Fazley FTL218NTAB Ash Burl Electric Guitar (Natural)

Got this to road test the new pickups for our forthcoming Dragon carved top, but was so impressed decided to let everyone know what we thought. Great instrument for the money! Our example played out of the box, but like most new guitars these days it benefitted greatly from a fret dress, and we tweaked the nut too. (Bax also recommend you do this). The neck was straight with a matt finish and quite nice to the touch. Could easily be polished up if preferred.

We can confirm that the top is a real ash veneer, and not a print as some Youtube reviewers suggest. Conforms very well to the vintage Telecaster design, and sounds authentic in our opinion. If this is the original twangy sound you are looking for, no need to swap the pickups, but if you want something wilder you will need to upgrade. The obvious deviation is the body finish of course. Hardware is vintage type, although the machine heads are modern and function well. You would have to look pretty close to criticise the manufacturing standard considering the price. Controls work smoothly and the wring is traditional.

What we did: Fret job. Scratchplate, custom made pickups, switch (best to replace if you are adding high output pickups, (as the actuating lever is not earthed on the Chinese switches). Tailpiece and bridge changed to a modern type. Custom rewire. Quite a different guitar when we had finished!

Overall a great guitar for beginners, and for pros to upgrade to their preference and gig without worrying. Performed perfectly after the fret job, as good as any expensive instrument so a very practical choice if you are looking for a cheap TL style guitar.

Blue Clark, Esus Guitars

Bought thus guitar not expecting a lot for £70 but was I surprised. Out of the box a beautiful looking guitar. Pros- especially stunning to lookat,really well finished,no sharp frets,I love the neck really smooth and perfectly straight. Cons- quite a bit of set up required. Fret buzz on some frets. The action needed lowered a lot. Pickups needed adjustment. The tone control is poor. The middle position appears to have no tone control at all. Conclusions-all these problems are easily cured except for the tone control which requires an upgrade. Overall I love this guitar and would recommend. Spend a little on some upgrades and you will have a fantastic guitar. I will probably be interested in some of Fazleys other guitar lines in the future.

I bought this with the intention to upgrade all the hardware. £69 (at the time) was a bargain price to get a decent basis to upgrade.
I was not disappointed.
Well packaged for delivery.
Surprisingly good quality body finish (front and back).
Single-ply black pick guard looked cheap (and marked easily).
Fretwork is really good, with smoother edges than some more “premium” guitars come with. However the plastic nut has sharp corners. The neck itself is finished well, though there are a couple of small areas which are not as smoothly finished.
Needed setup before being playable (tuning, saddle height, intonation, pup height, though truss rod was ok).
Bridge plate was not fully screwed down (4 mounting screws, not 3 as in web-pictures) and saddles are of cheap quality (but I intend changing bridge, nut, tuners, pups and switch/pots anyway).
After setup, plugging in showed the pickups to be remarkably high output, but a bit brazen in their sound.
I could get a decent clean “Tele-twang”, but the other end of the scale was more muddied.
The body has good resonance, and with better pups I expect to bring the low growls under control.

Overall, a fantastic budget buy, eminently suited to beginner or upgrader alike.
How do they do it for under £70??

I'm impressed with this guitar, it's excellent value for money.

It came remarkably quickly, and was shipped extremely well packed.

It is nicely finished and not embarrassing to have in the slightest. I have a herd of well over 70 different plucked stringed instruments - including many guitars - so am not a novice at all, and I'm very happy to add this beasty to my herd.

It needed some set up. The action was high and the neck needed some truss rod adjustment when it came out of the box. The intonation was surprisingly good however. The strings are of course pretty awful, but that was to be expected and I bought a set of better ones at the same time. It holds its tuning quite well.

The finish is immaculate, not a single blemish, however I can not work out if the ash burr is veneer, or some sort of ash-grain plastic, but it looks pretty and looks real, and at the price I paid, I dont really care to be honest. As every guitar of this type I have seen is different, I suspect it could be a veneer, my thinking is that plastic finishes would make all the guitars identical.

The sound is good enough for the price; the pickups are never going to be high-end at this price, but it's perfectly playable, and as I will be recording with it I can do some eq work to 'tweak' the sound. I like the middle pick up position best personally, but that could be the small practice amp I put it through to initially test it.

For it's price I highly recommend this guitar, it's perfectly good enough for a beginner, but only after it's been set in if mine is anything to go by. For someone who can play, knows their way around guitars, and can adjust and maybe modify it with new pickups, and possibly new tuners, it's more than acceptable as a good starting point. But like I said - sans set up - out of the box, for the price, it's more than acceptable.. in fact I've grown rather fond of it over the last few days.

For the price, you truly could do a lot, lot worse. I have never owned a Fazley before, and if this the quality of their cheapy range, I suspect one of their higher end guitars would be a bargain.

I'm looking forward to getting my admin jobs out of the way, and taking it into my studio to put it through it's paces and see what it can do.

Worth it for the finish and decent trimmings. Honestly, I'm really loving the ash burl finish. The one I received looks nothing like the one in the photos (mine is actually nicer). The pickups are muddy and have no clarity or high EQ, so don't expect a legit Tele sound. However, I got this guitar with the express intention of fitting new pickups (installing Fender Tex Mex pups this weekend) and I expect this guitar will be awesome. I also don't feel bad about covering the pickguard in stickers too. The finish is so nice that I would not put stickers onto the main body though!

Don't expect a great guitar for £60ish, but this is absolutely worth it for the finishes. Just be sure to install new pickups and add some new strings. It's a good foundation for upgrades.

Fast delivery, well packaged, looks stunning, all good.no sharp frets just a set up, new strings and away you go. Easy to mod ( I will) having said that I'm very happy ( again)
This is my 3rd Fazley and cheapest yet. Top marks to BAX.

Ordered for a mate,so good ordered another for myself.A few adjustments bit of tweaking and good to go, AMAZING value.
Check my you tube vid
https://youtu.be/ocrp350PgOQ

Fantastische gitaar - ik kan niet anders zeggen. Mooi uitgevoerd. Alles ook goed afgesteld (waarschijnlijk extra werk van Bax ....). En het refrein is: voor dat geld - dat geloof je toch niet!

Vorige week deze gitaar besteld omdat ik al meerdere gitaren vab Fazley heb gekocht en telkens aangenaam verrast ben door de prijs kwaliteit verhouding. De beloofde levering van de volgende dag heeft Bax nog geen enkele keer waargemaakt, er zit altijd wel een dag of drie tussen. Voor mij geen probleem verder.
Dan de gitaar. Deze lijkt niet op de foto maar wijkt behoorlijk af. De houtnerf is veel mooier in mijn geval.
Afwerking is ook prima op het kam element na dan. Hier is duidelijk gele plakband om de winding zichtbaar en dat doet het uiterlijk geen goed. Op de foto's is het element echter wel zwart. Lijkt wel of er een afddekking is vergeten!
De hals is mat afgewerkt en schuiven gaat daardoor vrij stroef en oncomfortabel maar het went wel.
Geluid is prima.
Voor dit geld verder een mooie aanvulling maar wel de minste Fazley tot nu toe.