Fender Johnson Review

Price Bought

RS 3000

Sound Quality

Very warm. It is said to be a "beginner's" guitar. I protest. It is a "simple" guitar. You won't have a tenor sound or anything, but if you look for a classic acoustic sound, don't look further.

The harmonics are somehow short so I guess there's some imperfections in the shape. Also, choose your strings wisely, the best sounds i got came from a light gauge.

10 out of 10

Build Quality

Very rough set-up. I insist on the fact that it is NOT a beginners guitar. The string's height is really exaggerated and the neck is completely flat so you'll need to vodka/redbulls if you want to play full F's for one hour.

However it is good for setting a capo, since everything will lower and the reach is better. The flat neck is practical with flat capos as well so everything stays in the same place.

The tuning parts (I forgot the name) are heavy duty and very reliable. But they're definitely not precise.

If you're looking for a beginner's guitar, I recommend the Yamaha F310 acoustic which doesn't have all the tough set-up and is lower. But, if you look for a warm beach-or-country-style acoustic, this one is better, and I don't care for what Yamaha players might say!

6 out of 10

Defects Upon Purchase

The neck kinda went weird after 1 year. It seemed that the tuning went wrong in the higher cases and the harmonics started lying on the pitch. I tried fixing it, nothing worked. It went even worse after that.

It slept 2 months in my room (we all have those times NOT playing guitar) and then, oh, it worked just fine. I enquired, it's just that the neck needs to work out a bit after the first buy. This is definitely NOT a beginners guitar (Yamahas doesn't do that).

Additional Comments

This was my first guitar. I had a lot of problem learning on that, so much that I now recommend starting with another one to avoid discouragement. Therefore, I think that helped me building tough fingers. And it hurts.

Reviewer

Alexandre Pigeot