OLP MM1

2005 made in china

I want to clear something up that has been mentioned here several times that the stock OLP pu's are the same as the custom wound DMZ's
the stock pu's on the OLP MM1 are very good without a doubt for the money this guitar goes for but simply CANNOT be compared to the custom wound dimarzio's in the EBMM evh or axis guitars
first off the OLP's pu's use a large ceramic magnet and the DMZ's use a alnico 5(a world of difference!)
the bridge OLP pu' is wound to 14K and the dimarzio is at 17.5K
the neck OLP pu' is at 9.5K and the dimarzio neck is at 15K
and is a airbucker.
the OLP pu's are very good for a stock item but if you really want the MM 1 to shine on the tone department get the tone zone and air norton set for it
which is the closest production set to the custom wound dimarzios in the EVH or axis
I also know the tweak to do to the tone zone to make it EXACT to the custom wound dimarzio, this is what i did to mine to make it sound like my EVH and axis guitars
if you are interested in the tweaked tone zone Email me and i can tweak a tone zone for you if you want that exact tone the bridge pu gets in the axis or evh guitar
the air norton stock is so close tthat any tweak's are not necessary

please read my review on the OLP MM1 floyd rose model
http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data4/OLP/MM1FR-1.html

http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data4/OLP/MM1FR-1.html

they are great for getting answers about thier product

like i said in my review for the OLP MM1FR
these are a great bang for the buck even stock they are worth the money if you cant afford a real deal ernie ball/music man

I think everyone already knows what these things have...purchased few years ago,maybe 4 or 5

I must say the humbuckers aren't very hot...not good for any kind of metal. The thing is also pretty noisey in high gain settings,good luck trying to shred on this mammoth

the guitar from factory came like dung,action was a mile high...hell even after adjusting the action myself it's still very high. intonation is a pain (I use D'Addario .11) I have not once got it to intonate perfectly,I suspect a fret or two has been filed wrong,playing past the twelth fret produces half dud notes (of course this is solved by raising the action,but then it's so high you can't play anything at all) The guitar surpisingly had shielding!! I'll give it a point for that,but that's as high as it's gonna go for this guitar

well...this baby has never failed me,I gig with it regularly as it's currently my only guitar

I've been playing for quite a long time,I've owned all kinds of gear,big and small name. Always searching for that perfect gem that just keeps eluding me...I would not buy this guitar again if it got lost/stolen/broken. The previous guitar I had before this one was a million times better than this one and it only cost about $100 more,which is an extra week at work. So save yourself the trouble and work that extra week and get a better guitar. Don't get me wrong,I advocate cheap gear,but this guitar just can't cut it compaired to other low cost equipment...OLP needs to get back into the shop and work out the kinks with the action and elecotronics,I'll give them 2 brownie points for working hard though

I believe it's an 04 model... it is a certain mega-store's exclusive being that is red in color. I like the fact that it is a different color. I was told that it was a quilt top veneer (like on the Wolfgang) but suspect it's a photo film top - which is fine as neither really adds anything tonally. We all know the specs by now, Basswood body, maple/maple neck, H/H, 1 Volume, etc. The one thing that really blows my mind is the quality of the fingerboard wood... it appears to be a slight (2A - 3A) quilted maple they used for the fingerboard - I guess I lucked out as I have yet to see any others with quite as nice of a fingerboard. The website says it has a satin finish on the neck but mine came without any finish - you can tell by how quickly the neck picks up dirt. I have since finished it with gun-stock oil and it plays like butter now. It's got all the features I could want - being an EVH freak I don't see a need for bells and whistles (coil tapping, tone knob, etc). Also, being an EVH freak I have a need for a locking trem so I did replace the vintage style trem with a Floyd Rose (licensed) trem. The whole job took less than an hour and cost me around $50 or so. The tuners appear to be decent although if I hadn't added the locking trem I may have replaced them. Tuners are a moot point once a locking trem is on the guitar. All the other hardware (Volume pot, output jack, p'ups, etc) all seem top notch. It didn't come with a gig bag but talked the saleman into throwing one in for free.

The sound is amazing, especially when you factor in the price. The pickups are built to the same specs as the EBMM EVH model. They are surprisingly hot - but not too hot. IMO - they are just right. I'm playing it through a 5150 half stack with a pinch of chorus and reverb as well as a Rocktron Hush. It definately has a full rich sound to it. I did raise the p'up's a hair to get them a but hotter sounding, but were fine in the stock location.

I didn't find a single flaw in this guitar. The action was set up pretty well from the factory but as with any guitar, it can usually be a bit better. I did lower the action a bit but I just needed to lower the saddle about 1 full turn of the allen screws each - not bad.

I wouldn't hesitate to gig this guitar. My only concern is to be able to remove the OLP logo from the headstock. I mean, yeah, it's a cheap guitar and I am proud of the deal I got and how well it plays, but I don't need other guitarists thinking I'm a newbie for playing such a cheap guitar. Honestly though, I would put this up against alot of more expensive guitars on the market.

It comes with a 1 year warranty although I'm sure I voided it within the first week I had it by ripping off the vintage trem and adding the Floyd locking trem haha

I've been playing for nearly 20 years and have 14 or so guitars ...maybe 15, I have to re-count. This is my 3rd favorite behind my Peavey Wolfgang and Kramer 1984 re-issue. It is my cheapest guitar though which definately makes it the best value. Even after adding the Floyd (licensed) trem I still have under $300 into this guitar. Not bad for such an unbelievable player. I would rate this guitar a 9 overall ... but when you factor in the price I believe it deserves a bit more so I give it a 10!

basswood body, maple neck (it must be maple, because the one i'm looking at over to GC has BIRDSEYES), 2 hums, 1 vol, vintage style trem, photo phlame top. looks dead on like a EBMM axis. decent showroom setup. cheap materials, but what do you expect from a $200 guitar that can be had for $150? the REAL kicker, to me, is that it has the same neck profile as my real EBMM axis super sport....verrrry comfy.....

no finish on the neck, and that DOES make the neck look cheap.....go ahead and lemon oil it(NO SILICONE!)...( i do all of mine....for years...)....it won't hurt it....will prolly make it look better......and, as far as resale value.......i wouldn't EVEN give THAT ISSUE a second thought........THIS GUITAR IS NOT AN INVESTMENT PIECE.....NOR WILL IT EVER BE! just play it....

trem: forget about vintage trems.....they NEVER stay in tune....this one is no exception..... "lock it down" and pretend it's a hardtail w/ a built in reverb tank (that's what eric clapton does.....;^). )

it sounds quite ADEQUATE.

let me make something clear......i don't own one.....i am currently shopping for a killer deal on one, and trying lots of them out in the process.....i OWN a real EBMM axis super sport, and want an MM1 for backup....and for FEEL, more than for tone!

for my purposes, it sounds just fine. i played it thru several different amps and effects.....for what it is....no complaints. i play ALL styles on it!

again....for what it is....great! when you get yours, take it out and play it hard.....concentrate on your music and NOT on what makes this axe inexpensive.....it'll do the job.....don't nitpick it to death! (although, i do agree with the other fella that a new set of 10's will make a world of difference.)

when you become EDDIE......THEN...you can nitpick!

not to blow my own horn.....HONK!......but, i've been at this awhile.......and i can just TOUCH a guitar and tell if it's good......i feel very comfortable buying one of these (for $150 and no more). i would like to have a backup....but that's a good idea in any situation. it'll last long enough for you to get your money's worth out of it.

i wouldn't expect too much, but then, i've been surprized before!

it feels and looks like my expensive ernie ball axis.......and soooo much cheaper.......i am looking forward to having one as my backup. whatever it doesn't have, i'll put in....like a tone pot, better tuners......i think it will be worthwhile. and i believe it will be reliable!

the only "hate issue", is that the neck really does LOOK cheap.

solid body, cheap trem, 22 frets, non-locking tuners, dual humbuckers, volume pot, pickup toggle, short-slim neck. I have owned this guitar a year, well past the honeymoon stage. At first I loved it, then I hated it, now I love it again. I learned a few things about how to make this baby into a sweet instrument. see below. I wish it had a tone pot...
cheap looking photo-top meant to look like the music man axis. But the newest release of this guitar looks amazing (the MM1 with Floyd Rose trem).

The stock bridge pickup is pretty weak. It doesn't pickup the higher harmonics in the strings, so the guitar doesn't scream out of the box. That is unfortunate because its built for face-melting rock n roll. If you replace the bridge pup with any decent pickup, it improves this guitar immensely. I put a Dimarzio super distortion DP-100 in there. You don't have to go as hot though, any good pickup will improve this guitar %100. I know of another guitarist who put a Dimarzio PAF in the bridge, and it sings.
Plus, using skinny, soft strings will make this guitars intonation unfixable. See below.
The neck pickups aren't so good. I wouldn't use the neck pickups for anything. They are all bass, zero bite. Actually I'm lying. I used the neck pickups one time for a chord comping part when I wanted to meld in the background.

This guitar is designed for EVH speed, and high gain. In that respect, it rocks. I had serious troubles with the intonation until I made a head-slapper: (figured something out)
Originally I had been using Ernie Ball super-slinky strings (9-42). The guitars intonation was horrendous. When tuning, you could watch the pitch indicator in the tuner dance around. Hence, the guitar held a tune like a bad American Idol auditioner (William Hung?).
Here is what I just figured out. Since this guitar is shorter than most, the tension on the strings to reach a specific pitch is much less. Thus the guitar couldn't hold a pitch very stably, and there were transients in the vibrations. I was using 9-42 guage ErnieBall super slinkys. I just switched the strings to Ernie Ball 10-46 guage regular slinkys. Simple physics (look up the wave equation): heavier strings = higher mass = higher tension. Now this guitar really holds a pitch solidly, no more tuner dance. The heavier strings improved the intonation too.

For a $200 guitar, this baby seems to be rock solid. I have gigged with it a bit (blush), and it has never failed me. I'm a little leary of the bridge, my low E string still has sharp intonation despite my having cranked it as far as it goes. If you use lots of string bends, this baby tends to flatten out, and you need to frequently retune. That was with 9-42 strings though, I bet the 10-46's hold up better.

no idea

In then end, after applying a little common sense (slim strings = bad intonation, stock pups = crap), I really like this piece. I bring it to gigs, and use it for high gain songs (thats why I put the super distortion humbucker in the bridge).
It's a sweet, cheap guitar. It's a nice change of pace, because of the short, sleek neck. I like to use a bit nicer guitar as my main axe, but this is a great buy. If you're looking to buy your first guitar, you should try playing an OLP at your music shop.

Probably made 2004 in china, basswood body with photo quilt top, maple neck and fingerboard.
Only has volume control and toggle switch,3 positions to control 2 humbuckers. Vintage tremelo, no string trees.

This guitar was my first experience with humbuckers and probably my
last. Maybe the wrong pickups for country bass note runs and blues.
The bottom E string if played open or when playing open chords resonated, from E to A on both of my guitar tuners So I changed the original Ernie Balls to D'Addario but the problem persisted. Annoying. If a guitar doesn't sound good it must sound terrible. Turn up the gain and rectifier put in some ear plugs and it will

Because of the above problem, I set the intonation, lowered the action just before the fretts buzzed and the action was still way higher than my strat copy. The neck was the big disappointment, as soon as I picked it up. The neck looked like raw pine. After 2-3 hours playing around with it, the fretboard looked dirty. There were also gaps between the side of the neck where it bolts to the body.
Someone mentioned putting tung oil on the neck, I bought some, but did not apply it as it might effect the resale value, which was now a priority.

Didn't have it long enough to put it to the test.

Ive been playing acoustic guitar for 12 years, mainly Neil Young, Cat Stevens, and took up electric 3 years ago, to play blues and country. I have an SX strat copy, the build quality, slab of rosewood for the fingerboard, and sound are far superior the MM1, but I had opportunity play and compare the SX with other guitars. Maybe I got a lemon MM1, but after reading reviews on this website I was convinced that for the price this guitar was the bees knees. After I bought this, I saw an MM1 in the local music shop, when I enquired about it, the owner,a guitar teacher said he was not impressed with the quality and sound either. I suppose I was niave buying a guitar without playing it.

2003 MM1 with bronze quilted film top and cream binding. Bought second hand off eBay and came with hard case and Planet Waves locking strap which is an fanastic piece of equipment. You will already know the rest of the spec, 2 humbuckers, 1 volume control and 3 way switch. I personally like the lack of tone control 'cos I can set it just how I like on my amp.

I play mainly industrial metal and this guitar is made for the job. I play a lot of Static-x in CGCFAD or Soulfly with it tuned down to B,F#,B,E,G#,C# and even through my Peavey Blazer 15B practise amp it sounds awesome. I found best results are from the bridge pu and setting amp gain to 6, low 7, mid 4, high 4 and a touch of reverb. I also play through a Behringer V-amp2 and using this I can get some amazing sounds.

I bought this guitar second hand and the previous owner had set the action really low which suited me fine. Everything seems very well put together and there is virtually no noise from the pick-ups or volume control. The neck is really fast and is starting to pick up a little dirt in the grain which adds to the 'dirty' look which I like.

I would use this live but I would alway have a back up no matter what guitar I was using and I would always use straplocks, although as I've already said, this came with a Planet Wave strap which is just as good

Not had to deal with them.

AS well as my OLP, Peavey Blazer and Behringer V-amp2, I also own a Dean V, and a BC Rich custom Warlock with floyd rose trem but this sounds as good as or probably better than both and I just love the neck. I am not a big fan of floyd rose as I like playing around with different tunings and my OLP lets me do this with ease. I would definitely buy another if anything happened to this one.

03/04 model gold photo flame top. 2 humbuckers etc see other reviews. Mine came with a Dimarzio tone zone in the bridge as a gift from my music store (Regular customer been buying cymbals and drum heads from them for about 10 years). Everything is a copy but the copyies are quality, not junk that you'd find in other bargain basement models.

I always loved classic rock sound, Van halen, the Doors, Poison, Aerosmith. This is great for that. It's good for a bit of thrash as well with old school punk like the Ramones. I've only played it on solid state amps but it gives an awesome fat distorted sound as a pretty good clean. Very surprised at the quallity of sound for the price.

Toggle switch and volume knob are a look and feel cheap,but easily and cheaply replaced, finish was flawless. Love the feel of the unfinished neck. Action was low and the Ernie Ball slinky's are top notch.

GET Straplocks. The hardware on this might not be musicman quality but close enough copies. The stuff on thiss is a lot better than the other guitars I looked at (epi lp "special" II, Squier Bullet and affinity series, the Ibanez AX series as well as the Washburn WI24.)I don't gig very often and if I do it's almost always on the drums. This is solid, but no guitar is going to take a full swing and come away scratch free.

1 year warranty from my local shop. Know em well and trust them.

I like because it's light, but resonant. A real flame top would've been nice but they're still a while off here. THe Price is good too because this is my secondary instrument. I've playing guitar for about 5 years and althouugh I've got mainly low end model guitars that sound pretty good but offer good bang for buck. I Own a Peavey Raptor and a Samick acoustic. This is so much better than the Raptor in terms of hardware, build quality and general playability. My lead guitarist and the guy at the shop pushed me towards this and I really love it.The competition in this price range is tough, and there's a few quality brands out ther but this is way better than anything I tried.

2004 model - mint green color, copy of MusicMan Axis
22 frets, basswood body, maple neck/fingerboard, two humbuckers, one volume pot, one 3-way pickup selector, vintage style vibrato bridge

Surprising amount of output from the pickups. I also own an OLP MM4 guitar, and the MM1 has much stronger pickups. Approaches the VH "brown sound" pretty closely. The pickups offer a fair amount of different tones, especially in conjunction with manipulation of the volume knob. I'm running this guitar into a Korg AX100G pedal, and a Line 6 Spider 2x12 amp. I have yet to gig with this guitar, but I'm certain that I will.

Lots of little black spots on the back of the guitar, otherwise the finish is pretty well done. Tuning machines seem pretty solid, and keep tune well. As far as the action: It did seem to be set up pretty well with the factory strings (.009s I think), but I play strings 14-56, so I had to do a fairly radical change to the factory action. I expected this, so no big deal. Nice polish on the frets. The body/neck join seems pretty solid, although I had to shim the neck due to my string gauges.

I plan on gigging with this guitar. There is nothing about it that would make me think that it couldn't hold up in a live situation. Granted, I'm not too hard on my guitars. I'll probably replace the strap buttons with locking buttons before I gig with it. I'll gig with a backup (probably my OLP MM4).

I haven't had to deal with OLP's customer support.

I've been playing for nearly 20 years. I own quite a few guitars (electric, acoustic, 7-string, etc.), but I tend to play cheaper guitars at live gigs. I play for the crowds, not the other guitarists in the audience, so I'm not very anal about my live sound. And if my guitar is going to be trashed by a drunken club-goer, I'd rather it be one of my cheap ones. If it were stolen or lost, I'd probably buy another MM1. It's a decent guitar for the money.

It's a copy of axis, so you can guess how cool it looks.
22 frets (I wish it was 24), basswood body, maple neck / fingerboard.
The hardware looks quite OK. I'm giving it an 8 instead of 10 because nothing is perfect. But this guitar is one of a kind...

The sound is what I like most. I plug this axe to my Korg guitar Processoe and straight to Laney combo amp. Play 80' & 90's hard rock and some standard jazzy tunes. This axe can cover 'em up nicely. The stock pick up works stunningly well. No noise. The bridge PU has good harmonics with rich middle and high frequency. As everybody says, you can get EVH sound easily. Very nice. I can also get a twangy bluesy sound from the neck PU.

Mine is a red translucent one, with cream binding on the front edge. Looks pretty cool, from a distance it resembles an over 500 dollar guitar. Good set up right from the box, and it stays in tune much longer than I thought.
Only a couple of small problems I have : The tremolo is a bit hard to dive down, I am still wondering if I can replace the back spring with a softer one.. (I usually play Ibanez RG with lo pro edge, so I've never dealt with this problem before). The second problem is : the maple neck and fingerboard may need a kinda wax paint finish, to minimize the friction as you shred. Other than that, it's just GREAT!!

If you are a professional performer, you'd be a jerk to gig without a back up, whatever axe you got. I only play inside my home studio and occasionally play outside. And yes, I think this guitar will do the job as it should..

It's one year warranty. But I guess I should never depend on it.

Been playing on and off for 10 years, and do cover band most of the time. I am never interested in buying expensive guitar since I don't make money from music. Sound, and playability, and reasonable price is what matters most for me. Previously I owned a Samick, Japanese Fender Strat, Epiphone Les Paul, Ibanez RG670.
I still keep the Ibanez for collection because it has higher spec (24 frets, super thin neck, thicker sound of dimarzio pick ups, and rare natural color body). But for sure, I'd be playing more with my OLP from now on. If it's stolen, I'll buy another one, no, two of it! As said, nothing is perfect. But this axe is more than perfect for the price.