distributed by a German company. My advice is don't buy one if you are an experienced player looking for a jazz box bargain, if you're a beginner get something a little easier to play.

If I lost it I'd invite my friends over for a party to celebrate.

One day when I meet someone I really dislike I'll sell it on to them.

2006 made in China.
Hollow-body, 20 frets, spruce top, mahogany bottom and neck, rosewood fretboard.
Classic configuration for this kind of guitar: two humbuckers, Tune-O-Matic bridge, 3-way selector.
Sealed Grover-style tuners, unkown brand (as well the humbuckers), white plastic binding (on the f-holes border too),
It comes with a cheap cord; no case or bag.
Sunburst lacquered.
The guitar is outstandingly light. Some people consider it a fault, but I don't like heavy guitars.

It's my first hollowbody. Warm, rich sound, a bit twangy from the bridge pickup even with 0.11-0.50 string set, from any amp. I plugged the guitar in a Marshall, an Ashdown, an old Farfisa, in my home HIFI amp and in my computer soundcard. Lot of sustain and little feedback.
All things considered, the sound is very pleasant

I don't care about the factory setup, because I perform a setup on every brand new guitar, every time I change the strings, and every now and then.

The OS colour is nice, but it looks by far nicer on the touched up pictures that Keiper Instruments puts on the site or on eBay. The wood colour on the pictures is a sort of reddish brown warm tone; when you faces the guitar you realize that actually it's an ugly yellow tone.
The finish is rough, as well the hardare gold-plating. The fretboard inlays are horrible.
Peering into the body, the condition is even worse: lumps of glue everywhere. The obvious solution is not peering into the body

The guitar comes with only one strap button. This seems to be a common problem for the chinese hollowbody guitars. The possible solutions are:

1) you play sitting
2) you buy a different guitar
3) you drill the body/neck heel
4) you tie a shoestring on the peg
5) you buy a little leather strap with a button (from Martin) and put it on the peg (I did it)

The guitar appears to be solid. I shall never use it on a gig because I play a different kind of music, but I think that it can be used without a backup. Remember that you play sitting, and thus there is little chance of traumas...

Shipping wasn't too expensive.
The communication with the vendor is poor.
The Web site of the producer/distributor is in German, and I don't understand the first word.

After having bought a soft bag, I found that Keiper supplies hard cases.
Keiper Instruments doesn't mention explicitly any correspondence between cases and guitar models, so I asked about a specific case model. After a couple of weeks Keiper replied "it's OK", and so I bought it.
I'm still trying to stretch it with my car jack...
I don't know about the warranty; I guess that it's anyway a useless piece of information...

I've been playing for 25 years. If it were stolen or lost I'd be angry for a second or two, then I'd immediately go onto eBay and order another guitar. A different one, of course.

This is a semi-acoustic guitar. According to the blurb this guitar has mahogany sides and back, with a spruce top, solid mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard. As far as I can tell this is all in order.
It has two humbuckers with the usual four knobs. The bridge is the Tune-O-Matic , tuners closed back style - they seem coarse to use but keep tune well enough.
Only 20 frets on this model.

I play all sorts of styles, been playing over 25 yrs so can turn my hand to most things. I was after a semi-acoustic to get some jazzy - bluesey noises. This guitar gives just that. The picks ups are in no way high output, but they are just right for this guitar. On a clean sound they give great tone and clarity. With a little gain, they give a bluesey grit. Wack the gain up, and you can get full bodied fuzz tones. Any feedback produced is musical and controllable.

The guitar out the box was like it just came off the assembly line. It was covered in dust, there were fingerprints all over it, the metal work was slightly tarninshed. Fair enough - it was cheap! The strings were terrible and replaced straight away. After some polishing & TLC it turned into a completely different looking guitar - fantastic!
The guitar set-up was poor. I've had a go at the action, which has improved the playablity, but I think I will have to send it away for a fret dressing and a new nut (original is nasty!).

Durability? - time will tell! Being so cheap I though the varnish would be thin or kind of cheap looking, but it seems fine to me.
The hardware has a gold finish which is not of fine quality, but its certainly thicker that say a Epiphone. I don't this will rub off too easily.

N/A

Overall I think this guitar is great. The sound is so good you forgive its other faults. A real fun guitar to play!
If I have to spend another 100 GBP to fine tune the action, then I will have spent about 200 GBP to get a guitar that must be worth 600 GBP +.
Overall I recomend!

I believe the guitar was made in China (or Korea?) for a German distributor.
The top, sides and back are laminated. The top is arched. 2 volume and 2 tone pots, one pickup selector. Two humbuckers. The tuners are from an unknown brand but work very good, the guitar stays in tune fine.
The strings supplied on the instrument are inadequate. I guess they are 0.09 - 0.46, which is too thin in my humble opinion. I've changed the strings to d'Angelico 0.12 - 0.54 flatwound. The diference in sound and feel is amazing. I've lowered the action a bit, which is easy to do on the bridge.
The guitar is lacquered in twotone sunburst. The lacquer seems to be allright.

This guitar sounds just great. You can easily get the warm, pure jazzsounds from a clean twin reverb amp. Both pickups are well performing, especially the neck pickup does a great job. The volume and tone controls work smooth and adequate. I own several guitars (Gretsches, Fender strats, teles, Gibson es335...) I've never got this warm jazzsound from any of them. Even played through a Hot Rod Deluxe Fender amp, with just a bit of break-up, you achieve great sounds immediately.

Needed to lower the action when the guitar was delivered. Plays great now. The neck has a smooth, solid feel. The finish seems to be outstandig: no flaws, cracks or scratches.

I guess this guitar will last for a long time. It became my favourite from day one. It's a pity they don't supply a fitting case with the guitar, have to look for one now...

no opinion

I've been a guitarplayer for over 35 years, used all kinds of guitars and amps, played mostly rock and pop in coverbands.