Monoprice Classic Electric Guitar - Offset, OS20, With Gig Bag - White - Indio Series

This is my third Indio (by Monoprice) guitar, and they have all been fantastic quality for the price. This OS20 (Offset) model looks and feels awesome: glossy neck, clean finish, vintages knobs and pickups, mostly smooth frets. Better, it plays really well: intonation and action were correctly set up right out of box, and the HSS pickup configuration allows plenty of tonal combinations. I was pleasantly surprised by the output of the bridge humbucker! As usual with Indio guitars, you get a quality padded gig bag, too. Just a beautiful looking and sweet sounding "Jaguar"-style offset guitar with unique "super Strat" HSS pickup configuration...kind of like the old "Jaguarillos"! Minor complaints: tuners are cheap so some feel loose, others stick. But tuning seems stable so far. Fret ends a tiny bit sharp, but not unplayable, and easily sanded/filed. Certainly not the worst fret ends I've felt, and smoother than several more costly guitars I own. All three Monoprice's Indio guitars I've purchased (Retro Classic Tele, OS40 and now this 0S20) have been very solidly crafted, gu. To play and comparable to entry/mid level guitars by more well known name brands. A little set up, new strings, and you're playing a fine instrument on par with those that lost for several hundred more.

Overall I like this guitar. To preface this, I've been playing guitar for 35 some-odd years and do have experience with setting up guitars. This guitar did require some setup, there were some sharp fret ends and the fret board was very dry (although the weather was cold and dry here when it arrived, so that wasn't helping it), I gave it an hour or so of care and now am very fond of the way it feels and plays. A little heavier than I was expecting, being basswood, but by no means a heavy guitar. Around eight pounds I think? So, a medium weight guitar. Would I recommend it to a beginner? Sure, if you don't have a big budget and the retro look calls to you, sure. Any adjustments it needs can be picked up from a youtube video, but it also plays fine out of the box. Looks nice, feels nice, sounds fine...no complaints, really. Special mention, the gig bag is very good compared to what's usually included with guitars of this price.

Overall rating for this OS20 is good or very good for the price. Pickups make for a slightly dirty sound that’s not quite Jazzmaster, but still quite acceptable. Build quality is better than expected and great value. Monoprice has done something amazing with the Indio line, and despite the incredible price, these are not cheaply built beginner models. I would expect the price to continue to increase as these become more popular. DELIVERY / UNBOXING: Box arrived a little beat up with a big gouge at the bottom and a smaller one towards the top of the neck. Neither resulted in damage to the guitar or gig bag. Maybe if it had been raining, it’d be different. The guitar itself was in its gig bag, and wrapped in a foam packaging sheet. It was nice and snug and secured with just a rubber band. Strings were wrapped in paper, secured with tape. No rust, and were not stretched. There was an Allen wrench and short cable on a small ziplock bag and tremolo arm was loose in the box. BUILD QUALITY: Materials are average. The body is basswood, with a maple neck bolted on, and what appears to be rosewood frets. There were a couple of superfluous holes drilled that are hidden under hardware covers and my pick guard came with a 1” hairline crack. The neck is semi-glossed and slightly bent (concave) but within tolerance. Pickups are P90 like, though not exact. Despite what some reports have said, fret wire ends are not sharp, and no filing will be necessary. The gig bag is a lightly padded synthetic, about what you would expect to pay $20-30 for, so again, very nice at such a low cost. It is absolutely not waterproof though. PERFORMANCE: I won’t comment on the Jazzmaster design, as clearly it’s meant to be an offset bluesy guitar. It’s largely faithful to the Fender aesthetic, with a 5-position pickup selector switch, single volume and tone switches and output jack on corner / bottom of the body. Tuners are okay and don’t need to be adjusted that often between sessions. The string height is low and comfortable. The sound is mostly what you’d want, though it does not have as much twang / “surf rock” and produces a crunchier effect, especially in the mid-range. As a practice platform or rock/metal lead, it would work very well. It’s a little too dirty to be a dedicated jazz rhythm guitar, but to each his own.

Really solid for the money and a nice gig bag. I like to pick up these inexpensive guitars and modify them so I went in knowing what to expect. Tuners worked well enough but feel a little cheap. Pickups were a little muddy/muffled. Pots are your typical dime size and the 5-way switch has 8 poles in a line and feels/works fine. Some sharp fret ends but no where near as bad as the lower end stuff you’ll find at guitar center. Frets were a little gritty and a couple were a little high as well. Some filing and polishing made them feel nice. Intonation was spot on. Action was high and needed to be lowered and the truss rod needed an adjustment. I like my action at 060 on the low e down to 050 on the high e and it’s there with no buzzing. I wouldn’t consider these flaws as much as something to keep in mind. Personally I replaced the tuners, strings, pickups, pots, knobs, and oiled the fret board as it was pretty dry. When I was done it plays well and feels solid. I couldn’t find any imperfections in the body. I never played a jaguar/jazzmaster but to me the neck feels like a cross between my mustang and strat. Relatively thin and comfortable. Was well packed in a box with the guitar in its bag. A nice player for sure!

There isn't any buzzing, nor frets that cut off the sound because of shoddy neck intunation. It plays great. It has a classic jazz master body build, to exact specs. The quality of the over all guitar is beyond the very affordable price. The frets are kind of pointy, but its nothing really. The reachability of upper scale notes is very easy; this jazz style is good for this model. Durability is probably about the same as a doubly priced guitar. The only thing is, the brand name, it is a model akin the the perception of say, Danelectro. The Indio model Jazz master would suit grunge, jazz, punk, metal...Kurt Cobain would have liked this, then immediately smashed it. Lol

I have been playing for over 60 years. I did not do any setup. The overall appearance was very good, nice SB finish top and back. Sculpted body depression on the back. Bridge was in the proper place, the strings were right over the pole pieces. The neck pocket was tight and straight. The nut was a little high. Remove, sand and replace would take 10-15 min. The neck was straight. Fret work was good for a guitar at this price. I would have trimmed the minor fret sprout, crowned and polished but for a new player it was okay. The action was a little higher than I like but was playable, about 20mm low E at 12th fret. Relief was okay, I would have flattened it just a hair. Tuners seemed adequate. Out of the box it was tunable and playable. It sounded AWFUL as if it were put through a bad distortion unit. That was in all PU configurations and pot positions. I returned it for a refund. It was not well packed, the box had a lot of twisted up Amazon tape on it, had been patched in one spot and had a hole torn in another. I used packing tape to mend the box so that it will not fall apart on its return trip. The corners were mostly torn out. The damage appeared to be caused by a lot of unboxing and reboxing more than it looked like shipping damage. I did not remove any parts of the instrument so I cannot speak to what was "under the hood".

Honestly this is a very good guitar! Sure the frets are a bit sharp (but minor) and the whammy bar was a little snug, but overall a very nice package. Now what blew my mind was the 5 settings on the single coil pickups, and not two but three of them . Neck, neck & bridge, bridge....and in between. The are so smooth and warm, and my only single coiil except my tele (with a neck bucker). I. have tons of guitars from expensive to this $120 Jazzmaster copy....and this rates with some of the top ones! It's INSANE! Comes with padded bag, tools, cord.....get one today and this crazy price!

This is basically a Jazzmaster type guitar that has a HSS Strat pickup configuration. This company does have a similar guitar that has Jazzmaster style pickups, so that would be the one to get if that’s the type of guitar you’re interested in. In this case, the body is a bit lighter and has good balance and is really a nice playable guitar. The HB at the bridge does give you a bit of the Kurt Cobain Jaguar type sound and having strat style pick ups in the middle and neck give you a lot of flexibility. The build quality is easily as good as a Squier, but at a lower price. The guitar did need some set up, mostly adjusting the neck and action but that’s to be expected with any new guitar, particularly when you get online. The process of setting it up certainly gave me less problems than I’ve had with some Squiers and Epiphones in the past. I’m enjoying the guitar a lot and recommend it but just be aware that you’re basically buying a guitar with a Strat sound.

Excelente servicio y buenos precios