This review is from: G&L USA S-500 Electric Guitar (Satin Hard Rock Maple/Rosewood Neck)If you could give it 4 1/2 stars, I probably would've. That said, and I'm definitely more of a Telecaster guy when it comes to single coils.I've had a RW fretboard, American made, Ash body G&L S500 for about 7 years now. I'm definitely not a "Strat guy" by any means. However, two of the bands I play with seem to really prefer it when I played this guitar over any of my others. It's just slightly bigger than a Fender Strat and feels a little more stiff, a little cold, even after this much time. But those are really minor quibbles and in fact I think I prefer that sometimes. The tuners on this thing make string changing quick and it stays in tune better than any guitar with a Trem that I've ever had. They set up very very easily. They're very well made. The craftsmanship here is consistent whereas American Fenders (which I sold for about a year and I've played on about 400 of them) are very inconsistent. These are not. You know what sound you'll get. For a bolt-on neck guitar to resonate against your body the way this one does is fantastic. I like that it has a little more body mass being a little bigger. It makes a difference. The neck has always felt great too, and plays great (though I set up my own guitars most of the time, so I can take partial credit, but this one's a breeze).The tone knobs that separate bass and treble are very cool. This is one of the few "strats" you can play jazz on by rolling back the treble and it doesn't sound silly. It's not great, but it's pretty good. For blues the neck pickup is excellent. The neck-mid is great for 80s clean/semi-clean arpeggios and single notes and all that, even great for funk. The middle is actually usable on its own for rock. The bridge-mid is great for country and funk. The bridge is rude enough for solos in any style pretty much. Another cool feature is that toggle switch that sounds somewhere between a Gretsch and Strat in neck or just bridge pos., and adds a rounded funky tone for out of phase sounds. It's also beautiful (mine's a green burst with the pearloid pickguard and beautiful rosewood fretboard). The trem arm is smooth, 2 point trem that doesn't rip you out of tune.I paid about a grand 7 years ago. I think the true Strat type copies I've played that compare to this one are Fender Custom Shops and even then, I prefer this unless I was diehard about a classic strat feel. The Masterbuilts are sometimes better, sometimes worse in my opinion (I played one made by John English a few years ago that brought tears to my eyes but it was 6 grand). This is a very well built axe, great to look at, plays well, and is about as versatile as a Strat gets (unless you have a humbucker you can tap but...kind of not a true strat then I guess). Best of all, it has a ton of classic Strat tones that are dead on and some even better than those old axes. The Legacy does the modern Strat thing better, but who needs it? Unless you've got the bread for a Tom Anderson and know exactly what you want, this is about as good as it gets....
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