Vantage VE-470WA Entertainer

Japanese Tone Machine. Gold Plated hardware, 2 humbuckers, Les Paul type electronics, ivory binding, semi-hollowbody, Rosewood board, beautiful finish. looks like mahogany. like a cross between and Ibanez artist and Gibson ES335. tune-o-matic bridge, thinnish neck.

Sound incredible. growls like a wookie. Deep, round tones. Killer response. I love these pick-up. sounds like a Les Paul but without that Maple top "bite". More "woofy" due to the semi-hollow construction. Country Jazz Rock R&B. Does it all except maybe Death Metal. Sounds absolutely fantastic plugged straight into my Fender Blues Jr. Ive used it with a distortion pedal but I found I like it better using the volume knobs to up the gain. You really dont need one, even for rock solos.

The action is steller. Set neck is great. Bridge required a little tweaking. The finish on these Japanese made beauties has to be seen close up to be believed. I had a Gibson Explorer Pro with the nice transparent AA maple top and this thing just blows it out of the water. The attention to detail is stunning. Gold hardware on an extremely figured carved top. I can't believe these guitars are so cheap on eBay. The guitar community slept on this one.

Finish is spectacular. Will probably last long after I'm gone. I'd never use a guitar without a back-up. thats not fair to your audience. hardware looks great but will probably fade over time. Thats just what happens to gold plated hardware. Guitar is solid. Like I said, if an Ibanez Artist had sex with a Gibson ES335, this guitar would be the result. Good genes!

Never heard of this brand til my girlfriend left it with me

I've been playing for nearly 20 years. I've owned Parker, ESP, Ibanez, Gibson, Fender, USA BC Rich, Guild, Yari, Fernandes. This guitar stands up to them all, except maybe the Parker. I can't believe the quality of this guitar. If you can find one under 700.00 get it. This guitar has really convinced me that name brands mean nothing. I've played several Les Pauls that just don't come close. Seriously. Of course, I've played Les Pauls that are very nice, too but were talking 1500.00 dollar guitars here. The Japanese people just seem to put more attention and pride in their work. I admittedly have a thing for Japanese guitars but at the end of the day, its all about tone and playability. The quality and finish is just gravy.

made in Japan app. 1985 - semi-hollow body, similar to Gibson ES330,ES 346, Epiphone Dot series, Heritage 535 and Hamer CH series of hollow bodies. I paid $300 used w/o case and bought a gig bag for $75.
22 frets
solid top and back
2 volume and 2 tone controls with 3 pole switch behind pick guard
2 pickups look like single wound Humbuckers - gold plated. In fact all metal on the guitar is gold-plated.
front and back made of maple, neck of Rosewood with ebony fingerboard ivory trim all the way around front and back, black pick-guard
finish is a deep brown woodgrain with laquer finish, 2 f-holes. Very classy looking.
tuners are first-class made for Vantage by Grover locking and very accurate.
Neck is pretty standard size. Excellent for Blues and finger style. Works for Jazz as well. Not much of a hard rock feel to the neck.

This guitar has a good range of sounds but can't get the really Rick sound or twangy Fender metal sound. You need to go to a processor for that. I use a Roland cube and an all-in_one effects processor when I need those kinds of sounds.
With nothing on it, this is a first-class blues guitar It can give you a great feeling for finger-style country and excellent Jazz sound. The pickups are easily full and rich and can get surprisingly bright sound as well. With the tripole switch of course there are three different combinations with a miriad of variations in tone. In the 30+ years I've been playing, I've never been satified with tone controls, even on the big boys. This guitar is no different. I get about 75% of the variation I would like to get. Again, I have to go to the processor to get the rest. There is also a wee bit of line hum at the treble end which I have not been able to get rid of.

When I got the instrument second-hand, it was in horrible shape. I knew the owner well and although he took care of the instrument, I don't know what he did to it. If it came from the factory the way I received it, shame shame. I decided to use D'Addario strings on this instrument. I like a wound 3rd string and a close setup. I took the guitar to my luthier and over a period of a year, it took 4 sets of strings to get the guitar to where I like it. This guitar was very difficult to tune when I first received it. The chromatics were horrible and just putting new strings on and setting them up didn't help much. The set-up for chromatics on the bridge is excellent and the luthier says he was able to get 20 of the 22 frets to sound with 0 fluctuation on the harmonic. The other two frets are within tolerances that are undetectable by ear. Now the guitar tunes like a dream, stays there and is accurate all the way up.

I'm a school music teacher and perform a lot out in public. I have two electric guitars, a Larrivee acoustic electric and this Vantage as well as a Peavey Bass. I use each instrument about the same amount. I have not had any problems on stage with my Vantage, in fact it's been a definite ADVantage(you knew it was coming). Everything is gold-plated and should stand up very well. The finish is so deep I don't forsee any problems there and I feel very confident taking this guitar out without a backup, but I usually have one anyways.

It has been hard to get any info from Samick who took over Vantage. This instrument was made before the name take-over, and as such nobody wants much to do with it. I can get the parts I want from Gibson/Epiphone and Hamer. The guitar is almost a direct copy of soemthing.

I started playing professionally in 1964 in garage bands and have owned every kind of guitar imaginable and sold them as well. Have a degree in music and teach and play. I own a lot of equipment, play 20 instruments, started on guitar, do a lot of Bass and Piano, sing, play all other plectrums and Brass instruments and Sax. Own a Peavey Bass and amp, Roland cube, Roland PA, Larrivee acoustic electric and Epiphone classical guitar, Cortez mandolin, Hohner button accordian. I had checked the Vantage out for a week or so before I bought it. I was pretty sure the tuning problem was fixable and there was generally nothing wrong with the neck. This is something that should always be done when buying any guitar. Necks can be very tricky. They look great but when you try to work with them, weird things happen. I probably should have asked more questions of someone in the know about that neck, just to make sure. I got lucky and there were no problems. I had been looking for years for a an effective semi-hollow body that I could afford. A similar Gibson can go $2-$4000. A similar Epiphone $1500, A Heritage about the same and a Hamer around a $1000. There are a lot of copies around but most of them are pretty bad if their under $400. I love the presentation of this guitar. It has a very classy smaller footprint that a Gibson ES-330 but plays the same way. My buddy has a 330 and they play very similar. I don't think I would take $1000 for it right now.