Daisy Rock Girl Guitars Retro-H

Price Paid: 199 (UK pounds)

Features: 8
Semi-hollow electric 12-string. 22 medium frets. Basswood body w/single f-hole, maple bolt-on neck. 2 x Mini-humbuckers, no idea what brand. Grover tuners (nice!) single vol & tone control, pickup selector switch.

Bright metallic pink finish.

Sound: 8
Check my review of the Stardust Elite a couple of mouse clicks away for music style/stuff I'm playing it with.

the 12 strings, combined with the mini-humbuckers - well, have a guess - "bright", comes to mind as a descriptive term for some reason! It isn't exactly versatile, but then you don't buy an electric 12 for versatility, you buy it for "jangle". The Retro-H 12-string certainly jangles. Given this, and the fact that the basic tone is good, with an effective tone control, it doesn't get marked down for lack of tonal verstility. I mark it down a little because it's ever-so-slightly harsh sounding. Previous models had a (reportedly not very effective, given that they're mini humbuckers) coil tap coil tap pull-switch on the tone pot, but this one doesn't feature that, and it's not listed as a feature at daisy rock's website anymore.

Action, Fit, & Finish: 5
Unlike my stardust elite (which I reviewed here as well) which was finished to a standard comparable to much more expensive instruments, this one is mainly (see below for caveats) "good for a budget guitar". The neck is nice, easy to play, and fits comfortably in my hand. the paint finish is good, even and glossy overall. The frets are spot on. It's nice to play. Inspiring, even.

On the downside, the inside of the body cavity has been very crudely carved, and the matt black paint in there doesn't really hide this. There was a piece of masking tape stuck on the inner front of the body cavity, that you could easily see even at a distance. God, it was difficult to remove! I wound up having to pick it to pieces with a pair of tweezers. I don't consider these to be too serious, given the extremely low price of the instrument. More serious is thatthe set up on the guitar as received was very poor. It was difficult to get it to intone properly, to the point where I was considering buying a 12-saddle bridge for it! I took it to a local guitar tech, who described it as the worst set-up instrument he had ever encountered. He fixed it though, it now plays like a dream. The standard statement one would make about this is that it should never have left the factory like this, but I have an alternative theory...(see below)

Reliability/Durability: 9
_Everything_ on the instrument feels solid, and the finish feels thick & durable. I have gigged with it w/o a backup!

Customer Support: 3
I used Daisy Rock's online contact page to ask about the lack of a neck inlay, but got no response from them. Poor on this showing, I must admit! I prefer using email to contact manufacturers, I've never had much luck with these online forms.

Overall Rating: 5
OK, the instrument as supplied has a neck with a pair of dots, unlike the pink version of the retro-h on Daisy Rock's website. It was supposed to come with a very girly oestrogen symbol, with a flower in the centre inlaid at the 12th fret. TBH, I'm not entirely unpset about about this, I'm a guy after all. I like pink guitars, but the inlay might have been a bit much. But, it leads me to the theory that at some point between leaving the factory and reaching me this instrument has had its neck swapped. Maybe somebody wanted a white-bodied instrument with the inlaid neck, and the shop swapped them. Given the poor setup - my Elite is great, and other reviews here have been positive w/r/t the setup on Daisy Rocks, it seems like a plausible proposition?

Had the instrument reached me in a similar state to the Elite, it would have got a 9 or even a 10, given the price. As it is, I got a basically sound instrument, but badly set up, and with a couple of finish issues. If it had been an expensive instrument, I'd have sent it back. as it only cost me 199 quid, I'm giving it a 5. I'm very happy with it now, but it took a little longer than I'd have liked to get it there.

If it got ripped off or broken, I'd buy another one for sure, but I'd buy it from a shop, not online.

Submitted by Norman Phay/Vietgrove at 12/31/2005 06:03

Price Paid: US $199

Features: 8
I am now completely sold on the 1 piece "wrap around" bridge/stop.
It seems to give the strings much more responsiveness to bends and a very pure sustain. I have noticed that a few other makers like PRS are bringing these back and i think it is a good trend. Haven't noticed any intonation troubles resulting from it.
Other features. . . minihumbuckers are great. Grover tuners are nice to see on a guitar I paid less than $200 for. The semi-hollowness of this guitar is more ornamental than anything, but hey, it reduces the weight a little. The simplicity of this guitar is really it's strength.

Sound: 9
see above

Action, Fit, & Finish: 6
Fret dressing was fine. no buzz whatsoever. Low action and nice feel. Sparkle blue finish is real cute. As others have mentioned it is a little sketchy by the F hole if you look closely.
One real goof they made was that the pots and knobs were on so loosely that they almost fell off. Easy fix, but this should have been caught. Especially since this is marketed to younger players.

Reliability/Durability: 7
This guitar is solidly built as it goes. . but with the extremely slender neck I wouldn't recomend it for basement shows where you have to beat back the crowd. I am treating it gingerly, but it is worth it.

Customer Support: N/A
na

Overall Rating: 10
I would indeed recommend this guitar. I have always wanted a LP or SG junior and this sates that desire for almost no money. And as a bonus you get the splashy mini humbucker 60's sound as well, not to mention a ridiculously fast neck.
Dissclaimer. If you have large hands or play a lot of right hand finger style, this might not be the guitar for you as the stings are quite closely spaced.

Submitted by oldstyle at 07/11/2005 20:37

Price Paid: 275 (UK Pounds)

Features: 8
Korean-made semi-hollow basswood body semi-hollow guitar. A pearl-effect white poly finish (no, not the pink one!) Decent grover tuners, with chunky machine heads. One-piece stop-tail bridge ala SG junior, although I suspect this one is intonated better. Two no-name chrome-covered mini-humbuckers with a 3-way switch. Volume and tone controls with chrome-dome knobs. Non-glossy narrow profile maple neck with rosewood fretboard. Body appears solid: 2 pieces of basswood, with the f-hole routed into it.
No other features you'd really need- a coil split is kinda pointless with mini-humbuckers, doesn't really need a pickguard as the finish looks hard-wearing, and I find separate tone/vol controls for each pickup to be a pain.

Sound: 8
I play kind of shoegazey art-rock, verging on noisy fuzz. Lots of arpeggios and indiviual note stuff. I like bright guitars (but can't stand that annoying Telecaster 'twang' or Strat 'quack') and play them through various modulation effects (phase shift, delay, flange) for shimmery indie atmospherics into an ultra-clean 70s Fender silverface twin (100W master volume). I'm also extemely partial to Big Muff, Super Fuzz, MXR Dist style fuzz. Like Mudhoney, Buttholes, Husker Du etc. This guitar is absolutely great for the former- the pickups generate no noise at all, are bright and airy (almost like lipsticks in a way). Compared to how much my Hagstrom III and Danelectro DC-3 feedback at volume, this guitar is beautifully behaved. Great for folky strumming and picking. However, it is plainly unsuited to high-gain style alt rock, fuzz ,metal and the like. It handles warm overdrive well for general bluesiness, but that isn't realy my bag. So the definition gets a bit lost when you pile-on the fuzz, but that's not really what this guitar is for. The bridge pickup could be slightly hotter, but other than that Daisy Rock have got this guitar sounding really good, and different to a lot of the stuff out there now. I'd probably only give it a 6 for variety, but it does what it does well.

Action, Fit, & Finish: 6
Generally good. The fit of everything feels really solid and professional. Good quality switch, pots and wiring (I had a peek inside). Really like the contoured heel of the neck. Good action and intonation from the factory. The white pearl finish looks really stunning if you catch it in the right light. The chrome hardware offset it all nicely. Cosmetically you can't fault the Retro-H. Especially like the headstock shape. The devil is, as always, in the details, so you better check these things if you're getting one:
the paint was inconsistent (and even sticky on one bit) around the f-hole- would some binding here be too much to ask?
The body of mine is made from 2 bits of basswood- where they join there are minor paint imperfections on the back of the guitar. No big deal, but if yours is made from more than 2 pieces it could start to look messy.
Frets were excellent at the edges, but the tops needed some working-in before they lost their roughness completely.
Nut could have been cut more carefully.

Reliability/Durability: 7
Not played it live yet. I'm a wreckless kind of guy, and have no problems gigging without a backup, even using tempermental vintage guitars. This guitar isn't gonna fall apart any time soon.

Customer Support: 8
Emailed support at DaisyRock.com with a question about the pickups before I bought this guitar. They didn't get back to me. Emailed them again when I was considering swapping-out the bridge pickup (I'm not going to) and didn't hear anything back. So null points for support there. However, I emailed Daisyrock.co.uk the same question and I got a very helpful reply within a day, which warrants an 8.

Overall Rating: 8
I've been playing for 10 years, am a fan of single-coily guitars- Fender Jazzmaster, couple of Hagstrom IIIs, Danelectro DC-3. What attracted me particularly about the Daisy Rock is the excellent thin neck, as I'd got used to playing damn fast on my main guitars, the Hagstroms. For the money, I can't recommend the Daisy Rock enough. As far as I'm concerned, the non-macho brand can only be a good thing too. I think I'd like the Retro-H even more if it came stock with a couple of lipstick single-coils and narrow rather than medium frets, but I'm pretty pleased with it as it is.

Submitted by Tim Webster at 01/08/2004 05:24