My honest assessment of Bluejem's custom, construction is above average. Even better made than some American made guitars. Polido ito. Medyo mabigat lang for me. But it ain't as heavy as my latest LESTER -- heh heh.
Sound wise, it has character that beats a lot of imported US and Japan made guitars. This surprised me a lot coming from the other two Elegee customs I had tested. As I understand, Bluejem wanted to get both single coil tones and humbucker tones on one guitar because he has to cover all the bases para as mga gig niya. It is a good compromise but definitely it ain't strat sounding and ain't gibson sounding. The guitar can do a variety of styles and has a character of its own. Para sa akin kulang pa rin sa hiyaw pero meyron siya -- more so than the average guitar.
One thing I would recommend which is just purely aesthetic, mas bagay sana kung hindi natural kundi transparent red or blue finish na makikita ang grain ng kahoy at lamination. Nakakapagod kasi ngayon makita ang mga flame top dahil almost lahat mayroon. Since maganda naman ang grain na opposite direction pa kaysa sa mga laminated flame tops, sana lang ibang kulay versus natural. I believe the effect would further make it look imported.
Cheers...
For the info of everybody, after testing a dozen new lousy sounding gibsons which are signatures, historics and custom shops straight for two hours, brand becomes irrelevant for me now with electric guitars. This guitar that bluejem had customized has more character than the guitars I had tested and that includes a dead sounding Ibanez MIJ Andy Timmons. At my minimum sound character expectation, its on the level of ESP Custom Shop but defintely will be beat by a real ringer ESP Custom Shop by far. Again, don't expect RJ prices because this is way much better than RJ quality.
