An absolute steal for a minimum of fuss.

This is my review of the Douglas Scope 725 7-String electric guitar. I got this guitar in black for $189.00 US from Rondo Music

 

First, the details:

• Strings – 7 (come on now)
• Pickups – 2 2-wire humbuckers, spaced for the tremolo with pole screws on one coil each
• Tremolo – Floyd Rose
• Tuners  – Grover, I kid you not
• Frets   – 24 medium sized ones
• Scale   – 25.5″
• Design  – Bolt on neck, 7 inline tuners on the top

If you are still interested in this guitar after checking out the above details, then I shall proceed to bore you with my story: As a Guerrilla Recording engineer, I typically have 2-5 projects going on at any one time. Usually, more than half of the projects require me to replay the guitar parts myself, incognito like (shh don’t tell anyone). I record all sorts of bands, with all sorts of styles, and here comes the relevant part to this story, all different tunings. I would find myself tuning my guitars up and down, and up and down, and worse, constantly adjusting my truss rods.

You know that effect where you bend a coathanger back and forth for a bit? Where it turns to silly putty then snaps? I don’t know if the same thing happens to truss rods, but I don’t want to find out. Thus began my quest to find a seven string. I figured with that many strings, I could keep the guitar in one tuning and cover most of my projects.

After asking around in the usual places, I was given the link to Rondo Music, where I saw a guitar that fit my needs for the ridiculous price of 185 dollars! I figured it would be a horrendous POS, but would certainly handle what I needed it to. Turned out, I was pretty far off the mark, but in a good way.

As some of you know, I always scallop my guitars, so before I got a chance to play it, I had to file the neck. In addition, since it had a Floyd Rose, I was DEFINITELY going to install a Goldo Backbox

Being that this was a bolt on neck, this would give me a chance to disassemble the guitar and have a look at just how shoddy the workmanship was. First, was a look at the neck pocket, which was surprisingly tight, considering the price of the guitar. Nice and smooth surfaces, and no offset or stripped screws, nice!