can I have that guitar?

Tone Paint is real ... wood only if the bridge is made out of it. ;-)

Ha ha, made my day!

Yes Paint, Finger tone and most importantly Tubes! Wake up people!!!

First I read it. Then I finished the video. I understand better

Don't.....just don't.

Underrated comment. 🤘

How are you supposed to tremelo like a Demon with that knob in the way of your picking hand? Danelectro or telecaster is a real black metal guitar

Yes! You just plug it in and let it do its thing. You don't even have to do anything and you have 90's Black Metal sound? This is what I call true innovation! Kudos Thomann! I'm gonna buy one and set it on fire while recording to get that really Trve Kvlt Black Metal sound. Gonna be CRISPY sounding for sure.

It’s literally almost the same as nergals new guitar 😵

​@@thanumgamingwhy do all the top comments have a dude saying "underrated comment" hahaha

That’s too funny

Obviously…

If it had gibson on the headstock it would be broken

I’m sure if it was made in the USA, all of these problems would disappear

Stuntman

I'd say it's a mix of both. QC should have noticed this, and yeah, r&d should've seen it coming. Yuck.

I guess the QC inspectors at Thomann don't bother plugging stuff in to make sure it actually works.

@@TenFalconsMusic or they didn't think to plug into anything high gain. But even then it should've been obvious, with THIS amount of noise.

@@TenFalconsMusic i imagine they QC check using some tiny clean practice amp to check if there is a signal at all. probably in this setting there isn't nearly as audible hiss like running it into a high gain ENGL. Thats how they do it at Gibson, on the silly little fotos they include in the guitars on the QC desk you can actually see the tiny amps (of the belt clip on variety) standing on the desk.

Then you need to pay double the money. THEY ARE CHEAP FOR A REASON

It’s not a qc issue, it’s an r&d issue, they just made noisy ass active pickups and shamelessly put them in the market.

Much like any form of manufacturing... As long as the boss is happy, so is the customer... NOT

@@bigbo1764 It's not a qc or a r&d problem. It's a chinese "I don't give a shit and you get what you pay for problem". (issues are magazines and newspapers)... I've worked with many chinese manufacturers and the way they work is, money. The cheaper westerners want a product, the more they will have to tolerate one less step in the production line. In this case, the guy who files frets is removed from the production line. "Oh, you want cheaper? ok". We remove guy who sands off black finish on bottom of bridge from production line. "but now the pickups are noisey", "sorry, we cannot do for $138 buck". If Thomann gave them 15 or 20 dollars/euros more for each guitar, you'd probably have smooth frets, and properly grounded pickups.

Given that Glen used to work on a line, I'd think he'd have some insight on the pressure QC is under.

@@CaptainRon1913 having worked in China for several years I can vouch for what you’re saying 100%

Love this. I’ve been playing for nearly 10 years I’m still not great. But I only just started modding my guitar. Recently bought a Squier mustang the pickups are great in my opinion but found some nice p90s can’t wait to make it my own. Good luck on your guitar journey

If it was good enough for Eddie, it's damn sure good enough for me lol.

I never could figure out why people don't learn to do their own setups. It's not difficult and it's kinda fun (to me, anyway), and why waste money paying someone else to do something you can learn to do yourself in about an hour?

@@michaelhendricks9462having to completely file down the enamel on a bridge to properly ground is NOT a basic setup. Nor is it even something you should ever have to do even on a cheap guitar. Look, they spent time and money coating these bridges, which costs us more money, something they should have never done. For the sake of proper grounding and for the sake of budget, it just doesn’t make any sense to do that.

As someone in the US who just received mine earlier this hits different lol

I don't know how thomann works in the US, but in Europe it doesn't matter if you live in Germany, if you want to send it back they'll arrange it, you don't have to pay to return it back or anything, pretty smooth process actually. Edit: I've just checked, they have the same 30 days money back thing in the US, you can return it no problem too

Harley Benton has a store on reverb in the US now.

I guess they put more effort into these because my multiscale 7 also has no grounding issues

the multiscale 7 is very nice although i think the bridge pickup kinda sucks

@@untelmorveux I agree, the pickups are...ok...just ok. this is why I changed them for a pair of Fluence Abasi ;)

Is the bridge chrome or black?

@@SleepingLionsProductions black.

Does it keep I tune okay? I’m looking at one myself.

@@michaelsnydermusic they keep tune better than a Gibson Les Paul... 😂 Seriously though they are great.

@@DarrenWaters75 thanks! I imagine it’s because they don’t have to keep the exact “legacy” design spec that ensures bad tuning stability that Gibson uses. I honestly don’t know and it’s something I’ve wondered for years with other companies Les Paul copies. Like the headstock angle the Gibsons have is just ridiculous. Thanks again!

Hmm...that might be interesting.

The noiseless test he did at the beginning was running the guitar through the audio interface into a plugin so it didn't pick up any noise like that. I don't recall if he had a noise gate in the plugin though.

@@luigigetsu From what I remember, he said there was a noise gate in the amp sim.

I have a Fender MB-5 bass from the '90s, one of their cheaper models that I think got relegated to being Squire before they disconinued it, and I love it. I've seen mixed reviews, everything from "amazing" to "this thing sucks," I always figured the guy who made mine at the factory was having a really good day. I've never been a guy who uses pedals or effects, I just plug into a good amp and go. If I want some growl I use a preamp and overdrive it. So what I get is the sound of the BASS, not a bunch of electronic effects, and I've always been pleased with the sound of this thing and it fits well into live mixes. I used to play through an Eden, a very clean, non-coloring amp, and for the fun of it I've tried other people's WAY more expensive basses (mine was $350) through the same amp, and while they may sound DIFFERENT they never really sounded BETTER... which made me happy because I never felt the need to "upgrade" to some $3,000 instrument and instead spent that money on, y'know, weed and tattoos (I am a bassist, after all). It is well-known that it doesn't really carry the B string very well, probably because it's a shorter scale than most 5-strings, but that doesn't affect me because I tune it up to C instead of down to B. The only thing I've considered upgrading on this bass is the bridge, because the original one looks cheap and crappy and a beefier one would both look better and give me more sustain. It's incredibly playable, comfortable, and lighter than a Jazz or P bass because it doesn't have that baseball-bat neck and there's way less wood in the body than those basses. Oh, and I WAS considering changing the pickups after all these years, but thanks to Glenn I took those off my wish-list, which would have cost me more than the bass, itself, and... you guessed it... instead of pickups I'm gonna get a tattoo of some weed. I'm still not gonna practice, though.

genuine good guitars, not surprising because Squier Contemporary series aren't beginner instruments, they're top level Squiers pretty much in the same category quality-wise as MIM Fenders, I remember their price, they've been going for 400$ used vs this guitar's 160$ brand new. They have features you can't even find on 800$ MIMs, like roasted maple necks.

Thanks, Jack! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

True ! It's a shame though cuz the whole point is to get a good, functional instrument for a bargain price 🙁 New pickups would probably cost more than the entire guitar LOL

@@ReizokoRyu Now that people know about it, if they look at the purchase as a mod platform from the start and know what they're doing, I'd say its a great place to start from for a tinkerer...

@@FloridaManRacer also a good point ! I definitely agree. I'm just running on a low budget right now haha, so I'd hope to get something decent to start with for now

@@ReizokoRyu I got a HB Multiscale 7 for $250 just to try a fanned fret guitar(no real guitar stores within 90 mins of me to demo one) and without eating most of a paycheck and it honestly only needed new tuners and a setup. Pickups aren’t the best but with an eq/boost pedal to clean up the mud before the amp i have no complaints. Does not at all feel or sound as cheap as any ltd Jackson or Ibanez you’ll find for that price

@@lannyfce4786 awesome! I'm having a look now and it's quite nice 🤟

Way too smart a thing for a guitar player to do. Their idea of fretwork quality is when it doesn't hurt their wanking paw.

Why do that when you could check a guitar after setup to see if you have fret buzz? You don’t need the tool unless you really need it. Or like getting stuffed by Stew Mac…

Got their p bass too and sanded off the coating, sounds nice now. It's hilarious that they not only didn't fix the issue for years but they introduce new product lines with it. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Fascinating. I have a Harley Benton SBK 5 PB which I run through a high gain amp and a fuzz pedal, and it is completely fine. Wonder whether I am the exception or whether the fuckups are the odd ones out. When did you buy yours?

Think it was June this year. Was researching it heavily on KZfaq beforehand so I knew what I have to do, there are at least three tutorial videos about grounding issue in pb20 sbk 4 string model. Did it in about 20 minutes without taking strings off, just let them loose a bit. It wasn't nearly as bad as shown here though, maybe active pickup and guitar frequences make it way worse?

@@MrPlastyfikator No idea if a guitar really goes that much higher than a bass when you include overtones. I bought mine around the same time and play the high strings like a guitar. Guess it really comes down to luck or QC?

@@MrPlastyfikator it doesn't help that the amp in this video is a noisy valve amp which only makes any grounding issues worse. It's an easy fix, simply sanding the underside of the bridge fixes this.

He's talking about grounding the strings. Thru the bridge.

@@reghunt2487 I am confused, Glenn is talking about pickup noise and grounding, and that the bridges paint stops the grounding from working. What do you mean by grounding the strings?

@@grayfox9000 He WAS talking about pickup noise, but he's now looking at making sure the strings are grounded. Normally electric guitar strings are connected to ground by a wire running from the bridge to the output jack, otherwise the strings act like antennas for all sorts of noise. (if you pop open your control cover, you should see a random looking wire going into a hole in the body) Trivia: some makers think grounded strings are a hazard, and do not ground them. But in this case I think it was a mistake, not a design choice.

@@reghunt2487 Oh I misunderstood what you meant then, my bad. I know pickups have a grounding wire that goes to the bridge, but I admit I never knew where it went to the bridge it also did the strings. Is this why when you aren't touching the strings there is some noise, but when you touch them the noise gets a lot more quiet?

@@grayfox9000 Well, the pickups will be grounded to the other electronics, not to the bridge. The bridge will usually be grounded to the electronics too (the back of a pot), which then grounds to the output jack. And yes, if you have noise that disappears when you touch the strings, either the strings aren't grounded, or the guitar is badly grounded (possibly an amp or power issue). Passive pickups have a ground wire. It's to provide shielding for the pickup wires going to the electronics, and if the pup has a metal cover, the ground wire connects to that too. For active pups, the circuitry will take care of the grounding for the system, but will still ultimately connect to the jack ground.

But it takes time and money :P

That's not enough. What very likely happened is that non conductive paint found its way into the chain without development or anyone else being consulted. Maybe some sourcing guy thought he'd save 2 cents, maybe a supplier even lied on the product.

@@Leo_ofRedKeep Quite possible. But for guitars, especially sub 200€ ones, a proper pre-production run is a big ask. If they received product that isn't to spec, there may be recourse...

@@luisnunes3863 Thomann has a habit of outsourcing quality control to its customers. Never trust a new model. They often come with "childhood diseases", bad designs that get sorted out in later batches. And the regular models often change in small ways, unannounced. They hide it all behind a "free return policy without questions" (within the EU). Harley Benton is a gateway drug, the bait to get people to want a guitar but they make more money by selling you a Fender.

Someone made a buck by selling normal paint as conductive. That's all.

My guess is that there is conductive paint on your bridge (or you play in a noiseless environment - not everyone lives in a bath of electromagnetic mayhem). How that changed in the meantime is anybody's guess (ignorant cost saving, honest mistake, dishonest supplier…) but what is certain is that these guitars are not tested for sound quality before being sold.

A grounding issue shouldn't really be considered a "tweak" that you have to do fresh out of the box, for any guitar. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere... What would it be, if not "sand off some of the paint so the electrical connections actually work"? Why not just leave the ground wire out entirely, or don't even wire the pickups to the jack. "Just tweak it with some solder!" Personally, I don't mind fixing it (had a similar ground issue with a Classic Vibe offset). But I also don't feel I should have to.

Let's guess: that's exactly what was supposed to happen but someone somewhere decided to save 2 cents with another paint…

@@Leo_ofRedKeep Probably saved 2 cents per 1000 units, but hey, the cost of the recalls are taken from another department's budget, so it's not their problem.

@@psykoklown874 Or someone is selling them normal paint for the price of conductive paint and pocketing the difference. All we really know is that customers find out because such a noise test is not part of the systematic factory QC.

Apparently not..

No. EMG's have a specific preamp design to achieve this.

there are quite a few at various price points, depending on what you like - Squier HH, SubZero Rogue vi, Reverend Descent..