Donner Hush X 300$ travel guitar.

[pkirk]

Stuck at the in-laws with no instrument to play led me to impulse-mail-order this.

It felt pretty bad out of the box, you know, like every guitar at a big-box guitar store,
so I put on a set of flatwounds 12-15, turned the truss rod a quarter turn
clockwise, adjusted action and intonation, all easy to do, and the result
is a guitar that feels and plays a whole lot like my "real" guitars. I went through my usual practice routine on it
last night and it felt good then, and my fingers felt good this morning.

Pros: For me the *only* consideration was: can I set it up so that I it is suitable for my daily
practice routine? The answer is, yes. It took me under an hour to change strings and set action and intonation to
how I like (low action, straight neck). It feels like working on a simple machine (not like setting up archtops, which seems more like an art that a science!)

The neck profile feel good, it's a bit on the chunky side, but just a bit. It comes with a
32"x7"x3" gig bag (fits in overhead, but not under seat?). The tools to make adjustments fit in the battery case. The guitar itself weighs 4.5 lbs, the two removable metal braces weigh 1.5 lbs, so 6lbs total. It sounds OK plugged in, I posted a video of me noodling below.

There is a removable back panel, with access to the pickups/electronics. So anyone who likes to buy $300 guitars and then
customize them with $1000 worth of better hardware will happy with this model.

Cons: Its a 300$ guitar, presumably aimed at rock beginners. So this ain't gunna sound like Wes's L5. It has that new cheap guitar neck finish
feel to it, but I expect that to abate a bit over time. The neck pickup is single-coil, set back to not be in the way of the truss rod access cover. The bridge is a humbucker. The only thing I could do to make it sound comfortable amplified was the old "neck pickup/turn down the tone" thing. Perhaps one can swap pickups, but then why buy a 300$ guitar? Another problem is that the
the headphone preamp, "active electronics", line input, as well as the volume/tone and pickup switches look pretty flimsy, so I won't
be gifting this to my descendants.

its main problem, however, is neck dive. It would be great to play it (and hence travel) without the metal braces, but I don't know how to
to that. The solution I found to neck dive in the few days I've had it is to thread the strap through the "upper bout" i.e. top brace, which works
really well. It's stupid, of course, but then it's a $300 guitar. I can think of more elegant fixes, but I'm ok with this fix for now.

Here's a iphone clip: first no FX, then reverb/delay

[Dave70]

Sounds good!

[Doctor Jeff]

Dang you make it sound good—they should put you on their website as an ad for their product.

I have a bit of trouble with the headless guitars and neck dive. I have a Voyage Air OEM size acoustic for travel, with the hinged neck. I also have a sound hole pickup, so could amplify it if I want. They make an LP-sized guitar with a hinged neck as well, but it’s a lot more than $300.

BTW, you have a passing resemblance to my buddy Danny Neale, who’s a guitarist in the Twin Cities area. Though he’s more of a red 335 guy.