Westbury Series 200

i hear these are made around the late 70s and early 80s. mine says made in japan on the back. 22 frets. solid body. mines blue with white pickguard. two volume, one tone. three way pickup selector. two more switches: one coil tap that works for both pickups, and one series/paralell switch. the coil tap switches both pickups between single coil and humbucking. the series/paralell switch works in the middle position where both pickups are on. it changes weither one pickup runs through the other (series) or if they are both equally engaged and mixed (paralell). the paralell position is much fuller and slightly louder for obvious reasons and with the humbucking on in paralell this guitar sounds very full and thick in tone. the body looks a little like a cross between a strat and an SG. the bridge strings thru which gives good tension and allows for decently low action. westbury brand tuners. the tuners are pretty steady and big. the neck is of medium thickness so it gets decent sustain and is pretty comfortable. the frets are pretty small and it seems people prefer bigger frets these days but the smaller the better if you ask me.

this guitar has a huge range of sounds. there are 2 pickups but thanks to lots of switching there are 8 different pickup settings. it can go from really squawky to really thick and powerful sounding with the flip of a couple switches. its not very noisy. its a bit too bright for my taste though. i want to put larger gauge strings on to make it sound bassier but the nut is only set up to fit 9s and its made out of brass. this obviously causes problems in getting it adjusted for larger strings. i play jazz/funk/rock with lots of middle eastern and indian influences. this fits that fine. it fits everything fine come to think of it. the best thing about this guitar is its large range in sounds. the worst thing about the sound is that despite the variety the sound quality itself isnt that good or detailed. it has a tendency to sound muddy.

i got it at an antique dealer and they didnt know that much about setting up a guitar. as a result the action was much higher than it could have been, the intonation was set up to be flat, and the pickups were far too low. also because the input is on the front it had been ripped out cracking off a piece of the pickguard (presumably when someone stepped on the cord and tried to walk away). however it has been repaired relatively professionally. its an old guitar and due to some fret wear ill need to get the frets leveled if i want the action any lower. the neck however is nice and straight. no opinion cause its vintage and obviously varies from case to case.

id gig without a back up if it werent for the issue with the input that i mentioned earlier. theres some paint chipping on the back but i dont know what that says about the finish of the guitar seeing as i dont know who had it before me or what they did to it. the strap buttons are a little loos and i plan to replace them.

this is overall a nice guitar and has lots of different tones. it has some flaws such as the nut only fitting small strings and the fret wear and such things but they are minor and easily fixed