Samick DS Strat

I bought mine in 1999 from a friend who buys and sells used guitar. Its a korean made strat copy (some samicks are made in Indonesia). Body is made of 3 3/4 very light plywood glued together. The neck is maple with rosewood fingerboard, 22 frets. Neck is like a baseball bat, real chunky at the back, but its solid! When I bought it, body is almost white, but slowly turns into cream, which is cool! Tuners are samick made smooth tuners, non-locking. Pickups are thin sounding and pickup slots are wider than the pickup, so I suspected that the original owner replaced them with cheap one. Replaced them though with pickups from my Aria Pro II. Bought it bare, simlply the guitar.

After replacing the pickups, now I can switch all my effects without loosing signal. I ran it thru dunlop chrome crybaby > MXR flanger > DOD stereo chorus > MXR distortion+ > Arion tube mania > lazer phaser > ibanez soundtank dig. delay > and finally, to a Custom made amp.
Positions 2 and 4 of the 5 way switch are real twangy. Bridge pickup is biting. Middle pickup is well-balanced. Neck pickup sounds full. I mainly used the middle for rock sounds, the middle+bridge for Santana like sound (sweet and sustaining). With all these effects, its not noisy why? bec. i wired the amp body to a wet ground. I dont have a nice sounding amp. Ive tried fenders and washburns and they cant beat the sound of this. Iver tried an ibanez strat copy and yamaha pacifica, well, these two are simply great guitars

When i purchased it, its almost brand new, with frets still covered with lacquer. The action was so low and sounds great, so i know i have a very nice neck. This is a rare thing with korean made axes. I raised the action a bit so i can bend strings better. The body is cheap, wish its made of some solid wood. The bridge is also cheap, you cant even use the tremolo cause it easily detunes. The only bonus is the SOUND!!!

This axe is very durable, the neck so thick, like the old fenders. Ive been using it for 5 years now, and didnt gave me any problems (as long as i dont use the trem). The only maintenace ive done is replacing the strings, spraying WD40 on the contacts of the pickup selector, and wiping it once in a while. I always have a backup, not bec. i cant depend on my samick, but i always broke strings(bad bridge). Instead of replacing strings, i just grab my Aria pro instead.

Havent deal with samick, but they are everywhere, they have two factories in Asia: in indonesia and korea. I usually repair my own guitars unless it has something to do with refrets.

Although other guitars are better than this, i would rate this as a very satisfactory, in terms of value, playability, tone, durability. Everything is there. Always wanted a locking tremolo but after tried using one, I decided to go back to a regular axe. As long as the guitar sounds great, stays in tune, and doesnt give me backaches, then its rocking! Pickups play an important role also, there are pickups which sounds good straight into an amp but gives you annoying feedbacks when ran thru a wall of effects. Wanted to upgrade to a kinman when got some cash though

Strat copy, no idea how old or where it was made (Korea I guess). 21 fret maple/rosewood neck/fingerboard laminated body (looks like ply-wood)standard strat type controls including awful feeling, but effective, 5 way switch, 3 single coil pickups, thick black resin finish on body, 6 point trem, enclosed tuners with horrible shaped finger blades, slim C neck gloss finish.

I got given this as a total wreck dusty, rusty, beaten, worn and abused and producing no sound. I didn't expect much, I thought I'd clean it up and give it to the kids so they'd leave my fender strat alone. After re-soldering joints, figuring out wiring problems, re-setting the neck, pup hights, string intonation etc;I plugged it in - and was pleasently surprised! It sounded OK. It has a bright resonance that really suits texas blues/rock/thrash and even sound ok in clean mode (long as you don't pick to hard). Ran it through a Washburn BD12R and Roland Cube 30 no problems. It sound different to my Fender Traditional Strat (USA model)but no better or worse.

Like I said I picked it up as a trashed unit so I have no idea about factory set up. Routing of the body was ROUGH with big gobs of resin dribbled down inside. Neck fit is really good, fret wire fitting and finish - well not wonderful.

When I got this it had been played to death and ABUSED. Yet when I cleaned it up it all worked. So, reliability/durability is damn good.

My friend who gave it to me supported me sorting it out - does that count?

I've been playing for 25 odd years on a whole variety of gear from the ugly to the ultimate. This is a good guitar, a bit rough in the finish department but it sounds great. The action is low and fast, the neck feels great - well not as silky as I would like but a good shape. The sound is distinctly warm/hot single coil with a nice bite to it. I got it to give to the kids but end up playing it alot myself - its fun. There are a lot worse guitars out there and I would reccomend this one for any beginner to intermediate player. Yo Samick!

This guitar was probably made in the late eighties or early nineties. Your typical strat lookalike. 21 (jumbo) fret maple fret board, 1 volume and 2 tone controls, 3 no name single coil pickups. Metallic red finish. Cheap tuners....

Not the greatest sound. Bridge pickup sounds the best but even then is too high. Low end is almost non-existant. Palm muting with heavy distortion sounds like youre scratching the strings. Definetly not suited to my style, which is metal, but a friend gave it to me for $50 so I just took it because my main guitar was screwed and I decided to sell it. Adjusting the pickup height so that it is closer to the strings helps alot, but it still doesnt sound to good.

Action was set up pretty horribly by the factory, it was like trying to play a cello, but i fixed it and it's fine. Tuning pegs were about as cheap as they get and will be replaced with gotohs. Surprisingly, the finish actually looks quite nice, a metallic apple red. But on the downside, the finish is horribly cheap. I barely hit it against my amp and when it chipped away i discoverd that it was only one coat... CHEAP!!!!

I've never played a show with this guitar, but it would not be able to take it. Crafting is much too poor.

If this guitar was stolen or lost, I would definetly not buy it again. But since I am on a budget, I would probably buy something like am LTD M-50 or a Jackson Dinky. I pretty much hated it until i put in a few upgrades. I sold the pickguard assembly of $#!++% cheap pickups and bought a Kramer Focus Quadrod from MusicYo.com, which features a gray pearloid pickguard, a quad rail pickup in the bridge, two dual rail pickups in the mid and neck, and push/pull coil tap on the tone knob. This cost me $60 and was WELL WORTH IT, and anyone who's ever heard a Kramer Striker or Baretta will agree. So unless you are looking forward to making major upgrades, I would not buy this guitar.

This guitar has 2 tones and one volume control. It has 21 frets, and a fairly low action. The tuners are ok, not the best, but far from worse. The bridge is the string thru body type. It doesnt have a tremelo bar, but there looks like there is a whole for one.

I have only had the guitar for a few days, but the sound is alot better than I thought it would be. I play classic rock and this seems to be fine for that stile. You can play any style you want, but it isn't the best at any one thing.

The guitar is set up OK from the factory, but It could be better. There is a little fret buz and minor stuff, but it seems OK for the money. I got mine on sale becouse it is that ugly sunburst colour, and no one wanted it.

I wouldn't gig it without a backup. Or I might gig it as a backup. The finish on it seems like it will last, but thats always hard to tell. I think that for the money it is a good practice guitar, but no more than a backup guitar

It is a good guitar for the money. There are guitars better than this for the same amount of money $200.00, but their are worse. With a few upgrades, it could be a pretty deasent guitar.

Strat clone. Pretty thin neck, 21 frets, 3 single-coil pickups, cheap-looking tuners that actually aren't that bad, volume knob and two tone knobs that don't seem to do anything, string-thru-body bridge, pearl-looking inlays, body is blue with white pickguard.

From what I've seen, Samicks have a bad name because they're low-end. This was my first guitar, and at first I didn't know anything about tone so I didn't care much about that. Now that I've been playing for about a year, I've learned that the tone is pretty good. It's definitely a bright high-end tone. This is a great guitar for punk, and a good guitar for "alternative" rock. It wasn't that great for metal though, because of the lack of strong low-end and poor sustain. There's a good range of tone with the selector...you can go from playing chunky metal to fast and furious punk. It's pretty quiet, but hums if the volume is high.

The setup was great when I bought it, and I didn't have any problems for several months. After that the intonation started getting kind of bad, but by then I had learned to adjust that. The action was comfortable, though I turned it down a little. This guitar is great for staying in tune. Decent pickups. No buzzing in the electronics. On the bad side, the notch on the nut for the high E string was cut too far down, so the string buzzes on the first fret a lot. The screws holding down the pickguard and pickups were oxidized, probably from being a floor model, so I changed them.

The finish is good, and the body and neck seem solid. The strap buttons are also solid. I've jammed pretty hard with it and had no problems. It's also taken a few bangups without any adverse affects.

Decent craftsmanship, design, and tone. Good for beginners on a budget, though there are better guitars if you have a little more to spend. Great if you're into punk. I've been playing for over a year and I've turned to playing metal, so my next guitar will definitely be something with good humbuckers and sustain.