Review: Rondo SX LG1 NA lap steel
Posted: 23 Apr 2007 12:03 pm
How good can a $99.00 lap steel guitar be? Pretty good, although you get what you pay for. This is a pretty good beginners' model lap steel.
Pros:
- excellent hard shell case
- solid construction
- good tuners and hardware
- decent sounding pickup
Cons:
- pickup is misaligned, making overall sound very weak
- bridge cover has to be removed to change strings
- Unnecessarily complex Tune-o-Matic-style bridge instead of simpler bridge
I received this lap steel for review courtesy Rondo Music. The lap steel comes with a very high quality hardshell case with five latches that fits the guitar exactly, a strap (why, I don't know, but it's there), and two keys for the case. The strings appeared to be new strings, covered with a paper wrapper to protect the strings (from what, I don't know). All the chrome was nice and shiny, and it had that "new instrument" smell.
As the Rondo web site says, it's a 22.5" scale instrument made of mahogany with a rosewood fretboard. This is a far better designed and constructed instrument than the Artisan lap steel I bought a while ago. The tuners, pickup, knobs and other hardware are a definite improvement. It's a very stylish instrument, one that holds its own with vintage instruments. I think it looks better than the recent Fender FS-52 personally. The rosewood fretboard has three full octaves of real frets, with circular markers made of shell at the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and twelvth frets. This pattern is repeated for all three octaves, but the highest octave has a fret marker at the tenth fret rather than the ninth. This is a very minor complaint, as hardly anyone will be playing up that high on the neck.
The bad news is that the pickup is not aligned with the strings. It's just about an eighth of an inch towards the treble side, so the bass pickup pole is almost halfway between the sixth and fifth strings. In spite of that, the SX LG1 manages to put out quite a nice tone. Because of the misalignment, though, the overall sound is very weak. Pickup hum can be audible in some situations but not that bad, typical of a single coil pickup.
The beautifully shiny metal bridge cover is unfortunately in the way. When you remove the two Phillips head screws holding it in place, you are presented with a Gibson style Tune-o-matic tailpiece. They could have saved money by making a fixed tailpiece with holes for the strings like the old Valco-made lap steels have. I don't understand the use of an adjustable tailpiece on a lap steel.
Here are some demonstration MP3s from my web site. The SX LG1 was tuned to C6th tuning (bass to treble C E G A C E ). I recorded it directly into a Digidesign MBox2 Pro using Apple Soundtrack Pro software. The result was saved to AIFF format, then imported to Apple iTunes and converted to MP3. The strings are brand new D'Addario strings, so there may be some tuning issues on some of these MP3 files. That's okay - they were intended to give you an idea of how the lap steel sounds, not how I play.
Audio sample 1
Audio sample 2
Audio sample 3
Photos
I also tried playing in open G tuning (bass to treble G B D G B D) with similar results.
Summary: If I owned this, I would change the pickup and bridge. If I kept the metal bridge cover, I would install thumbscrews rather than the Phillips head screws, because although this cover looks great, it gets in the way when you want to change strings or adjust the bridge. With these changes, I'd have a pretty decent lap steel.
Pros:
- excellent hard shell case
- solid construction
- good tuners and hardware
- decent sounding pickup
Cons:
- pickup is misaligned, making overall sound very weak
- bridge cover has to be removed to change strings
- Unnecessarily complex Tune-o-Matic-style bridge instead of simpler bridge
I received this lap steel for review courtesy Rondo Music. The lap steel comes with a very high quality hardshell case with five latches that fits the guitar exactly, a strap (why, I don't know, but it's there), and two keys for the case. The strings appeared to be new strings, covered with a paper wrapper to protect the strings (from what, I don't know). All the chrome was nice and shiny, and it had that "new instrument" smell.
As the Rondo web site says, it's a 22.5" scale instrument made of mahogany with a rosewood fretboard. This is a far better designed and constructed instrument than the Artisan lap steel I bought a while ago. The tuners, pickup, knobs and other hardware are a definite improvement. It's a very stylish instrument, one that holds its own with vintage instruments. I think it looks better than the recent Fender FS-52 personally. The rosewood fretboard has three full octaves of real frets, with circular markers made of shell at the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and twelvth frets. This pattern is repeated for all three octaves, but the highest octave has a fret marker at the tenth fret rather than the ninth. This is a very minor complaint, as hardly anyone will be playing up that high on the neck.
The bad news is that the pickup is not aligned with the strings. It's just about an eighth of an inch towards the treble side, so the bass pickup pole is almost halfway between the sixth and fifth strings. In spite of that, the SX LG1 manages to put out quite a nice tone. Because of the misalignment, though, the overall sound is very weak. Pickup hum can be audible in some situations but not that bad, typical of a single coil pickup.
The beautifully shiny metal bridge cover is unfortunately in the way. When you remove the two Phillips head screws holding it in place, you are presented with a Gibson style Tune-o-matic tailpiece. They could have saved money by making a fixed tailpiece with holes for the strings like the old Valco-made lap steels have. I don't understand the use of an adjustable tailpiece on a lap steel.
Here are some demonstration MP3s from my web site. The SX LG1 was tuned to C6th tuning (bass to treble C E G A C E ). I recorded it directly into a Digidesign MBox2 Pro using Apple Soundtrack Pro software. The result was saved to AIFF format, then imported to Apple iTunes and converted to MP3. The strings are brand new D'Addario strings, so there may be some tuning issues on some of these MP3 files. That's okay - they were intended to give you an idea of how the lap steel sounds, not how I play.
Audio sample 1
Audio sample 2
Audio sample 3
Photos
I also tried playing in open G tuning (bass to treble G B D G B D) with similar results.
Summary: If I owned this, I would change the pickup and bridge. If I kept the metal bridge cover, I would install thumbscrews rather than the Phillips head screws, because although this cover looks great, it gets in the way when you want to change strings or adjust the bridge. With these changes, I'd have a pretty decent lap steel.
