Samick CCTS 650 Charlie Christian Solo Flight

this is a early 90's model white paint split pickups. neck is fat w/palellagrams.

this guitars sounds full and really can do most if not all but metal. has a thin sound with pickups split and very fat with them on full. however since I got this guitar at such a bargin I will no doubt be putting in a set of the tv jones hums that mimick the gretsch sound. I will probably also put a bigsby on it.

after about ten years the white color is fading to a cream almost with a yelllow tint. be something to see what ten more years will bring. thing is still perfect though as far a fit and finish.

well its been used for about ten years and still looks,plays and sound great.what does that tell you?

don't know didn't buy it new.

well it seems like I have been playing forever and have owned all guitars. I play lite jazz and folk/country, lite rock and have a decided sixties sound to my playing "think" Steven Stills. I have been in a bunch of gospel bands that have never been heard of.
yes I am a throwback to another era. anyway enough about me... there has been one of these hanging on the wall of a local music store since I have lived here in this area of east Tn. for the last two years. they refused to get below 800.00 on it, so I let it hang. found mine for 250.00. feels almost like I stole it since they retail for over 1200.00 when you can find them. anything I would like to share??? why yes be good to your neighbors and you family.

this model appeared in 1997. it was manufactured in Korea and final set up was performed in california at the Valley Arts facility. the front and back have a beautiful carved appearance, very smooth and rounded indents on the back of the guitar must be seen to be appreciated. i'd like to say the guitar is all mohogany, but i think it is lamiated to a less expensive tone wood. the neck is mahogany with a rosewood fretboard and inlays that are double parallelograms in very pretty pearloid. the front and back are bound in thick-thin cream white binding. the f holes, neck and neck joint base are also bound, but in single stripe. the headstock is a lamiate of triple binding with "charlie christian" written in script pearloid and a pearloid badge that says "solo flight". the only place this guitar says samick is the interior lable which is signed by the estate of charlie christian. the tuning heads are no name but very substantial. the guitar stays in tune under really hard playing. it has a tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail piece which are solid mounted to the mohogany block that runs the length of the interior of this semi hollow. the nut is teflon. the neck is 22 medium frets, and the set neck joins the body at the 16th fret. the single rounded cutaway makes access to the upper regesters comfortable. the neck, like the rest of the guitar is painted. the guitar has a 24 3/4" scale. it is thinner than a 60's era les paul neck but feels substantial and smooth. low action and no fret buzz anywhere . pick-ups are no-name humbuckers with gold covers. all hardware is gold plated. controls are 2 volume and 2 tone. the tone knobs are push-pull pots that split the pick-ups into single coil configuration. the selector switch is a three way, really cheap compared to the rest of the hardware. i plan to replace it with a standard gibson switch. included in the price of purchase is the beautiful cream colored plush lined tweed case.

although this guitar is billed as a jazzer(sent from the factory with flat wounds) it doesn't have that sound at all. this semi-hollow really shines in a blues, southern rock setting. in full humbucker mode it can bring tears to your eyes with fat soulfull thick bodied sustain. in the neck position the sound is round and heavy, and the bridge pick-up is full and tonefull. pull the pots to split the coils on the pick-ups and it will quack and twang, great for pedal steel type licks or keith richards type gring. trully versatal. since it is a semi-hollow, feedback at high volume settings can introduce itself on occasion.

as i had mentioned earlier, the guitar arrived from the fatory with flat wounds. and as recieved, the action was spot on. i changed the strings to a set of 11-48's and had to lower the action to get it back to a similar hight. when i did that i also screwed down the bolts that hold the stop tail piece to the internal mohogany log. there was about a three quarter turn of play in each bolt. after i did that, i noticed more of a vibe being transmitted throughout the body of the guitar. otherwise, i have no issues.

aside from the paint looking like is will scratch and wear easily, the overall build quality is very substancial. and as i mentioned earlier, the only change i would make is to replace the selector switch(not because it doesn't work, i just don't like the feel). i play this guitar hard, make that very hard, every single day. maybe it should be called the charlie christian TIMEX MODEL?

limited lifetime, whatever that means. non transferable.

overall this guitar is an absolute ball to play. well balanced, great variety of tones, world class neck. i played at least fifteen other semi-hollow body guitars the day i bought this samick. i had never even heard of samick! i played gibsons, washburns, epiphones, ibanez(they were close), and i played untill i couldn't play anymore. and the kicker was i kept coming back to the samick. it wasn't money, or salesman persuasion(he wanted me to spend more!) the guitar just worked. i have been playing off and on for 30 years(i'm 42) and i have to say that since this purchase two years ago i have never felt better about my ability as a guitarist. that says more about finding the right guitar than anything else i can say.