Washburn BT5

This is a made in Korea guitar with 22 medium-jumbo frets. I think it's made out of Alder. It got a volume and a tone pot and a three-way switch. A Washburn 623 humbucker in the bridge and a 621 on the neck. All passive(if even that).It has a nice dark-blue finish and actually looks a bit like a wolfgang but with a pointier upper horn. Tune-o-matic and Grover tuners make for some nice sustain. The bolt-on maple neck with the rosewood fingerboard actually feels quite decent, but it's too fat to use as a shredding guitar.The neck is a bit shorter than 25,5 so I'm guessing it's a 24,75...

I play metal and the guitar does that quite nicely. I'm currently using a Laney LC-30 and a Crybaby Wah. The pickups are not the best you can have, but they are humbucking, which means no noise. But the sound is kind of thin and bassy. It's has a scooped sound, but in a bad way. The guitar can create decent distortion sounds and mediocre cleans.

When i bought the guitar(second hand) it was setup fairly well. I didn't care about setting it up because it was decent setup. The pickups were setup just fine. I really don't like the pots and the 3-way switch very much. The pots doesn't really work and they hum when they are at 0. The 3-way switch feels as if it's gonna break any second. Otherwise it's a quite solid guitar.

I think this guitar will withstand live playing well. The tuners are grovers and feel kinda big since I'm used to Fender's Kluson tuners. The finish is really thick and nice. So are the strap buttons. I wouldn't depend on it(because of the 3-way switch an pots), and not use it as the only guitar on a gig. I always take two guitars.

Never dealt with the company.

I have been playing for about 3 years now. I also own a CIJ Fender strat '68 reissue, a Laney LC-30 alltube amp and a Crybaby wah. If it was stolen i probably would just keep playing my strat until i had the money to buy a Jackson Ke2. I like the fact that is a simple no-nonsense half-assed quality guitar. I wish it had a nicer neck heel, same as i wish with all four bolt bolt on guitars. It's a great beginner guitar, better than those halfassed squires... for only 140 used. What a deal

Bought new in Aug. 97, made in Korea. 22 frets, vol., tone, 3-way, 2 Washburn eliminator humbuckers, tune-0-matic, grovers. Not sure of the woods used, but for under $300 bucks nothing great... Candy red finish, kind of looks like the EVH peavey guitar. 25 1/4 neck, fairly thin, rosewood fingerboard, med-jumbo frets I think... I was looking for a simple no trem guitar, so I give this a 7 for features.

I like to play all styles of rock, anything really. I had a peavey bandit 112 (now looking for a new amp) with a Zoom 505, and a peavey rockmaster/digitech GSP-7 before that. This guitar is not great, and not terrible soundwise. The pickups are somewhat weak (hey, they're stock on a $250 guitar), but do OK. Good for rock, some jazzy stuff. No single coils, so there's no satisfying clean choices here... I sold some of my better equipment in 97 since I really hadn't had a chance to play much (graduate school can do that to you), so I bought some inexpensive stuff rather than be without any equipment at all. Bottom line: not outstanding, but it works! I just decided to order a new Carvin & new amp - now that I'm out of school I want to have some good stuff around so that I can start playing again and really enjoy it. But I do plan to stick some better pickups in my BT-5 someday soon - can't wait to hear what this "cheap" guitar will sound like then!

Action and pickups were set up pretty well. It has no trem, so that helps. Action was fairly low & nice - much better than most guitars in this price range. Probably needs some tweaking, but I'm just not picky enough I guess. Candy Red finish had a couple flaws but no big deal - very cool looking guitar! Hate to admit it, but many guitarist (including me) care about the appearance of our instruments as much as their sounds! Pick up selector was junk, but for $12 bucks I can remedy that one. For this price I'll give an 8.

This guitar is pretty simple - I think I'd play with it live even though I haven't yet. Hardware & finish should be tough enough, and once I replace the selector switch I think it will be dependable. Would I gig with it w/ no back up? Not a chance. But I think I will use it live eventually - with some new pickups it should give some sounds that I won't be able to get with my Carvin Bolt or Peavey Strat. Again, for this price I'll give a decent score.

Never dealt with Washburn. I'll fix anything on this guitar myself. I think there was a warranty from the mail order company I bought it from, but I can't remember for sure.

I've been playing for about 11 years but you wouldn't know it - I've been in college for 8 years (earned my Masters degree finally!!!) and have played on and off. I spent a couple summers on tour with a group in early 90's, and play in church when I can. If this guitar were stolen I'd say "Oh well", but that doesn't mean I don't like it. I love the way it looks, and the H/H pickup configuration will give me some fun choices when I get some better pickups. I like that it's just simple and straightforward, and am pretty impressed by it's playability. I used to work at a guitar shop where we had several teachers - one guy studied at some fancy guitar school and owned all these $2000 guitars. One of the other teachers, who was a popular player in my hometown of Saginaw, MI used to play on a cheap Fernandes strat and sounded just as good as the other guy... He used to say "Who needs a $2000 guitar, just get one you can afford and play!" The BT-5 isn't the most expensive guitar in the world, but if you just want a decent guitar to play you should consider one.