OLP Axis

This is a 2001 OLP Axis guitar. These are not made by Ernie Ball/Music Man as far as I can tell, but rather licensed from them to OLP (Officially Licensed Products). Made in china. It says so on the back of the headstock!

The top is laminated with a "Foto flame" type quilt. It is not a maple veneer or cap. The body seems to be basswood. The yellow is a bit dark for my tastes but the effect of the photo flame is very good. It's hard to tell that this wasn't a quilted maple top! The body is bound in cream binding with a solid black back.

There is a single volume control, and a 3 way toggle switch. The trem is a 6 vintage type six screw version and looks like a gotoh one but I could be wrong. I dont recall the gotoh sustain block being so thin. The tuners are sealed chrome mini schaler copies. The headstock is stained the to match the body, with an OLP logo on it.

2 humbucker cream and black pickups are screwed directly into the body.

This is a very interesting guitar and I will try to be as detailed as possible for those of you looking to get this guitar.

I own an original Ernie Ball Music Man Edward Van Halen model and have also played a lot of Ernie Ball Axis guitars. I was very curious about this guitar simply because I always liked the look and feel of the EVH / Axis models but they are just too expensive to buy more than one. Here come OLP with their licensed from Ernie Ball Axis and I just had to try it out to see what the deal was.

I did an A/B test between my EVH and the OLP Axis and the pickups are very very close. I would say the EVH has a little more sweeter edge to it. It is amazing how close to the originals these pickups get. for a little while I couldn't tell the two apart. The neck pickup sounds almost as good as the EVH as well.

For a closer look I took the pickup out of the body. The screws are put directly into the body, just like the EVH. There were no markings on the pickups except for a F for front and R for rear. The wiring looked like typical foriegn country wiring. It is a single cable with 3 wires, a hot, ground and shield. They are very nice dimarzio copies.

The pickups were quiet, and i figured so since they were humbuckers. I was relieved that they didn't sound horrible like some cheaper pickups in other guitars in this price range.

The guitar has in my opinion the same fret size as the EVH / Axis. I did some measurements between the two necks and there are differences.
1) The EVH neck is totally bare wood. The OLP Axis has satin finish on the back and gloss clear on the headstock. The fingerboard SEEMS to be bare wood. In fact I am almost sure that it is.
2) EVH neck is worn in certain areas and the edges are rounded. There is evidence of trying to get almost the same feel on the OLP Axis but not quite. The neck edges are rounded only up to the 5th fret, from that point on, the edges are more like the Peavey Wolfgang special, a bit sharp.. nothing a little sandpaper or a file wont take care of.
3) The EVH has a slimmer taper up by the 1st to 4th frets. The OLP Axis is not as thin. This is where the biggest difference is for me. I think this is where people may think the neck feels wider than the EVH, I don't think its wider, just not as small in this particular area. I plan to get out the sandpaper and fix this.
4) The radius of the EVH is 10", the radius of the OLP Axis is 15". This isnt a BIG factor to me, but I think it plays a role in how nicely the EVH "feels" when you play it.
5) EVH has a sculpted heel, so does the OLP Axis. I think it costs more to scult the heel as nicely as the EVH is done. The OLP Axis sculpting is more like a curve than an oval shape like the EVH. not a big deal. Cost cutting factor.
6) EVH has 5 bolts, OLP Axis has 4 bolts. Again this is a cost cutting factor if you ask me.
Other than that, the necks are identicle as far as I can tell. I placed the OLP Axis neck directly on top of my EVH to see if there was a difference in width and I couldn't detect anything. Im sure that if you wanted to you could replace the EVH neck with a OLP. The only draw back would be the sculpted heel area.

Frets were pretty good and dressed just okay. No rough edges or anything like that.

Neck adjustment is the wheel type just like the EVH.

The guitar was shipped to me, so I don't know if any adjustments were made to the neck prior. It was fairly straight. I adjusted it slightly.

As usual, a guitar of this price is set up so-so... The intonation needed adjusting as well as the action. But these things are done so that anyone can think "Hey, the action is a bit high, I can fix that." The nut was OK. In my opinion it could use a little filing to lower it in that area as well.

The neck joint was solid, I couldnt stick anything between the body or neck. nice.

Looking inside the electronics cavity, the cover was shielded with foil tape, and the pickups soldered neatly to the toggle switch and pot. The pot is a cheapy small type and the switch looks cheap as well. But for the price, you can buy your own or use some older parts to replace it if you reallllly feel the need to.

The trem had 3 springs in a V config with one in the middle.

There were cosmetic flaws, but this was due to improperly packing and mishandling of the container while shipping. No points off for that since its not OLP's fault.

The binding compared to the EVH is pretty good. On the EVH I cannot "feel" the gap between the binding and the back side of the guitar. Ernie Ball somehow melts them together or puts a very nice poly eurathane finish on it. The OLP Axis was also nicely done, but you can run your finger against the binding and sort of feel where the basswood and binding meet. Again, for the price of the instrument, it aint gonna be perfect.

The are where the pickups were routed was very clean. The EVH pickup route is different in that the ears of the pickups are triangular while the OLP Axis are more squarish.

The photo flame top is really nicely done. In the light you cant tell. A lot of people were very surprised when i told them the guitar was a photo flame top and not the real thing. My top was amber. I have seen Blue and Red quilted Photo Flame tops as well but hear these are not available in the USA. USA only has 3 licensed

Id say this is a solidly built guitar. I've only had it for 2 days, but it feels like its gonna last just as long as my EVH.

The hardware may need to be changed over time but that goes without saying. Strap buttons are solid as well as the neck plate and screws holding the guitar and neck in place.

They dont have a website... yet. There is basically no information on these guitars at all. But I doubt I will have to contact them for anything.

My over all rating is a 9.

For the money, this guitar is a steal. For all of you who really want the real deal, go and save your money and get the real thing. There is a difference and a REAL EVH or AXIS is worth the price! For those of you who just want the look and almost the same feel and sound of an EVH or Axis, this guitar will do the trick and do it well!

They are so cheap that I dont mind doing a few enhancements to it such as stripping the finish off the neck and tapering it a bit to match the EVH.

This guitar would also make a good beginners guitar as well as a practice guitar for those of you who have a EVH and want to protect its value.

If it were stolen I wouldnt cry. Just buy another one, or three! I may just do that and customize it a bit....

A great value overall!

Basswood, maple neck, fretboard, 22 jumbo frets, volume, non locking whammy

the sound is very articulate, much like the wolfgangs and usa made ernie ball axises... nice low end, have yet to determine if humbuckers are the same as the original axis, if i can figure it out, maybe i'll go get a tone zone, somewhat lacking harmonics, but not pinch harmonics, they come off nice. very quiet guitar, great value

action is nice, medium, i might lower it here pretty soon as this is my first day with it, nice paint job, black sparkle, everything is tight, in good order, action is almost identical to wolfgangs and axises

no idea

no idea

great value! good action, great feeling neck, allows for clean playing, nice sound, looks nice A+

I don't like it when people see a guitar in a store for 10 minutes and write a review about it. However, since this is a new model and I've already seen a lot of curiosity about it, I thought I'd get the ball rolling with some personal observations.

I played two of these guitars, without plugging them in, at Guitar Center. This is not enough time to evaluate a guitar from stem to stern but I can give you my impression of it and tell you what I know. I own an EBMM EVH model and am very familiar with the Axis so I have a reference.

The guitar feels very good. It doesn't specifically feel cheap like many guitars in this price range. The acoustic ring of the strings is not as resonant as it is in finer guitars but it seems fine. The tuners are reasonable for the price range and the bridge is a standard Fender style trem with 6 screws instead of pivot posts. Honestly, it doesn't look like the most stable thing in the world. Set up properly it might be o.k. but I wouldn't buy it thinking I'd spend much time hanging on the whammy bar.

This needs to be said loud and clear: IT IS NOT MADE TO THE EXACT SPECS OF THE THE MUSIC MAN AXIS!!! I've seen eBay ads that say this and it is not true. The fretboard is much wider than an Axis and much flatter. I'd say the radius is about 15" compared to the 10" radius of the Axis. Also, it's much wider. The neck heal is shaped differently than the Axis and it has 4 screws instead of 5. Having said that, it feels stable and the neck was true on the models I saw. Fretwork was decent for Chinese guitar and a guitar in this pricerange. I couldn't tell if the neck finish was a matt lacquer or tung oil. I think it's tung oil but it doesn't have the same finish or feel as the Axis.

The body is solid basswood but the quilt top is a photoflame type of film that looks neat but it is not a quilted maple top. Looking closely you can indeed see the wood grain of the body through the quilt pattern. But from a distance, it you can't tell and it really looks pretty cool.

Musicians Friend and Guitar Center are selling these guitars for $190 and state that the retail price is $290. Please keep this in mind when you see eBay ads with the reserve and "buy now" prices in the $300-$400 range. They're trying to pull a fast one on you.

This is a decent guitar for the money but it looks better than it is because cosmetically it is so close to the EBMM products. Evaluating it on it's own, I'd say it would probably be a pretty fun project for those who like the EBMM style and would get a kick out of replacing pickups and hardware. You could have a nice looking, decent playing guitar and customize it in ways that you wouldn't dare customize a $1,000+ guitar. It would also be a decent first guitar for a beginner.

It also gives people a break from the $200 Strat copies that everyone seems to offer for their cheap beginner guitars. A beginner guitar with a different attitude. I like that.

I wish I had plugged it in so I could tell you what it sounded like amplified but I didn't. I read in a magazine review that the pickups were actually designed with the specs of the EBMM/DiMarzios in mind. Who knows maybe they sound great. I'll let you be the judge of that.

Bottom line: At the "sale" price of $199 this guitar seems like a reasonable value; not necessarily the deal of a life time but a value none-the-less. At the actual retail of $299 I'd want to make sure this was exactly what I wanted because you're starting to look at some reasonably nice guitars for that money, especially on the used market.

Please note that this is a $200 dollar guitar; not a $1,000 guitar disguised as a $200 guitar. For a beginner or an experienced player looking for a guitar to play around with and customize, this could be a good deal. For those with their heart set on an Axis, it looks close enough but don't buy one thinking it's a good compromise. The price difference goes a long way to indicate how different the guitars really are.

This OLP guitar just plain rocks, nice big neck, nice humbuckers. Of the six I've tried one had High action the other five were set up great. It's great rock guitar for $200.00. If your in the Va/MD area try the Guitar Center at Seven Corners_Arlington Va. or In MD Try Chuck Levins Washington music center and if your lookin for something used try Atomic Music in College Park MD There are very good people working at theese stores

Rocks

Great

Seems good too me. Mine likes Beer