Check out some of my lessons: kzfaq.info/sun/PLNaLwTdlpQNEQQfdhdttHV5rjmy7tmYCy Or some of my music: kzfaq.info/sun/PLNaLwTdlpQNHKlg8ALZfM3AINC20WMp8s

The whammy bar exercise actually held up much better than any Fender Strat

Bridge issue aside, that thing definitely has its own sound- which is great, clean and overdriven. Fantastic playing, subbed (finally).

I have an Ml1 Hybrid which looks to be the same guitar. It's a lot of guitar for the money. Mine is flawless with level frets, pickups are really good, and the neck with the rolled edges is one of the nicest necks i've played. Fender does not give you this quality and attention to detail in my opinion being that every Fender Ive owned needed a fret level and this one was perfect.

I bought an ML1 Modern from Andertons down from £400 to £350 which I felt was sensible money for something that looked pretty nice and had 24 frets, i'm pretty happy with it as an alternative to the Fender mainstays, I love the maple top and the black hardware and I havent had any tuning issues on mine, for the price of a high end Squier i'm pleased with it

Lets face it you gave that whammy bar a workout to the breaking point of any guitar at this price point. I thought it held pretty good.

One of the nicest necks i've ever played on a guitar, so so so so cheap too, Genuinely nicer than 99.99% of 6-800 guitar necks.

Elmo is the most honest reviewer we love. Why dont you review neural dsp plugins which are pretty hyped nowadays? It would be great.

Dude...new strings are known to cause tuning instability. I recommend you try the whammy again after those strings have seen some action. Also string height at the nut can be the cause of that...all easily fixed. Your verdict was too premature as I see it.

Reverse headstock is good to get bass side tighter. Butt here in Chile i still remember Chappers being a bully.

Chapman has *UNLIMITED POWER*

Oh my that pickup selector position is just... what the...

Love my ML3 but is quite a few years old now 😮it’s great 👍

I had a similar 'meh' response when I tried one out a while back. It was perfectly decent, but just didn't do anything to make me wanna part with £400. I'd be interested to see how the current gear4music 'subzero' brand guitars compare, they look good on paper and are very affordable!

Nice one Elmo ; always appreciate the honest conversation about QC issues in regards to the tuning, nut and truss-rod with the exact guitar in your hands. I think people fall too easily into either worshiping or detesting Chapman guitars ; they are just like any other guitar brand made over-seas these days as QC is still a lottery. Even though both my guitar technicians hate working on Chapman guitars (after a few horror stories) , I was fortunate to not really see that many issues with the Korean ML1 I had many years ago apart from the weight which actually pulled my back out before a rehearsal! I had to sell it after that incident... I think if that tremolo unit gets blocked, it should be a stable HSS guitar for anyone ; I wouldn't trust an unlocked and unbranded tremolo system to hold tuning in that price range anywhoo... - Gabe

Bit unfair to expect a £400 guitar tremelo to stay that well in tune used like that

For this kind of money, I dont think you can do better than an epiphone. I paid £500 for a Epi les paul about 6 years ago, its had a tough life but never had an issue, really solid reliable guitar, for comparison, i paid £2800 for a Duesenberg star player, after 6 months the nut fell out of the fret board, all the nickel hardware has tarnished, the finish on the volume / tone knobs faded, and generally started to look tatty, certainly by this caliber of instrument anyway. Moral of the story, the epiphone is far more robust, sounds fantastic and was less than a 5th of the price.

Could you please review the vintage v6? It seems to be great for the price

yeah, bought myself a chapman ghost fret a few years back and it was also a "meh" guitar. Looked awesome but had (and still has) a horrible neck dive despite I changed the strap button location and stuffed lead weights inside the guitar. Oh yeah, and most of the screws were loose in the guitar as well when I got it. :D

They can’t all be winners, beautiful top on it despite the other issues.

I have an Ibanez GSA60 GIO guitar which has very similar trem and the pick up configuration is a HSS the same as this one with a very similar tone on all pick ups. Like yourself not a fan of the reverse head stock but do like the look of this roasted neck gives it a very different look which I think is great, but not sure if it matches the body of this guitar from a colour tone perspective. being open not sure I would pay double the price for this guitar when the Ibanez give you so similar

Ooooh Chappers will be pulling his hair out!

Any guitar that doesn't have a locking nut you need to find the proper balance between the spring tension and the strings and you can't expect that to happen at the factory for the price of this guitar.

I agree on the headstock for sure, I have never been a reverse guy but ive never been cool either. I really like the look of the neck and the body but if an instrument wont stay in tune its unusable in my opinion. Great video Elmo Thank you

I haven't bought one because I don't like reverse headstocks but I have to say, I've had some of those issues on guitars that cost nearly 10X what that one cost.

Glenn Fricker had a similar issue with the tremolo tuning on a Harley Benton and someone commented that the bridge could have the fulcrum point wrongly setup (be too high or too low), which causes it to go out of tune after using the bar. I can't help you on how to setup it properly as I never did it myself.

Vol pot is where it is because of roll-off. When you get use to pickup selector it is fully ok. Not even a problem.

Hi Elmo, first time on your channel. I really like your honesty, and I think it summarizes Chapman Guitars pretty accurately. I own a Chapman ML3 Bea Baritone (first gen), and everything is good except the nut : it was poorly cut so the strings kept being stuck in it, with thinner or bigger string gauge. I don’t really like the sound of the bridge pickup, and I bought a BKP Silo to replace it. The rest of the guitar is nearly flawless, and it’s my main guitar rn. I’ll try to keep up with your videos !

I just got my one for £299 brand new from Andertons. It's a great guitar. All the issues are completely subjective. As I don't use tremolo at all, I lowered it & I've added extra springs. Personally, I prefer the position of pickups selector in Chapmans than strats etc. . The reverse headstock looks great and if you switch from Gibson 3+3 tuners headstock you shouldn't have any problems with tuning.

I have never seen a person whammy bar thwt hard in my life im dying ahahahhaha 😂

Been enjoying much of your content and your humour, well done.

This guitar looks like a classic case of a triumph of style over substance. I hope you can send it back. Thanks for the interesting content.🙂

Oh Elmo you had me at the Bee Gees riff-ige !!!!😎😍😊

I never buy a guitar with a whammy. Great review, nice playing . Still got rid of my Fender for a chapman though.

Loving the sound of that Marshall rig.

Thank you for an honest review I was thinking of purchasing this until I saw this

Tuning issues and other problems are sadly becoming the norm, Chapman and a lot of other brands are just concerned with sales targets, quality is left down to the customer, hence it is now essential that you can return realy bad samples, and repair/upgrade and setup the better ones. Thomann have a scary number of B grades available, i known that they sell a lot of guitars each day and you expect a few returns, but almost every model you look at has the option of a B grade, no thanks the difference in price is not worth the hassle. Chapman had quality issues from day one, i thought they had changed factories to solve this, but going by this sample, they still have a lot of issues to resolve.🤨

I'm not a fan of reverse headstocks either.

The tuning issue sounds more like the nut not being cut right, can hear it ‘grabbing’ the strings as you move the trem

Bridges are so good now. I have an old strat it stays in tune never once you use the whammy. I'm thinking of upgrading to Vega trem

I'm not a pick up changer but the location of the selector wasn't really thought out was it? It looks really nice, but I buy a guitar to sound as nice as it looks. 🎸✌️🇦🇺

The whammy bar turned unconcious after you rotate it and fell.

Well, I have no issues with HH version. Maybe neck pickup is little bit to "bottom-endy".

Thanks for the Review Elmo!✌🏻❤️😎🎶

This guitar looks astonishing, but how it's compared to HB Fusion III? Considering that Chapman has fixed bridge version. It is faster and comfortable than Fusion or Fusion is it better overall?

Also I wonder if as they fall in price and become more of a bargain does equate to them being a really good base on which to carry out your own choice of upgrades and mods to personalise it to your own needs and requirements? Some people like to tinker and customise rather than just write a larrrrrger cheque and buy off the peg. Some of us have no choice 😂

nice elmo think we may have talked before from a guitar chat room about everything god bless mate ptsburgh PA

Thank you for the review Elmo!

I think it’s a great guitar and everything but I am really big on looks and the head looks really odd. Not only the shape of it but the tuners being on the bottom just look funky to me. That’s probably the only reason I’d never get one.

From a design point of view that reverse headstock appears to serve the purpose of keeping the string pull as arrow straight as possible

I own the MLV chapman, no longer in production but an incredible guitar. It's really about price, the fender player series trem wouldn't fair to well either I'm guessing. I think chapman guitars have their own place in the market, I think they need to rebrand the name tho, I think as a brand the whole KZfaq association isn't fitting anymore.

Love your honesty Elmo on the QC issues. I tried a couple Chapman's at Guitar Center and I always felt they were fine at best, but never amazing. The frets always felt rough and the tuning was always a little off. Keep up the great work!

It has a reverse headstock to match Chapman's head on his shoulders.

I like your style of presentation, Elmo. You're a bit of a nut, and you look like you're having fun playing--a lot like Phil X. We need more guitar ambassadors like you to show people how much fun it is to play guitar. Bravo!

I choose Harley Benton over Cheapman every day of the week

Humor..I plugged the amp in and it blew up, this is not a very good budget friendly amp. But my budget friendly guitar survived, it's okay.. so I'll give that a 10 on survival..

🟢I don't like the backwards head, either. But he could make it even worse. He could put the head upside down, too. Just past the nut, the strings would go thru the head, and into the tuning pegs, which would be on the bottom side of the guitar. That would be even more irritating, right?!! 🥲🔴

I think the idea was to add custom pickups when you order it otherwise it's on the more affordable side.

The string tree was crooked, may have contributed to the whammy problem

Lock music store looked at me strange when I give one of their floating trems this kinda treatment!! Ps: nice attempt at a British accent…did well 😊

I guess some of your problems MAY (not saying they do) come from the weird tuning techinc of yours ;) ie. you say you don't like reverse headstock, that may be related as you tune from closest peg while you should be starting with the lowest (thickest) string which in this case is the farthermost one. Guess it's a habit of constantly using regular headstocks. When starting from the lightest string you're creating slack once you reach heavy ones. If the slack is not enough to overcome the friction on the nut playing with whammy bar definitely does so and the slack is too great to bring strings back to the correct tension. Best!

That's why Gibson, Fender ,.PRS and the likes sell so many guitars. You can play them.

Great review from an amazing guitarist. Thanks

Really not a fan of the pickups (at least in this video), but it looks very photogenic :)

Bad bridge is a bad bridge, but let's face it: almost everyone locks the bridge on that type of guitar anyway. People who really want a "super strat' type of guitar usually get a Floyd Rose (as they should tbh).

Wouldn't trade a mid-level LTD for a Chapman

Dave Simpson plays a Chapman (amongst others) and makes it sound awesome. When I tried one it sounded pretty awful. I guess I just tried a duff one ? 🙂

Elmo, can you do a vid with this tremolo test on your strats as well? I wonder how well they would stay in tune.

I have never been a fan of chapman guitars since i had one from a student wanting a setup etc found it to be cheap and cheerful with everything in the wrong position!

I had a Burns guitar that wouldn't return to pitch. It was a nightmare playing live...I'd have to wobble the trem bar about to get it back to sounding like it was in pitch with the rest of the band.

Ya, since Matt Hornby left thing just don't seem quit right. I'm sticking with Solar for now.....

Sounds good, maybe a bit fuzzy, Crappy! and looks good! I like the roasted maple but I'm not a fan of the reverse head stock..... imo it's priced close to ibanez, fender, and other BIG brands so not quite cutting it as resale value will not be there.

My Charvel pro mod stays in tune. Twice the price though. 🤷🏽‍♂️

This might be a dumb question, but would changing the tuners out to locking tuners help with the tuning issue at all? Or what about installing a locking nut that's on Floyd rose type tremeloes?

Thant guitar looks beautiful.

Another great video review Elmo! Such a beautiful looking guitar but if it wont stay in tune it's like a car without brakes. Pretty much useless. 🎸🤘😅🤘🎸

Was that a Fast Show reference at the start there?

Mr Karjalainen, For decades you have been complaining that your Marshall 'Plexi' can't get a clean sound. Send it to me and I'll fix it for you.

I've always found Chapman guitars so aesthetically pleasing - great colours and cool designs but the QC issues that have been popping up all over the place have really put me off. Shame really.

I wouldn't buy a Chapman because I don't like the sound of their pickups - way too brittle and shrill for me. Nonetheless, the bridge issue is interesting. I've found that very few vibratos reliably return exactly to pitch after vigorous use until you get to the really high-end systems. My first suspect with a new guitar would be the strings themselves. If after checking the nut and lubing all contact points there was still a problem, I'd consider one of those devices that install in the cavity and - in theory - guarantee that the bridge always returns to the same position. To be frank, I've always been surprised that mechanical vibratos work as well as they do. Stretching six wires of different tensions and then relaxing them, with only springs to control the return to the neutral position, doesn't seem like a sound engineering solution in the first place.

Amazing playing

In other words, if you're going to buy one of these buy a fixed bridge only.

I love my ML3, and my son has an ML1 and the 3. They're all great guitars. No issues with any of them.

I had the same model in California sunset finish. I agree that it looks really beautiful. I had fun with it at first but realized I hated how thick the neck was (personal preference). I found the stock pickups muddy. Craftmanship with the unit I got was great though!

Especially the prices of some Chapman guitars. I’d definitely avoid buying any. Look at other brands.

Lots of average/bad reviews of Chapman guitars on KZfaq and other sites on the internet. They claimed to have sorted their poor QC out, but seems here once again they haven't!

This is the case on any non floyd guitar ....My Music Man JP15 doesn't stay in tune either after dive bombing ...neither did any of my strats ..or my PRS..and thats after pro setups ...just the way it is

you should try stagg ses 30 budget strat

do you think the HB Fusion III is a better choice?

Unreliable Bridge = Bad Guitar. It's that simple.

Good review.

I played one and i felt ( personal opinion here ) that it's quit bad, not gonna talk about the neck profil since it's very dependant on people's hand but overall, the ergonomy of the guitar is bad, i don't like where the nob and selector are on the guitar ( the nob gets in the way of my picking hand ) and the pickup selector is between the 2 nob ( why would you ever put it there i fkin wonder ), wich is awfull lets just put it that way. The guitar doesn't hold the tunning, everytime you use the whamybar it gets out of tune fairly easely, no locking tuner, the freting is bad ( wich is kind of normal for these pricetag ) but i've seen way better work in that regard in other brand for as similar pricetag ( like cort, or even PRS, for exemple ). For the same price you get way better guitar from cort, that's what i've been recomending to many friend who started playing guitar, you get wayyyy better woods at en entry price like those guitar, you get a gottoh bridge and locking tunner, the fretting/finish is nice.

Wilkinson make their WLS 130/S saddles that are lockable though they look virtually normal. If the nut is graphite or equivalent and you use locking tuners it can do a Floyd thing about 95% of the time. If you use the whammy for average use you may even fine you can play many tunes before even the mildest of tweaks. The E and G are usually the only strings that will be out and not by very much. In short at about $100.00 USD it is cheap as it pays for itself in savings for headache pills very quickly, LOL.

For a guitar that costs about $520 USD, the following is definitely no bueno ... 1. A whammy bar that falls out. 2. Will not stay in tune when the whammy bar is used. 3. *Worst* - The utterly ridiculous selector switch position. Who thunk of this, but more importantly why was it allowed? BTW: Elmo looked like a "Mad Scientist" when he was putting the whammy bar through its paces. Pretty cool.

16:20 corroborate your statement with empirical facts “chances are if you buy one you won’t have that issue”

Nice guitar 😍...BUT ! The position of the pickup selector and the vibrato ruin everything 😒

Hyvä nähdä,kiitos👍

To be fair my charvel with a Floyd Rose does the same exact thing and costs twice as much

My ass got chapped by a CHAPMAN.

Buy a Fretking . They are great