Guitar Gear Forum

I love my al2000. Put in dimarzio 36 annis and it sounds great. Was nice right out of box, no fret issues.

It's def not a gibson but nothing is a gibson except a gibson. I got less than 400 in it and I love playing it, works for me.

Nightflameauto hit it on the head. They are great guitars for the money...I'd say probably the best "budget" guitar out there. I had one of the original Ghosts, and it was a fun guitar.

Don't approach Agile with unrealistic expectations, though. Don't expect it to be a $2500 guitar. The craftsmanship for Agiles is certainly good, but it isn't quite at the level of a high end guitar. This comment is limited mainly to the finish, which was very thick. The flame maple top wasn't really "flamey." The electronics were junk. On a positive note, the fretwork was great, and the hardware was good quality.

The real reason why I got rid of it is because it sounded thin, even with a pickup swap. Agile advertised it as being solid mahogany, but it was incredibly light. I guess that they used a slab of mahogany that wasn't very dense. Either way, it didn't have the heft and chunk of a Gibson explorer. It sounded wimpy and hollow. It didn't resonate the way I expected it to. In contrast, I have a Gibson LP traditional that is heavy, and the sound is hefty, chunky, and alive.

This isn't to say that Agile wouldn't top Epiphone, LTD, or Schecter. Agile probably makes a better guitar than these brands, and still charges less.

Hope this helps!

I've had three agile's. Currently have one of their old hamer standard looking axes.

All are quite heavy, not the most resonating, each needed fret leveling and they seemed to always cut the nut slots on the high side.

If you don't pay too much for one, they can be excellent modification platforms.

If I had a chance to buy a hamer standard, I would likely retire the agile. So far, my old agile ghost plenty statisfys my explorer fix.

I think they are on par with epiphone imo. I never played any ltd or schecters. Lots of people contend they are the best in the mid-price range.. Just can't get past the aesthetics with most of them.

I did notice agiles have sort of a high-end line going on featuring upgraded hardware/electronics. IIRC, you can get one in stainless steel frets.
I havent bought a brand new agile in a few years, it wasnt one of their higher end models, I would be about 75% interested in trying out the higher priced guitars if I were in the market.

I have a 3100 that I bought used. Guy had upgraded the pickups already, but I think those came with Ducans from the start?

Anyway, its a hell of a guitar, especially for what I paid for it. Even new it would have a been a good deal. It is HEAVY, SUPER HEAVY, but it sounds awesome and plays great.

I don't really get into comparing them to Gibsons because it cost so much less than even an entry level Gibson would and I would HOPE the Gibson is better. But, for me, its plenty good enough that getting a Gibson isn't really something that I plan on doing anytime soon. Does that make sense?

I had a 3100 too...I liked it a lot. As others have said H E A V Y, but it had a good setup out of the box, maple cap ebony board etc. Overall a very nice guitar for the money and a steal if you could find one used.

I own one of the Tele knockoffs, the TC-1200 to be exact. It has a 2 piece ash body and a 3/8" spalted maple cap. The hardware on it was pretty decent. It came stock with Grover tuners and a 3 brass barrel bridge. This particular guitar had noiseless single coils that were decent, the pickups I have in it now are leaps and bounds better.

I changed out every piece of hardware and electronics because of preference, not because it wasn't good. The original hardware was chrome, and I thought black would look better on it, so I did the whole switch. I replaced the tuners with locking Schaller tuners [I really love these!], and got a Full Contact Hardware bridge [which is awesome, but not for everyone]. The electronics in my opinion are shit, and I replaced them with a set of Bourns pots, a CRL switch, and a Switchcraft jack.

Besides looking bad ass, and now sounding bad ass; the neck and fret job is amazing!!! It is one of the best playing necks I have ever played! Also, I should mention that it is heavy too. It is easily one of my best sounding guitars!

I went from this:



to this:



Cole

i have a heavy agile 3000, good flame maple full thickness cap, one piece neck, two piece body, pear or ebony fretboard grover tuners. i have installed a gibson humbucker and an SD JB bridge pick up.
I had to realighn and re glue the nut and re-mount one of the bridge pins deeper into the body to get it 100% sweet
then:
where the body meets the neck under the neck pick up Agile have saved a few cents by using a smaller neck tennon, the tennon is quite short and sits flush with the body but does not extend under the neck pick up cavity. there is a hole about a half inch wide and about the same deep.
I can hear stuff like that, there aint supposed to be dead air there so i filled the hole and the guitar sounds 10 times better. not as thin sounding imo
the neck is quite shred thin compared to my other guitars.
i like it, it looks pretty, it has binding and all that mother of pearl everywhere.
its the same quality as an LTD 1000 series imo

I like mine but the frets are butter soft. They wore out super fast. Same with my bros 3.

Shadesofcraig wrote:

colejustesen wrote:I own one of the Tele knockoffs, the TC-1200 to be exact. It has a 2 piece ash body and a 3/8" spalted maple cap. The hardware on it was pretty decent. It came stock with Grover tuners and a 3 brass barrel bridge. This particular guitar had noiseless single coils that were decent, the pickups I have in it now are leaps and bounds better.

I changed out every piece of hardware and electronics because of preference, not because it wasn't good. The original hardware was chrome, and I thought black would look better on it, so I did the whole switch. I replaced the tuners with locking Schaller tuners [I really love these!], and got a Full Contact Hardware bridge [which is awesome, but not for everyone]. The electronics in my opinion are shit, and I replaced them with a set of Bourns pots, a CRL switch, and a Switchcraft jack.

Besides looking bad ass, and now sounding bad ass; the neck and fret job is amazing!!! It is one of the best playing necks I have ever played! Also, I should mention that it is heavy too. It is easily one of my best sounding guitars!

I went from this:



to this:



Cole

That Tele is freaking sweet looking love the spalted maple top. Normally I don't like black hardware and love the shiny chrome stuff, but in this case I really like the looks of the black hardware, I think you made the right choice.

I like chrome too, but it seemed to fight the beauty of the guitar. Thanks for the comment!

Cole

That is one of the best looking teles I've seen. I get major GAS every time you've put up shots of it.

PurpleTrails wrote:That is one of the best looking teles I've seen. I get major GAS every time you've put up shots of it.

That's how I feel about it too. I'm usually not big on that spalted I think? look. But damn, that guitar just looks like pure sex.

ovid9 wrote:

PurpleTrails wrote:That is one of the best looking teles I've seen. I get major GAS every time you've put up shots of it.

That's how I feel about it too. I'm usually not big on that spalted I think? look. But damn, that guitar just looks like pure sex.

Thanks guys, it definitely is a looker! It plays like sex and sounds like a threesome... glorious!

Cole

PurpleTrails wrote:That is one of the best looking teles I've seen. I get major GAS every time you've put up shots of it.

I wish you guys lived closer to me, that way we could have an amp show and you guys could check it out. I really love this guitar!

Cole

I had an LP 2500 I think and it was a brick. Felt like 11 pounds. I never checked but I am sure it was over 10.

It was nice otherwise, sound, finish, action...but I was scared off of agiles after that one.

I had this P-90 Valkyrie bought for $99 on closeout when they changed the design:



I found it superior to my Epi G400 SG and sold the Epi.

my al2000 with spalted maple top took off scratch plate, changed pickups. Looks & plays great

I have 3, 2 6 strings and a 7 string.

The 6 strings are:
A PRS knockoff 970 in amber quilty w 24 and a Floyd. Bit of an anchor around the neck, plays great. I swapped out the p-ups to my fave combo-Air Norton Neck and Tone Zone bridge. Sounds great!

A tiger eye Dauntless. Has the EMG HZ p-ups stock. One of the fast necks I've ever played, easily as fast as any of the Wizard neck Ibanez. Not as thing, just as fast.

The 7 I have is one of the original runs from way back, the color was supposed to be violin and come with DiMarzio Blaze pickups. Well, something was lost in translation and violin because flamed violet. That's the only "problem" with her. She is a great 27" scale, "ebony" fretboard, Floyd equiped guitar. It is one of the thicker necks I own too.

Would I buy another? Sure. Like the looks of the budget 8 they now offer. Just need a beater to keep @ my GF's house anyway.

IDK if I'd go the custom route with them, Carvin offers a better value for nearly the same cost.

Derek

Some really good designs to come out of there are:

The Harm-1:




The Cool Cat Prestige:



Les Paul Junior copy:




Their Les Paul copies are o.k. if you swap the pickups out and don't mind the weight of an unchambered body. But these days there are LOTS of other choices in that realm.

i didnt start this thread, wtf?

sleewell wrote:i didnt start this thread, wtf?

shadeofcraig'd

I bought this one brand new a few years ago - I'd say quality-wise it was on par with the upper end Schecters.

Cool guitar but in the end it was just too big and too heavy for me to play comfortably so I sold it after a year or so.

I also didn't like how far from the saddles they placed the bridge pickup; it seemed more dull sounding than it should have been.

For reference, it was damn near the same size as my bassist's 6-string bass, and even heavier.