UPDATE after owning it for 1+ year - I eventually settled with Thomastik JS111 flat wounds and had fully tamed the Emperor, I'd never ever ever sell this guitar!
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This is my first electric hollow body guitar. It arrived in very good condition, but unfortunately, one of the TONE caps keeps falling off. I put a little piece of paper inside the cap itself because the hole seems to be too wide, causing it to fall off.
Regarding the sound, it came with a set of 10's, but I prefer playing with 12's. So, after a day, I changed all the strings to Elixir 12's and adjusted the action and intonation for the new gauge. The sound is unlike anything I have heard before, and I enjoy the series-parallel switching option of the SwingBuckers. The guitar already has a nice, creamy, warm tone when I plug it directly into my mixer. I'm using a Roland CUBE80XL amplifier, and I totally dig how the Swingster sounds through it; this is a great-sounding instrument.
One thing that bothers me, though, is that the body and neck take some time to get used to (this thing is HEAVY!), and it's a fairly large instrument. I'm also considering changing down to 11's from the 12's, maybe. Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase, but this guitar will certainly take some time to get fully used to, and I can only hope I haven't taken on a Sisyphean task.
