Samick Blues Saraceno TV Twenty

i have five of them so here goes..one is purple with s/s/h,two are plaid with h/h (one with locking tremolo...)next we have a black one its s/s/h and finally a red one s/s/h, they all have alder bodys.. the two plaid ones have a laminated top but there painted so wood? all but the red one have a tremolo unit gotoh tuners and 5-way seletors, all also sport 22 frets--- as far as the finish...well the same as everybody eles ...its kind of sloppy but the purple one is the best looking guitar ive owned in 20 years playing!

three out of five sound great(i play a boss gt-3 thru my motu hard disc recording system)clean,drity, raw... they have a great tone...

the action on all!!!!! the guitars sucked! (even the used ones!) but i worked at a music store setting up guitars before so setting them up was very easy...finish flaws some, but for the price (i got one for 100$!)were not enuff snivel about!

im really,really,really hard on guitars!(ripped a flody off on stage once!) so if i say they will last then well...

youll never get thru to samick so dont waste your time!!!!!!
oh yeah if you have a tv-twenty.... your warranty is up!
(they stop production 3-years ago!)

they are a great guitar,(well i do have five!)for the most part, sound good, look good play great... so if you find one... well sell it to me!!

22 frets, two Seymour Duncan copy pickups. One volume, one tone knob. I think the body is alder, though I could be wrong. This one has the Grapecicle finish, kind of a purple-burts. Vintage style bridge, with generic tuners. No case.

Because of the Duncan copy pickups, it has a warm, round tone, which was the reason I bought it. Mainly suited for hard rock, though it can produce a variety of sounds. It was mainly played through a Marshall Valvestate amp, with little or no effects(the best way).

Action was very high from the factory, not to mention the intonation was way off. Overall finish was very nice. I've never been able to properly adjust the intonation on the stupid thing!! So needless to say it doesn't get played much anymore. The nut was never cut properly, so I had to fix that.

For a guitar that didn't get played much, it's had it's share of problems. Pickup selector shorted out right away, the nut had to be fixed etc...

I've played long enough to know I wasted my money on this guitar. I originally bought it because it had a nice sound, and it wasn't a strat shape. Through playing it I've realized it's mainly a piece of crap. It's unbalanced, so it doesn't ever hang on you right, the electronics are extremely cheap, and the intonation is unfixable. What do you want for under 500 bucks, right? I paid $375 for my Washburn, brand new, and it's 10 times the guitar.

This is the H/H pickup version with the Floyd Rose-type trem. Set up kind of like a Peavey Wolfgang Special, with just one volume knob. "Duncan Designed" pickups mounted directly to body; 3-way switch in the "strat" location. Fat, 22-fret neck, like a 50's Les Paul. Gloss maple fingerboard (with inlays matched to body color), fat frets, back of neck unfinished and very smooth. Alder body with kind of a Fender Toronado shape. My wife says it looks like an amoeba, but I thinks it's pretty cool looking. The features it has are very nice; there's just not a lot of them. It's a fairly simple guitar.

The stock pickups are plenty powerful and clean, but somewhat brittle sounding. Hey, they're cheap knockoffs. I've replaced them with a Duncan "Blues Trembucker" in the bridge and a Duncan '59 in the neck, and the difference is amazing. Playing through a Crate Blue Voodoo 2x12 tube combo with a 4x12 extension cab, I can get a tone very similar to Blues Saraceno's, without his custom-made amp. My only effects are a Boss RV-3 reverb/delay unit and some DOD chorus and flange pedals. You're somewhat limited due to the lack of the tone knob, but with the right pickups, you can get serious tonal variations by just rolling off the volume knob a bit. EVH was right about that !!! I'm very much a subscriber to the philosophy of keeping a clean guitar signal and letting the amp do all the work. Keep the pre-gain to moderate levels and really drive the power tubes of your amp; the distortion tone is incredible! My style is a mix of down&dirty blues, VH, old Extreme, and a few others (not all at once, what a mess!) Nice fat, sustaining, "honky" tones, even with the floyd bridge. Good clean tones, but will also shred with the best of 'em.

Nice job for an inexpensive guitar. The rating is more for the playability of the guitar than for appearance. Neck fits nicely in the body cavity (no neck plate, so the heel's more comfortable). Action from the factory was pretty much spot-on for my tastes, not too high, not too low. Pickups are screwed directly into the body, so no adjustment issues there. Paint is nice, but a little sloppy in the pickup and control cavities, as was the routing of the wood itself. This is definitely a player's guitar, not a showpiece. Fretwork is good, all the controls work well, and the guitar plays like a dream.

As I mentioned above, this guitar is meant to be played. Everything in the hardware department is heavy-duty. No need to replace strap buttons or anything. Finish seems tough as nails. The trem is a floater, so you'd need a backup in case of a broken string. Otherwise, this guitar is simplicity itself.

I haven't talked with Samick directly, but the dealer I work with says they're not too bad about warranty issues and such.

I LOVE this axe. Essentially, it's the ideal rock guitar for me. It's simple yet versatile, and with the new pickups sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, Samick doesn't make this model any more, but I've seen brand-new leftovers for as little as $250. For that price, you're basically getting the equivalent of a Peavey Wolfgang Special (with a better neck in my opinion). I've been playing for over 15 years, and have had lots of (expensive) guitars. I still have three others, including a Yamaha Pacifica for single-coil blues and some chicken-pickin', and an Epiphone Sheraton semi-hollow. If I can find one of the fixed bridge, H/S/S versions of the TV-20, I'm going to buy one of those as well and then I can sell the Pacifica. Tube amps, as much of a pain as they are, are the key to "the tone". S

Designed by guitarist Blues Saraceno. Korean made, Valley Arts "design" neck, Duncan "designed" pickups, 22 frets, S/S/H with split H via pull up tone knob, 5 selector strat style switch, passive electronics, maple fretboard, not sure of body wood, "cream-cicle" finish, Jetson's neo-retro body shape (closest look alike is the Ibanez Talman which is vaguely strat like). Vintage strat style trem thru body, jumbo frets, wide/thin neck, flat radius >= 12", cool triangular 3/3 alternate headstock- like a mini flying V head. Oh yeah, satin neck finish on back, glossy on the fingerboard, pretty cool.

Playing blues rock, bassman head/4x10 celestion cab, rat and blues driver pedals. I don't care for the pickups, they are very loud but have no character the neck pickup is microphonic also and it's a mini humbucker. There are no pickup covers or pickguards hence no sheilding. Pullout split coil switch gives a strat like sound in bridge/middle position. I don't like the pickups at all, I just purchased AGI-Lace transensors but have yet to install them. The guitar does have some resonance, so I think it's worth a second chance. As of now I'll just give it a 6, it sounds just OK.

First of all action/fit should be one category and finish another. So Action/Fit gets a (1). Finish gets a (9) because the paint job, satin neck finish and pickup wiring is excellent. As far as the setup, the nut was cut way too high like a childhood acoustic I once had. When I was a kid I gouged out the grooves, this time I did it right and took the nut out and filed the back, better but still didn't like the action. First of all, I play .010 strings and perhaps this guitar is desinged for .009s? I believe they have a .0095 out there so I may try them. It's not really the height but the tension .010 almost feels like an acoustic. I had a luthier adjust it and put in a graph-tech nut, it's a bit better now.

Nice black hardware good and solid tuners, strap buttons etc. Would gig without a backup, if the pickup replacement brings this guitar too life. Right now, this guitar is the backup for string breaks.

Though they run ads and claim they make the most guitars in the world, I don't think they really care about their own line. They mostly make guitars for other companies. Maybe this thing didn't take off in the US but does good in Asia? Also, people will say wow that's really cool, what kinda guitar is that? I'll say "Samick" and see a twisted face staring back at me, so now I say "it's a Blues TV 20" :-) They should really come up with a cool name for their guitar line. Samick doesn't roll off the tongue like Fender.

Been playing 20 years, have a sweet '68 strat that bends like butter with .010 which is why I'm critical of the setup. Really liked the Neo-Retro looks and have to admit I bought it via the net without every playing one. Also bought it because Blues himself has killer technique, saw him play with the Jack Bruce band w/Ginger when he was a lad of 18. Sounded great though it wasn't that guitar (before he had the endorsement). Blues says (on his webpage) he uses the TV twenty today however, I would doubt his is the same as mine, probably better tonewood for the body, and real Duncan pickups, not overseas knockoffs. One other thing I forgot to mention: as a strat player I'm used to the vol knob being real close to the first string sitting almost in the palm. On the TV 20 it is set back outside my pinky and I occasionally rolled off the volume while playing. I also found it difficult to get to the pull out tone knob while the whammy was in, so I reversed the volume and tone pots. Obviously, Blues' right hand works differenly!