Product: Tagima T740S
Price Paid: 1213 (reais)
Submitted
10/07/2005
at
12:23pm
by
Pedro Henrique
Features
:
9
I don't know wich year it was made, but I guess it was back in 2004, since I've bought this guitar in april of 2005.
It's a brazilian mad guitar with brazilian woods.
If i remember it well, the body is made of marupa (similar to maple) and the neck is made of pau-marfim (really hard wood. it looks like mapple), but i can be wrong.
It has 22 frets with black dot markers, it's a solid body strat, with the usual controls (1 volume and 2 tones), 5-way selector, 3 passive alnico single-coils made by Tagima.
The finish color is silver sparkle (beautiful)
It also has a Wilkinson bridge, locking tuners and a brass nut.
The bridge is the smoothest tremolo bridge i've ever played. It can be a little difficult to understand how to regulate it, but once you get it, it's a breeze.
The tuners are quite amazing. They don't have a brand printed on them, but they keep the guitar in tune almost forever. This tuners plus the brass nut is an stuning team. I'm used to stay a lot of days without playing this guitar and when I pick it up to do some noise it's stil in tune. AMAZING
It came with three allen screws, a manual of how to change strings on a guitar with a floyd rose bridge (wich was useless), and a warranty card.
One problem with the features of this guitar was the fact that in the website in wich I bought this guitar said it had mother of pearl dot inlays and it came with black ones.
Other thing that is a little strange is the bar of the wilkinson bridge, because it keeps falling down all the time. All you have to do is to inclinate your body a little and of it goes, but in the other hand, it is extremely easy to put on.
If it had a Seymour Duncan or Di Marzio Pickups, the inlays were mother of pearl, the bar didn't keep falling it would get a 10. But, for the price, it is an incredible guitar, thus it gets a 9
Sound
:
10
I play rock, blues, jazz and christian music in my church with this guitar.
I also have another axe: an Epiphone Les Paul Custom.
In terms of amps and pedals I use a small Rolland Cube 15, an Staner BS 150 (a bass amplifier that sounds quite good with my gear), a Morley Bad Horse wah-wah, a Marshall Jackhammer (OD/DS), an Ibanez DE-7 (delay); an Onerr GV-1 (passive volume); a seiko tuner.
Sometimes I also use a Behringer Bass V-amp.
The pickups are a little noisy, but nothing you wouldn't expect of single coil pickups. When you use it near a computer it is extremely noisy.
It's got an amazing clean soud. Rich and Full. Expecially with the neck PU. Beats the crap out of the Epiphone and all the other guitars I've played to this day.
The middle PU, when used in conjunction with the others, gives a very nice sound. Tippical strato tone. Add a chorus and off you go!
The bridge PU is hot as hell. It is a very nice PU. when used with little gain distortion, it's a chord heaven. Very good for those 60's/70's songs of Pink Floyd, Jimmy Hendrix, amongst others.
It works better with my rolland cube 15 amp. The staner is a lot bassier, working excelent with the Les Paul and the Jackhammer, but not so good with the T740S.
It's good to notice that that rolland amp has amazing clean sounds and crappy distortion sounds with any guitar. This one is not different.
It can mimic a lot of strato classic tones like "Time" and "Another Brick In The Wall" from Pink Floyd (if you wanna see how the PU's work on a song, try "Coming back to life"); "Sultan's of swing"... any strato sound.'
It lacks a little bit of sustain, but this is no surprise since this is not the main objective of this guitar. The neck PU and the bridge PU are nice, but I think that Saymour Duncan one's would fit it very nicely.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
8
The factory setup had a really high action. But adjusting the neck with the screws provided fixed the problem.
The PU's were a little too close to the strings to my taste. But I think it was set that way because of the high action. When I lowered the action through the setup of the neck, the PU's almost touched the strings.
But lowering the Pickups solved the problem.
The finish was flawless.
The only problem I found with this guitar was the fact that the site where I bought it said that the dot inlays were mother of pearl and when it arrived at my house it was simple black inlays.
Even more curious is the fact that in the website of the factory it says that the inlays is mother of pearl in the specs of this guitar and the store website had this information too.
Go figure.
It don't prejudicate the playing or the sound in any way, just the look, obviously
The frets were perfectly set, the finish didn't had any flaws, the woods are amazing, the hardware didn't had any defect, everything was very nice.
Reliability/Durability
:
8
The finish of this guitar is a little fragile.
The screw holes of the saddles don't seem realiable.
But besides this, the guitar can surely withstand live playing.
The strap buttons are top notch.
I surelly depend on this guitar.
I didn't bought this one to replace my Epiphone. I bought it because it is a completely diferent guitar then the Les Paul.
I use both guitars on gigs mostly because if I break any string I can just switch guitars and I'm ready.
Customer Support
:
5
The costumer support of the Tagima manufacturer isn't quite as good as I would expect.
I contacted them lots of times to ask why this guitar came with black dot inlays and not mother pearl dot inlays.
The answer is always: please call the number bellow and talk to mr. Someone.
ALWAYS.
I wonder why they didn't put the phone for us to call the guy instead of sending a mail.
If I'm writting an e-mail, is because I won't call them.
I never sent this guitar to fix anything.
The warranty is of one year, I think.
Overall Rating
:
10
I've been playing for ten years now.
The thing I wanted this guitar to have is Seymour Duncan PU's. But this would bring the prices to another level.
If I had the money to do so, I would buy it again if it got stolen.
I love the sounds and the neck of this guitar, wich is a little finner than the Les Paul.
I hate the wilkinson bar that keeps falling all the time. If you keep jumping whille you're playing, forget about using the tremolo.
My favorite feature is the team wilkinson, locking tuners, brass nut. The guitar won't get out of tune. You can do anything you want. You can use the hell out of the tremolo and nothing happens. You can make 1000 tons bends and nothing happens. IT'S AMAZING!
I was going to buy other guitar. It was a Tagima Telecaster T505. I had an Memphis strat guitar wich was nice, but it is a begginers guitar that I bought as a backup to my Epiphone Les Paul. I sold the simple strat and bought this one.
But then I decided to buy a nice strato instead and I don't regret it. The very first choice was this one. I searched other brands but none were as good as this one. The closet ones were about twice the price of the T740S.
I wish that mine had mother of pearl dot inlays and Seymour Duncan PU's.
you can change the PU's any time you want and the inlays only improve the looks of this already beautiful silver finished guitar.
