Samick FA2

- Single cutaway body
- Bound, High Tech quilt top
- Maple bolt-on neck
- Maple fingerboard
- Grover??? tuners
- Hardtail-string through bridge
- HSS Duncan Design pickups
- a very nice volume and tone knob

From crystal clear and bright to twangy, jangling and finally rockin' with the humbucker pickup. I was surprised of the quiet singlecoil pickups - no hum at all!

Well, from the first view, I could not find any flaw but if you look really close, you can notice some glue-errors and the neck does not exactly fit at some position of the body.

This is not very tragic for me because I use this axe to play with and not for a collection!

Looks as if I can depend on it. I'll use this guitar as a backup on stage

never needed it.

I think that this guitar will suit well for live-gigs! It looks beautiful, has got its own style and is sounding great! An eye catcher!

I like the combination of a humbucker and the singlecoils from Duncan

The features have been mostly covered. Telecaster style w/ maple neck and Grover tuners. Lipstick pups in neck and middle with a Duncan Designed humbucker in the bridge. Red quiltop with cream binding. You know.

I'm giving it a 10 based on the pickup combination alone. There are no other guitars that I know of that give you two lipsticks and a humbucker in one guitar, this makes this guitar one of the more versatile ones I've ever played!

I love how this guitar sounds and plays. It's my favorite guitar to play right now (beats out a Gibson SG and a real Fender tele). Once again, the pickup combination just allows so much versatility. I'm playing through a Peavey Classic 50 2x12 and quite a few pedals (DOD FX80-B, Boss DS-1, Ibanez TS9DX, Boss BD-2, EHX Little Big Muff, EHX Small Stone, Boss CH-1, Boss DD-6, Ibanez GE10) and I can get great sounds in just about any style I want.

My favorite parts of the guitar is the pair of lipstick pickups, I've never had a guitar with these (Danelectro mostly uses them) but they're a very unique sounding pickup. Really chimey. I don't know what I'm hearing but they sound "tubey" which is exactly how I want my clean tones to sound. I can still coax a genuine tele "twang" out of this guitar, or I can dial in a nice thick clean with the selector switch. They don't dirty up all that well in my experience so far, but that's why Samick provides us with the humbucker. It's Duncan Designed and does sound very good for a guitar in this price range. Something's not quite right with it, and I may eventually look to swap it out with another SD pickup like a Pearly Gates. At the price point though, these pickups are quality! I don't think the average user would find any need to change the pickups.

Wow! This guitar is gorgeous. I bought it used from a guy who looked like he never touched it, still had the plastic pickguard protector on it and everything. I love the quiltop with the cream binding around the edges. This definitely has the look and feel of a custom shop Fender (by the way, I believe these guitars are in fact made in the Fender factory). There were just a couple minor finish flaws if you look extremely close, but that's to be expected.

The guitar was setup pretty well when I got it, which was more than likely the factory set up, I did fine tune the action and the intonation just a bit, but it was a great player right from the beginning. The neck needed a little work, filing down the fretboard edges, but once I did that this guitar feels perfect. It now gets the most playing time out of any of my guitars.

The nut is a little cheap, and I may eventually replace it with a bone nut, but so far it hasn't given me any issues.

I've had this guitar for about a month without any issues. Obviously that's not enough to really rate the reliabilty, so I won't rate this category but I've never really had any reliability issues with guitars. If you take good care of them, they will take good care of you. I don't know if I will use this guitar live, I have a more beaten up Fender tele that I prefer to use live, but I did put straplocks on this guitar so I won't have to worry about it if the time comes. I always gig with backups because you just never know what might happen.

Haven't dealt with Samick yet.

I love this guitar. I found it on Craigslist locally and I had never seen or heard one before, I bought it because the price was definitely right (came with a brand new case as well), and I fell in love at first sight. I love the tonal options you have with this guitar, although it's hard to switch between the pickups without adjusting your amp (I use an EQ pedal to deal with the high gain spike switching from the lipsticks to the humbucker). I'm big time into cheap guitars. I believe you can get any sound you want out of a cheap guitar if you know what you're doing and have a decent sounding amp. I've tried Squier's (terrible), Agile (great), SX (good), Washburn (pretty good), and now this Samick. It is by far the best budget conscience guitar that I have tried. Doesn't feel cheap, doesnt sound cheap. Samick used to be known for pretty bad quality stuff, but this Greg Bennett line is really starting to turn some heads. If you can find one of these guitars BUY IT, you won't regret it.

2006 made in Indonesia. Red quilted verneer top. Maple neck and fretboard. S/S/H, 5 way switch. Telecaster body style. Grover tuners, 21 frets. String-through body. Everything you could really need or want.

The Duncan-Designed bridge humbucker is articulate, with rich harmonics, very responsive to pick attack. The lipsticks can do anything from Telecaster twang to dark full jazz tones.

Probably has the fullest and richest variety of usable sounds of any guitar I have ever played. If you can't get the tone you want, keep fiddling with it, it's in there somewhere.

I play mostly rock, some blues, a little country and a bit of jazz. This guitar is suitable for all these styles. Not just suitable, no, EXCELLENT for all these styles.

Sustains forever.

Mostly, I use this with a homebuilt 5 watt tube amp with a 10" GE speaker, running through a equalizer.

No unwanted noise whatsoever.

Arrived set up fine, low action, intonation good, although I had to raise the bridge pickup to find it's sweet spot. Neck is rather wide, but not baseball bat shaped. Medium frets, well dressed. Very fast action, comfortable and easy to play.

Finish is flawless.

I've not opened it up, only played it at a couple of gigs, as I'm not currently in a band.

Impressions are that this is a quality instrument from A to Z and ought to hold up as well as any other.

Large and solid strap buttons.

No idea. I understand these are made by the world's largest guitar manufacturer.

Been playing for 35 years. Own a good stable of guitars, including 4 Gibsons, 2 Fenders, and a lawsuit era Ibanez. This guitar holds it's own with all of them, and blows away some of them.

I really can't say enough good stuff about this guitar. Every other sub-$300 guitar I've ever played is lacking in one respect or another. Not this one. No question in my mind that this is probably the finest bargain priced guitar on the market. A professional instrument in every way, without the big ticket. I'd replace it in a heartbeat if anything happened to it.

Made in 2005 in asia. solid tele-style body with veneer cap and ivory binding. has 5-way switch for 2 lipstick and one humbucker pickup config.....s/s/h. passive elect.'s. what is wood? i dont know but it is light AND resonent...the neck is awesome hardrock maple with maple fretboard...seems really hard to find the maple fretboard outside of godin/fender/prs and tele copies...which is weird cause it kicks the crap outta rosewood for sound (in my dumb opinion). One of the BEST things is it has body-through string routing .... great sustain causea this. 24-whatever fender style neck length but neck is Crazy_Good and almost impossible to describe accurately. Hmmm...a les paul jr. meets a early telecaster neck? basically thin but slightly wide...like an ibanez wizard neck with a slight bit more chunk to it......i dunno man..it ROCKS!
grover tuners...EXCELLENT! and the nut on mine was great...no problems at all

ive owned tons of guitars and this is my first non-japanese asian git, most of mine are tokai's, guild, fenders.....this sounds like they all got together in one axe. Don't really know how the lipstick pickups can sound so different (each one sounds diff. than the other) and together with the seymour duncan (designed?) humbucker you get a truly amazing sound spectrum...really in awe hear. I was gonna plunk down for a variax but this thing pretty much gets gibson and fender together in an excellent way. huge variety of sounds from these 3 pickups...weird but true..tey one out. not noisy at all, full round sound that goes from bright to dark...the tone knob is a revelation in that it actually works abive average and the humbucker is flat out better than too many of the dimarzios ive gone through...from metal to country...WAY! i hate to give everything a 10...but this deserved it.

impeccable...nothing askew, dammmation if I could find one thing wrong, but i can't give all 10's...it should have had a whammy.

everything on this axe makes me wonder how the heck can fender compete against this thing? i guess they got the heritage and name, but in the future, if axes like this keep coming out, fender may be like oldsmobile...bye. definitely depend on it, always use a backup but this thing wont break without serious stress...good hardware throughout. Greg Bennett designed made me think before I bought it...who is he and what has he done for samick? after reading about his rave reviews on Ed Roman guitars and several other googlepages, i realized this was a special axe, even though i liked the feel and sound of it immediately.

mmmm....probably will never have a reason to find this out.

playing 20 years jeeesh. id definitely get another one, of all my past gits (probably 40 total) it is the only one that has such a variety of sounds. dont hate anything about it other than color choice was limited but dont care to much about that, specailly when you hear it... compare to? nothing, almost got the variax when i played this one and it beat it hands down. of all my past guitars I liked an old shecter and my old strat the best along with an old fernandes (japan)...this sadly beats them all...sadly because i think of all the money ive wasted on past purchases when this one fit the bill...oh well, got it now. if nothing else, this IS a fantastic value, everyone has their own favorite guitar, but his belongs in a stable of'em or as your only one.

made in indo or korea? solid 5-piece body with blue quilted veneer top, bound body with ivory blah blah blah. basically it looks like a top-shelf custom model...which is what most axes are going for no matter if they cost 100 or 1000 bux....frankly, it doesn't impress me, sound does. In fact, id rather it be flat black and rusty and sound great than look wonderful for looks sake....anyway, it looks pricey.
single single hum p'ups...lipstick and a bucker in bridge. EXCELLENT FEATURES....through-body strings!!! UNIQUE AND WELCOME pickup combination...dont YOU get tired of accepting 2 hums or 3 singles? Grover tuners...nice, not the best but very nice for this pricepoint. NECK surprisingly comfy and MAPLE>>>YAHOOO!!!!!!!! its wider than I like (I like pencildick necks like tokai springysound orig.) and bigger frets than I usually like (I like wimpy tiny orig. fender/tokai copies...really small) good hardware all way round...
HEY YOU OWNERS OUT THERE...whats the deal with the clear plastic? "cap"? over the headstock...looked like a ton of clearcoat but closer i looked it seems like a cap...never seen nuttin like that...though its ok. back of neck is purrrrrfect...no gloss or very little...basically a light satin screamin fast neck.

I play through a custom hand-wired 15 watt tube amp and/or a solid state leem amp...30 watts. it is quiet and sounds great through both.

very good sound....surprised me even though i know samick has gone miles ahead with the greg bennett series. I play everything but
metal and it does it all well....specially country-punkin. i don't
know what to say...the pickups drop my jaw for this price, maybe the
first axe ever I won't ever change out anything on? amazing! goes growly to bright...leans towards bright due to maple neck prob...but I like bright...tele + strat + tokai/ibanez sounds....not really les paulish in any way....which is a plus for me. good variety from these 3 p'ups...you gotta try it to believe it. was lookin for blend of strat and tele and I found it...at samick? weird new world when korea beats out usa on a guitar.

setup pretty good...a good start anyway, take off 9's and put in 10's and adjusted and so forth, never had a git that was perfect from gitgo except a shadow. I dont believe pickups or anything is perfectly adjusted until you get YOUR sound...but basically, everything very playable and good to go from the start. very nice frets without burrs or pointy bits but one glaring problem stands out to me. THE neck base into the body pocket has a gap on both sides large enough to slide a thin pick into...med-thin even. NOW, this has an easy fix i'll share with you though many will think it will ruin aesthetics or whatnot...fuggim. You really want a tight fit for sustain and so forth, but with this type of axe it doesn't matter too much (country, punk, ***alter-native***)though if it bothers you take a bir of good 'ol jb weld and take out the neck, smooth a bit on both sides and tighten back down....problem solved and you can still remove neck in future no prob...ive seen luthiers and pros do this on many axes that they play for themselves...especially some of the awful-fitting voxes and '90s epis or fenders...it works! though i don't feel need to do it on this one...sounds great, plays great and for this price, no biggie at ALL! neck is slightly larger than what i like but I still like it and the necks i like are hard to find...really super narrow but not thin...only found one on early 80's tokai and mid-80's yamahas/arias/usually asian stuff. this neck rocks, feels very close to carvin bolts/70's fender strats etc...subjective. everything else is spot-on though the switch is pretty bland...i like a click...this one is kinda mushy but whatever, does the job. as said earlier the paint/finish is supreme....maybe too thick for me, maybe too showy, but whatever, i go for sound and care not one bit for looks.

extemely durable, nuff said.

im sure they make too many gits to care if someone is unhappy...they would just send a replacement but not necessary...warranty? maybe, i threw all paperwork away, no need. this git is solid.

I wonder if people make up stuff on this part, well, here goes the truth? truly. have owned too many to remember, for your reference my favorites are all over the map. I like Tokais, MIJ squires, MIJ most things in 80's, elect. guilds, old fenders (duh), old fernandes, old ibanez, electras, german shadows, and the oscar schmidt delta king semi-hollow (prob. made by samick...another awesome deal with new tuners), mia peaveys, mij yamahas etc....SO LOTS of comparison and it rates very highly in sound, in fact better than most, and for value almost unbeatable. i have gotten into trying to find a bargain axe lately and went through sx's, agile's, a kramer tele and various used mim fenders...well, this one has one the spot for price and cost...probably the BEST DEAL around if you want 1. some strat sounds 2. some tele sounds 3. a MIJ humbucker sound......in short, a versatile axe that I will NOT sell...which says a lot as I have sold all the above. now have the full spectrum of fender in one axe. It has it's "problems" but they are very livable and don't affect payability or sound. I wanted a parker p-36 originally and played it and loved it...then i played this and had to go think...came back and played both and thought some more...gee i wanted that parker, but dammit if the samick met my tastes as well and saved me 300 bucks....i still can't get over it. As far as comparing the samick to fenders...no contest, you'd have to find an old mij strat or squire or an MIA fender that was built right to compare...and shell out hundreds more. don't trust me, go play one, judge for yourself, i may have gotten lucky, play a couple of them cause every guitar is different in it's way.

The FA2 is an absolutely awesome guitar. Cudos to Greg Bennett and Samick.
All of the hardware is top-shelf, no junk was used on this model.
The lipstick pickups have all the 'jangle' you could ask for.
And with the Duncan bridge humbucker, it's like the best of both worlds.
The 5 way switch is totally quiet, and the difference in sound between the 5 positions is very drastic,
much more drastic than any strat I have ever played. It's like playing 5 different guitars.
Everything from Beatles to VanHalen, with a flip of the switch.
I've never used tone controls, I always left them wide open.
Not on this! It actually does a great job without sucking tone from the lipsticks.
Even the volume control has an nice even taper without that sudden shutoff.
And the neck? WOW! I managed to set the truss and string height so low without buzzes,
that it plays easier than my PRS or Les Paul.
I've always loved maple fingerboards, but they were too narrow for my fat finger tips.
Not on this! It is wide, even at the nut, with just a slight radius, perfect for me.
Saddle intonation setup adjustments came out perfect. Again, no junk here!
The lime green pickguard against the red quilted top looks so unusual, but really cool.
Mine has the black dot inlays between the 5th and 6th string, another totally cool feature.
If you like the telecaster body shape, you should love this guitar.
I doubt if you could ever find a guitar as well made and versatile as the FA2 for under $200.00
Grab one while you can still find one!
Arty

2004 Formula Greg Bennett Design. Telecaster style body, I have no idea where it was made my guess would be Korea. 22 medium - jumbo Frets, c profile maple 12" radius neck, bound alder body, HSS Duncan designed pickups, 1 vol, 1 tone, 5 way switch, chrome hardware, hardtail string thru body, quilt top, bolt on neck with Grover tuners. Two lipstick style pickups and a humbucker in the bridge. Very innovative and unique design.

This guitar suits my music style very well. I have always liked the sound of the Danelectro guitars as well as having a Humbucker in a Telecaster. I love the jangly bell tone the lipstick pickups offer and since owning a Fat Fender Telecaster I will never own another Telecaster that doesn't have a humbucker installed. It juse gives it a warm creamy thick tone when desired which is uncommon in a traditional Telecaster. I play more ambient, world type music and the pickup congifuraton on this guitar is excellent. The stock Duncan designed pickups that it comes with are pretty decent but I am a tone perfectionist and they just didn't quite make the grade for my ear. Take into consideration I am a sound engineer as well as a musician so to bring this guitar up to my own personal preference I substituted original Danelectro lipstick pickups for the middle and neck positions and I swapped out the Duncan designed humbucker for a Japanese 80s Fender humbucker which really brought this guitar to life. In my opinion Duncan designed pickups are decent for the money but if you really want a refined sound they just don't cut it. Mind you the Seymour Duncan pickups themselves are excellent...! The Dano lipstick pickups are fabulous and the Early 80s Fender pickups are worth aquiring if and when you find them as they have exceptional tone. I will only rate it an 8 out of 10 here simply because it wasn't a 10 until I swapped out the pickups. now it is a 10. I play pretty clean: I use the RC & AC Booster pedals by Xotic which have replaced about 5 other pedals I was using including a tube screamer which I found too nasally in it's tone. I also use an MXR Dnya comp which is a great sustain.. Gilmore still uses one. All thru a 70s Fender tube amp. My reverb I get from the Behringer V-Amp Pro rack effects processor. On occasion I run thru my Digitech RP7 Valve. The tones I get out of this are Jangly, Glassy, Bell tones from the Lipsticks and a very refined warm yet bright clean tone from the Fender Humbucker. A great combination. The Fender pickup is quite a bit louder in volume so when you want those cut thru the mix leads they are a flick of a switch away.

The guitar new from the factory as far as workmanship goes is a quality guitar. The finish is amazing and the action was excellent. The pickups were set almost perfectly. It really is very well designed guitar with a lot of thought and work involved in making it. The Grover pegs are one of the most responsive tuners I have ever used and these are no exception. To buy a set of Grover pegs cost on average about $50-$60. So the over all price of this guitar is an exceptional buy. I give it a 10 here simply because the quality and workmanship for the price is more than I would have ever expected. I will be trying some of the other Greg Bennett series guitars as I am quite impressed with this one.

Like I said above. This guitar is a very well made. The finish thick and is very nicely done and should last a life time. They offer a limited lifetime warranty with this guitar and I don't think I will ever have any problems with it. Great for live playing. I would never use any guitar on a gig without a backup but that is just me. I could have the best guitar in the world but it's alway good to have a backup in case even a string breaks.

Forunately I have never had to deal with them. Their guitars speak for themselves. So since I have never needed to contact them I can not rate their customer support.

I have been playing for 40 year. My father taught me little brown jug on guitar when I was 6. So I grew up with a guitar in my hand. I purchased this guitar because I was wanting Telecaster with Lipstick pickups in it so when I say this one with two lipsticks and a humbucker I had to have one. A very unique combination that as far as know no one else has been inovative enough to create. I love the design and the only thing I would add to this guitar from the factory to make it perfect would be an extra mini toggle to run the humbucker in either series, parallel or split mode. But for the money it is an excellent buy. I swapped out the pickups and added a coil tap to the humbucker and the guitar is amazing!

2004 Samick Formula. Duncan Designed Humbucker and 2 lipstick single coils. Grover tuners, bolt on maple on maple neck. Quilted maple top and an alder(?) body. 1 volume and 1 tone control with 5 way pickup selector switch.

Lots of tele twang we know and love with a duncan designed humbucker at the bridge. The 5 way selector offers you plenty of options, however spliting the humbucker would have been nice. I'm not sure what the 2nd position on the switch is. Really fat sounding humbucker that can get mean with a little distortion, which is nice for metal, and the single coils are great for punk and blues, or even country(which I am not a fan of, myslef). Nice!

Action was okay, but needed a little adjusting. Grover's keep this thing in tune. The Quilt top finish is stunning to behold, and is a real eye catcher. The nut seems a bit flimsy, though. If you put heavier gague strings on the nut will "Stretch" to fit them, which I am unsure of at the moment. I will probably replace it, but it doesn't come out too far as to cut the hands when trying to play the lower frets. Nice action and fast playability. Nice to sit down and play. Very user friendly.

I haven't been rough with it, but it is sturdy and doesn't seem very weak. Not a bit heavy, I would probably buy another if she broke, which I doubt will happen soon.

I've never had to deal with them, but their website is helpful.

I have been playing around a year and a half now, and this is my second guitar I have owned. My previous guitar, a Silvertone Apocalypse Special, doesn't even compare to this guitar. If anyting I would request,it would be the ability to put a Bigsby on it (I can't see a way of putting one on as is without modding it heavily).If she were stolen, i would buy another one probably, unless I find a good deal on a floyd rose equipped guitar. I play mostly metal and hard rock, and this provides all that I need in a guitar.Regular Teles are no match for the Samick FA2.

2002 Tele style ( looks better ) good weight, 5 way switch,bolt on maple on maple neck.

great single coil sound, hot bridge humbucker, no noise. thin on neck p-up. playing through fender princeton chorus

flawless body and fit, great neck and frets. had to replace nut, that BAD! changed saddles at same time. went with graphite and set-up....cost $80.00....now the guitar is a keeper, fun to play with no tuning problems at all. using 10's It's hard to believe that as good of construction, that they put a nut on it that bad!

I would depend on it. but, always use a back up!!

N/A

playing 40 yrs. have owned les pauls,335, 175, prs. godin, amer. strats, ricks, zion, samicks,..... It's a LOT of bang for your $ !!!
I would buy again

Tele style - bolt on neck, quilt maple top, bound alder body, maple fingerboard, Duncan Designed? HSS, Grover tuners

I like the sound of this guitar. Between the two lipstick style and one humbucker pickup and a 5 way selector switch, I'm able to get a lot of tonal variation on this guitar. I've always liked the tele style, but have heard they tend to sound a little thin. This guitar offers the tele sound, but adds the thick sound of the Duncan Designed humbucker to also make it decent sounding for most styles. I am using it through a Roland keyboard amplifier (which I also run my Tacoma EKK19-C acoustic guitar through). For effects, I'm running through a Digitech GNX3.

Very nice. I like the action and the appearance of the guitar seems flawless. Holds tuning well. The only problem I have found, which I have not yet addressed with the store where I purchased it (I just bought it three days ago), is that the volume control doesn't seem to work between 1-2. It suddenly kicks in at 3. Not a big issue, since I can use the expression pedal on the GNX3 to control volume.

Appears to be a well built guitar. I played out with it just the other night and enjoyed every moment.

Have not yet had to deal with customer support. Samick products have a Limited Lifetime Warranty for the original owner on the neck, body and top. Electrical components are warranted for a year. You can register your Samick at their web site (www.samickguitars.com), and you get a very basic e-mail confirmation sent back to you which serves as your registration record.

Been playing since mid-70's. I'm primarily a bass guitarist, but have been focusing on acoustic guitar the past 4 years. Buying an electric was so I would have something different to play with from time to time in the worship team I lead at my church. This guitar fit the ticket for me as a good quality electric at a price that was very reasonable (especailly important since I am primarily an acoustic player who wanted a decent electric guitar to play around with).