Monoprice Indio Series California Classic 6 String Solid-Body Ambidextrous Black, (610370)

I bought this Monoprice Indio Dark Blue HSS guitar for about $80 new to see what modern manufacturing techniques could produce, thinking that I could return it if it really sucked. It actually turned out to be surprisingly well-constructed and playable with some adjustments and setup. This guitar was originally intended to be a project guitar for practicing my evolving lutherie skills and to be a “beater” for casual playing. Surprisingly, I find myself picking it up and playing it more frequently than some of my expensive axes.The 6 screw trem bridge is a nod to the original Fender Strat, and can be tweaked and lubricated to stay in tune nicely; it has been replaced by a replacement Guyker bridge due to the original screw-in trem arm breaking off at the threaded tip. I think that was due to my rough and many experiments with using small springs to stabilize the arm while playing - probably it would have been fine if I left this more alone. The Guyker has a push-in arm with a small tightening bolt - a big improvement, along with quality parts such as a much heavier trem block and a better claw and springs.The tuners are decent and seem to hold proper tuning; locking tuners are on my list of future upgrades though not needed right now, especially with proper string installation. I’ve gotten lazy with my other guitars having locking tuners and/or locking nuts. Fretwork was surprisingly good, and was made better with light use of a sanding block on a few rough fret edges. Thankfully, the manufacturers didn’t blindly follow old vintage dogma (e.g. 21 narrow frets, truss rod adjustment requiring neck removal) - this guitar has 22 medium jumbo frets with truss adjustment available at the headstock.I also ended up installing a loaded Colaxi pickguard with HHH (rail style HBs for middle and neck, full-sized HB for bridge); each HB can be individually coil-split. I figured I’ve added about $45 of upgrades in keeping with the original intent of spending as little as possible. For myself, it would make no sense to spend more than the guitar cost on additional parts. I would say that if this guitar were available back in the 50s, it would be better than the Strats available then. Of course, it doesn’t have the brand clout that some would like. Personally, I’m more into what a product offers as far as features and quality, and this Indio really delivers at this price point, even punching above it.* As an additional bonus, the guitar came with a decent padded gig bag that has backpack type straps as well, much better than some of the very thin unpadded plastic or nylon ones. It's not at all up to the same top quality standards as a Kiesel gig bag, but gets decently close enough at this price point - I wouldn't try throwing it off the roof loaded to test it.

I'm a brand new electric guitarist with 20 years of experience on banjo and other stringed instruments.The two most important parts of an instrument like this are build quality and sound.Build quality:The neck shape is comfortable, nothing extreme. However, the fret ends are very rough and even after almost 3 months of playing this guitar my fretting hand still gets raw in a few spots from rubbing on the fret ends. I purchased a fret end dressing file and I plan on finishing the fret ends myself. This is a common problem with cheap stringed instruments and one of the easiest ways for manufactures to cut as much time and cost out of their production as possible. Otherwise, the fets are in good shape and the notes are true up and down the neck.Tuners are about as cheap as you can get. However, they have been working just fine for me. They stay in tune while I'm playing and are still very close to tune when I come back a day later. They are pretty smooth when tuning considering how cheap they are.The pickups look cheap and are a bit wobbly. However, they sound pretty damn good to my admittedly noobish ears, at least when it comes to electric guitar. The humbucker in the bridge position provides great versatility. My biggest complaint is that there is no tone knob to control the humbucker pickup. The first tone knob controls the bridge pickup and the second tone knob does the middle, but there are no tone controls on the guitar for the humbucker.Setup: I followed a few youtube tutorials for how to setup a strat style guitar. This guitar came pretty well setup and I ended up not making many changes from how it was shipped. Intonation and string action only required very small tweaks.Sound: The sound I'm getting out of this guitar is the best part. I've been playing this through a Fender Champion 20 amp (*highly recommend*) and I'm able to get all sorts of classic rock, alternative, and heavy sounds.Note: this is not an ambidextrous guitar, like is indicated in the product title. For the love of god, please buy a left-handed guitar for lefties.In short: This is a great guitar for those on a very tight budget and/or for people like me that just want to test the electric guitar waters. The sound quality is very good for the price and the setup was mostly spot on. However, for those with less setup experience you may have to take it to a guitar tech for setup or to have the fret ends filed down to be more comfortable.