Samick RL4 LTD

Samick RL4 LTD , bought from the Musicians Center Bradford, price £450.

The body is finished in a Pearle white and is semi hollow construction. It is bound with 8 ply binding which is black. There are 2 F holes which are also bound. The binding in the F holes is a touch tatty, however the rest of the binding both front and back is spot on. The wood used on the body is mahogany, top, sides, back and one peace frame. With the guitars size been big, it does tend to get a bit heavy on the shoulder after prolonged playing. However, it does have good balance and is not neck heavy. It is fitted with a licensed bigsby trem, this feels solid and I struggle to feel any real difference between that and a original Bigsby which my mate has on his 335. Moving up to the bridge, this is a cheap Wilkinson tune-o-ma-tic, and tends to rattle when the guitar is strummed  hard. It has a humbuker at the bridge and a humbuker at the neck. These pick ups are Duncan Designed, and hold up well to British style gain and chime nice on clean. The pick ups are gold along with the rest of the hardware but the gold finish is wearing off the pick up covers and I tend not to polish them any more out of fear of spoiling them.The pick guard feels and looks a bit cheap, yet the controls and 3 way toggle feel solid to hand. There is a volume and tone for each pick up which respond well.

The neck is glued into the body, and is a standard Gibson scale 24, 3\4. It is mahogany with a rosewood figure board, has 22 frets bound in black and on the whole is of a slim tapper. The inlays are mother of pear yet in the middle of the inlays there looks to be some kind of sparkle mother of pearl. The frets are finished nice and are around a medium the necks overall feel is good to me and I can get around it with ease. It does start to get a bit awkward the higher up you go, but this could be me as I also have an SG which has unrestricted access. There is one finishing issue with the neck, it is rough around one side of the body joint, and in an ideal world the neck at this point would be re-sanded and re-finished. However, it took me feeling the neck before this review to spot it. The head stock is also bound very nicely, has gold groover  tuners which feel like quality.  It most be noted that this guitar has a very small headstock.

I play though a modeling amp and the guitar really struggles to reach the high gain matlica goodness sound when played on high gain models. It  can do vintage rock and crunch very well and the cords stay defined. It delivers a nice variation of clean tones and they have a nice warm mellow feel to them. There is no humming from the guitar when plugged in. All in all this guitar has a nice rock tone can do a nice jazz and it will play blues, yet for high gain heaven you will need a pick up change.

The overall feel and action of this guitar is nice. I can't really comment how it came from the shop as  I have had it set up professionally after 1 hour of ownership. I would gig this guitar, if I could play that well and I am confident it would take all you can through at it. It does in my humble opinion punch above its price tag, I am planing a pick up change to genuine Duncan's and a change of bridge to something of a better quality. I would recommend over a Epiphone Casino as it just has a better feel.

Please feel free to leave questions and comments.