Review of the Eagletone Swingmaster Gipsy Guitar

wildfire

So I wanted to do a written rundown of this guitar, as there has been some buzz about it, being the cheapest gypsy jazz guitar by far. But is it a preferable alternative to the Cigano series, it's main competitor?

Specs:

2 piece Engleman Spruce Top
21 frets
1 piece mahogany neck
Rosewood fretboard
D'Addario Gypsy Strings (Mine came with medium)
3 piece rosewood bridge
Very standard tailpiece
Comes with Allen wrench (jeez, guitar companies LOVE giving you an allen wrench)

Pros

It is cheap. Very cheap. You can buy it from Music Factory Direct ( www.musicfactorydirect.com ) for $209 (free shipping). This makes it almost $150 cheaper then the cheapest Cigano you can get, the GJ-0 ( w/ shipping).

It's a traditional style GJ guitar, compared to the other two under $300, the Jan1 and the Stagg, which are the exact same guitar. 3 piece bridge and a long scale length (about 26.5 to 27 inches).

Very boxy and resonant sound, again, very gypsy jazzish.

Built very solid, came out of the box very playable and holds tune extremely well.

Truss rod! Yippee.

Cons

Some of the wood work is shoddy. It has 3 under-the-finish wood dimples on it, along with a deep scratch near the sound hole.

Very low string clearance. I highly doubt the Stimer or the Pêche à la Mouche would fit under their usual spots, though they might on the other side of the sound hole.

On some parts on the fretboard, you get somewhat of a dead note.

But the worst thing, BY FAR, is the bridge. It's not bad itself, it is somewhat hollow underneath, which some people prefer, but it is only slightly compensated, thus somewhat messing up the intonation.

Oh and it only comes right handed. If your a lefty, you could probably knock out the nut and flip it, though you'd have to move the moustache pieces away from each other more, so you can tilt the bridge to fix the intonation.


Overall:

Is it a good buy?

Sure. It's only $209, which, compared to what most are willing to shell out for a guitar, is chump change. Even if you just want to frankenstein it, add some pickups, work on your guitar fixing skills, etc it's still good. It's especially good as a travel guitar because it's so cheap and it sounds, I think, pretty good for the price. Though keep in mind, that if you want to add a pickup, the string clearance is minimal, so you probably won't be able to just slide it under the strings.

Does it compare to the Cigano?

I don't own the Cigano. But from what I've heard, it sounds damn close, if not the same. And I don't even really play GJ, though you can hear the influence, so someone with ACTUAL skill can coax much better tone out of it then I can and make a better comparison. Better strigns would probably help too.


Hear is a sound sample. A crappy one, but a sound sample nonetheless. I recorded it using a $2 mic, and a Dunlop Primetone 206.

http://www.upload-mp3.com/files/287494_kv5mi/guitar.wav

hoopermazing

I have one. It's eminently playable. I'm sure that its tone falls far short of what an experience Jazz Manouche player would put up with, but it sounds reasonably like a SelMac to me.

The issues that I had with this guitar are as follows:

1. The bridge isn't compensated, and the guitar is too cheap to justify buying a replacement.

2. There is a bit of a hump where the fingerboard joins the body (the soundboard is curved along both axises.) This isn't too much of a problem because the angle of the floating bridge and the fact that few people would want the action super low on this kind of guitar.

For the money that I paid for it, $209, I got much more than I anticipated.

Also, despite its humble pedigree, it's a very attractive guitar.