Kramer Baretta FX404SM

It was made on Oct. 2000 in Korea, setup and inspected by WJ Lee who should be flogged. 24 frets. One volume and tone knob with 3-way switch and coil tap. H/H pickup configuration that can be split. Quad rail pickups. Passive electronics. Maple thru body neck with alder body wings. Strat body style with non-reverse hockey stick style headstock. String-thru body fixed bridge. Locking Gotoh tuners. I thought the neck was kinda fat and wide compared to my other guitars such as my Ibanez RG570 or Charvels, but thin compared to a lot of other brands. It has a fairly flat, glossy maple fretboard. It really didn't feel great in my hand like my RG570, just different (still playable though). Mine was in metallic blue. A cable and 2 allen wrenches were included in the box. In the wrong model they sent me, nothing was included, so who knows what you may get in yours.

I like to play a little bit of everything from blues, rock, metal, country, etc.. This is where I will compare differences in models... Musicyo.com sent me the wrong guitar the first time... the FX404SX instead of the SM. I thought the SX sounded a HELL of a lot better compared to the SM I ended up getting after sending the other one back. I just didn't like the reverse headstock and figured the SM model that I should haved received (which does cost $10 more even and according to them retails for like $150 more or something...lol) should be just as good or better. The SM model sounded okay for metal and rock, but you still couldn't get the sound or hardly any harmonics out of it like you could with the other model I sent back or my other guitars I own. It was okay for just about any other sound or style of playing. The maple fretboard was brighter and thinner sounding on this model compared to the SX rosewood fretboard and you could really tell a difference in sound. You could dial in the sound you were looking for, but the rosewood fretboard sounded a lot better I thought. Overall, I kinda liked the way it sounded, but I liked the first model I sent back better (I should have just kept that one even though it wasn't what I ordered... at least it was a good one just with a reverse headstock and skull and crossbone tuners with a rosewood fretboard).

The factory setup on this model by WJ Lee in Korea which was done six months ago and I'm sure never touched by musicyo.com was pure SHIT! I think it was setup for slide playing or something because the action was higher than most acoustics I've seen or owned. The pickups were not adjusted at all and looked like they were getting ready to fall out. The paint looked beautiful from a far, but upclose... the paint was bubbled on the back of the neck and rough. It was bubbled on other parts of the body as well. The paint was missing by the bridge pickup with a chip. The blue paint did not exactly meet the black paint on the top of the headstock by the tuners in one area about 2 inches long. There was a small crack on one side of the fretboard from where the fretwire was hammered in too hard. The nut was poorly cut and very high. The pickup selector started getting funny acting and shorting after a few hours of playing. Everything else looked okay. This model was like night and day compared to the SX model that they had sent me the first time. The first one they sent was great, but then again, it had a sticker on it that said "setup and adjusted by Gibson USA", this model said WJ Lee in Korea. Who knows? If they did come from the same place and all... then this guy is smoking crack or something on the side or they should shit can him. Normally, I don't really care about the finish and stuff as long as it's a decent guitar and for $259 I really wasn't expecting a $1000 guitar like musicyo.com would like to lead you to believe. With the setup... I really don't care about that because I can adjust my own to my liking. This entire guitar just sucked though for it to be supposedly a "new" guitar. I could swear it was one that was used and sent back or something. I didn't feel like even messing with it and said the hell with them and sent it back. I will give it a 2, because from far away it looked beautiful and I loved the color.

I don't believe it would withstand live playing for very long. I don't think any of their models would unless you changed out the switches and pots and upgraded/fixed a lot of the bugs in them. This model couldn't last for playing it an hour sitting down in my bedroom before it started self-destructing and shorting out. The finish seemed very thin! You could see where the body wings were attached through the paint on this particular guitar. The paint had worn off and bubbled in the box "new". It was already chipped. I don't think you would have much paint for long. The strap buttons seemed solid. I could not depend on this piece of junk that is why I sent it back. I would not use this for a gig. Well, maybe I would... I've never set one on fire or smashed them on stage yet, but I would have bought the $69 Kramer Focus for that anyway if I had that in mind and save $190. I gave it a 2 because anything can be fixed if you want to sink the time and money into it. The Gotoh locking tuners were nice (I have some of these on another guitar).

They are IDIOTS when something goes wrong! My brother ordered a $69 Kramer Focus from musicyo.com, had it shipped to him in a couple of days and it is great for the money after we adjusted it, even though it has many flaws as should be expected (I payed almost twice that for a lot less guitar 17 years ago). So I figured I would go ahead and order a bunch of stuff from them. They sent me the wrong model guitar... the SX instead of the SM even though yomatthew@musicyo.com "had taken the time to look over my purchase to ensure that what I received is what I ordered." He's hitting the glass pipe too with Mr. Lee I bet! So I get an RMA and print out the return shipping label and mail it back. I wait for about a week and email them to find out if they received it and had shipped another. I get a 4 word sentece back a few days later that says "Looks like it shipped." Never did get tracking info like I requested. A week later, no guitar and the Electar PA system that I also received has already blown a speaker at not even half volume. I email them to find out about my order and to see if I can just get a speaker. They give me a number for some company that didn't have a clue as to what the hell they were talking about. This guy was really cool... he calls them and tells them if it was him he would be pissed and not as nice as I have been. Musicyo.com calls me and says that this other guy was handling it and to just send everything back and it would be taken care of. Cool, I thought. I wait a few more days for my guitar and email them back... they tell me they are checking and they will get on it, but think they might have already sent it. They end up sending me the right one through 2nd air after they realized they hadn't sent me another one. When I get this guitar, it looks used and is a piece of shit. I have since sent both the PA and the guitar back. PA for a replacement (thought I might try again) and the guitar for a refund. They have received them. They still have not credited my credit card for the guitar and I'm waiting on the PA. The reason they only offer a 30 return policy and no warranty is because their shit will not last longer than that. They are the Radio Shack of the music mail-order industry. They are good for stuff like straps or stands, but their big priced items suck. If everything goes smooth though... they do a pretty good job. Order your stuff and receive it a couple of days later. I have ordered some guitar stands, straps, etc. and received it a couple of days later with no problems. It sure does get frustrating when something does goes wrong with your order when dealing with musicyo.com though!!! It a one shot deal with this company... either they do it right the first time or your screwed!

I have basically played guitar as long as I can remember, but seriously for about 17 years. I owned and own various gear: Ibanez RG570, Charvel TTX, Guild acoustic, other guitars, pedals, multi-effects, amps, etc.. I have bought through mail-order several times and have been very happy with the results of other companies and brands. Buying without seeing the guitar sucks even at a very low price but when you couple that with having to go through a crappy mail-order, internet only company, that can only communicate with you through email when they feel like answering it, really SUCKS! Yes, it may only be a few hundred dollars like so many others say in their reviews, but then again, it's money I had to work for and don't feel like flushing down the shitter. I sent this guitar back for a refund. I would not buy it again. The main reason I bought it was for the neck through, fixed-bridge, and coil taps. A Kramer Baretta was also the first guitar I fell in love with when I was a teenager and didn't have the money to buy one at the local guitar shop. Then later on, Kramer went out of business. For some reason... these don't remind me of the Kramers that I remember, but rather remind me of a cheap Epiphone strat copy with through neck construction and humbuckers. I think it's a shame that Gibson had to bastardize a company like Kramer and pair them with a no service, piece of shit organization like musicyo.com. You may be happy with it, then again you may get pissed after messing with a company for over a month and not getting anywhere. I just gave up on their guitars and have found compareable or better deals out there to be had. You may get a good one or you may get shit and the run around!!!

This guitar is a 2000 model, made in South Korea. It has 24 frets on a THIN THIN THIN three-piece through-body maple neck with a 15"-radius (way too flat for me) maple fingerboard. The body wings are made of alder. It has a "Super-Strat" shape, with deep cutaways, a belly contour, the pointy non-reversed Kramer headstock, and sharp body edges. The whole thing is finished in an almost purplish midnight blue gloss (what MusicYo calls "metallic blue") that isn't particularly ding-resistant. It has two "Quad-Rail" humbuckers, a 3-way Gibson-style pickup selector toggle switch, a master volume, and a master tone with a pull-up coil-tap that selects the neck-side coil of each pickup. The tuners are locking Gotohs. The bridge is a no-name model reminiscent of a hardtail Strat, with adjustable height and intonation for each string. The hardware is finished in black chrome (not powder-coat). It came with a cheap gig bag, Allen wrenches for tweaking the truss rod and string height, a short cable, and a 2" nylon strap. For a guitar in this price range, it's fairly loaded with features.

I play a mixture of metal and art-rock; think Iron Maiden meets King Crimson and you'll be close. I'm using it with a variety of borrowed amps, including a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Princeton 65, Deluxe 112, Crate GFX-212, Marshall VS100, and an el-cheapo Samick practice amp. (I've no guitar amp of my own right now, but I have access to many, since I live in a musicians' dorm.) My only effects unit is a Boss AW-3 envelope filter, which makes a bizarre variety of bloops and bleeps depending upon the setting, and can really enliven otherwise boring solos.

I'd say that it fits my style well enough. I like to be able to go from sparkling clean, which the neck pickup and coil-tapped settings do fairly well, to grinding distortion, which the neck+bridge and bridge settings do very well.

It has a fairly thin clean sound, very trebly and piano-like (more Yamaha than Baldwin, though), which is due to the fixed bridge and neck-through construction. It can get fairly warm if the neck pickup is soloed and the tone knob is rolled off to 3-4; this is sufficiently warm to get a decent "dead man" jazz guitar tone. Even with the coil taps on, it's very difficult to get a sparkly Fender/Rickenbacker-type clean, as the through-body neck contributes a lot of low end. Soloing the bridge pickup produces a satisfying "brrrrrang," but its output is way too high for some clean channels, and rolling off the volume eliminates the trebly bite that makes it so wonderful.

Under distortion, the neck pickup is godawful (muddy, muddy, muddy), but can get a good "woman tone" if you so desire. The tapped settings are too thin to really be useful. However, the bridge pickup shines in high-gain conditions; it has an enormous output and will distort the clean channel of an amp with low input sensitivity, such as the Hot Rod Deluxe. It has a hot, trebly, cutting tone with a fair amount of pick harmonics (I can't do Zakk Wylde squeals particularly well, though, so this is a moot point), and works well for hard rock or metal.

I don't like the fact that it's so difficult to get a good clean sound out of it; it's neither punchy like a Les Paul nor twangy like a Strat, and I just can't dig that. However, putting some distortion on really opens up the sound, and since this is a guitar obviously designed for hard rock and metal (look at the headstock!), it does the job nicely.

The action was very low from the factory, and the truss rod was quite straight. The fretwork was excellent; there were one or two high frets, which is amazingly good for a Korean guitar. The finish was applied very evenly. The pickups were adjusted fairly well; I'd raise the neck pickup a hair, but with four big blade magnets on each pickup, I'd be wary of string pull issues. The pickup selector was obviously wired very poorly, as it cuts in and out intermittently when trying to switch positions.

I'm not sure how long this guitar can survive in Ithaca, NY; the humidity has forced me to put nearly half a turn on the truss rod in the span of only two months of ownership, which isn't good. The tuners feel a bit cheap, but they're good enough; the bridge feels very cheap, but it does the job. (This is a $300 guitar, after all.) The finish is WAY too soft; I've already put two big dings on the body edges. The strap buttons are acceptable, albeit a bit small for my tastes. It's a dependable guitar, except for the toggle switch.

I've only been playing electric for six months or so; I'm mainly a bassist, with a pro-quality rig (Eden WT-300, 2x Eden D-210T) and a solid workingman's bass (Dean Edge Custom 5). Since I mainly bought this guitar as a tool for songwriting and improving my pickstyle (I formerly never played bass with a pick), I'd say it's helped me immensely; along the way, I've discovered a love for playing leads, and with a lot of alternate picking practice my goal is to be able to play both bass and lead guitar in any band I want.

I wish I'd known more about the reliability of the electronics, but that's no biggie--I'm going to replace them with Carvin stuff, so it won't be too bad. Were the guitar to be stolen, I'd take my insurance money, and I'd probably buy something a little easier to chord on (rounder fretboard, wider neck), maybe a Yamaha Tele-copy or a lower-end Dean. I do appreciate the speed of the neck, though, as it makes playing fast leads a breeze. (I've had some very experienced guys play it, and they practically piss themselves when I tell them that it's a $300 guitar; the neck is just that fast.)