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Due to extreme poverty, I’ve set my eyes on the bandang tipid instruments RJ Guitars is promoting. The company claims that for less than Php 10, 000.00, you can have a set of instruments that your band can use to practice with.
This is very interesting for me because:
- The price is well within my budget for a set of instruments I can have easy access to at home.
- These are acoustic instruments. You can play these instruments anytime you want without needing any external power source.
- You can also plug them into amplifiers so you can be as loud as you want within the amp and the instruments capability to handle amplification.
- They’re RJ Guitars products. It’s my nationalistic pride to support products coming from the Philippines that’s affecting this choice.
I really wanted to get my hands on a pink Squier HTH Stratocaster but my wallet pleaded with me to reconsider.
RJ Gitarang Tipid Para sa Bandang Tipid – Les Pu Acoustic Electric Guitar w/ Truss Rod
Price: Php 1,999.00
Notable Features:
22 frets
Equipped with a truss rod
Mahogany Ply
Volume knob only (because Eddie Van Halen said tone knobs are useless)
My Personal Take
The RJ Guitars website states that the Les Pu Acoustic Electric Guitar is an excellent choice for beginners. I get the basic idea but as a guitar player, I don’t think this is a good guitar for beginners. Unless they take formal lessons.
This is an acoustic guitar that can be played as an electric guitar and not the other way around. Therefore, it is far more fragile than your average electric guitar and probably won’t be able to stand up to the abuse a novice guitarist is going to put it through in the first few months of musical discovery.
Marketing-wise, it’s great as it brings in more people to buy an instrument from RJ guitars based on the price but that could backfire if too many people feel disappointed with the product and send in unfavorable reviews.
My personal experience with this guitar is good. But then again, I know how to play guitar better than a beginner.
It has a good weight to it and feels solid enough for playing a little bit of hard rock. But after dropping it down to D and playing Soundgarden’s Spoonman, I found the sound muddy. It could have been the amp but I didn’t bother to change amps to see if it would sound any better.
Unplugged, it’s acceptable. Just loud enough to fill a small room. Without amplification, this guitar would get drowned out by the voices of people talking loudly.
If you plug it in, you run the risk of chasing your audience out of the room because of the harshness of the sound. Maybe roll the overdrive down a bit?
Keep your EQ clean and you should have a sweet sounding acoustic-electric guitar to entertain guests with.
Final verdict:
Not exactly a beginner friendly guitar in terms of how complicated it can get to get a great sound through an amp. No exactly a loud acoustic instrument for entertaining your friends with.
So, I’d say treat this as a practice tool.
That’s where this instrument truly shines.
Hey! I think I finally found the reason why it’s a good beginner instrument!
Anyway, if you practice on this guitar religiously, you’ll eventually graduate to a better guitar that you can truly gig with.
The value of this guitar lies in its ability to get you to buy it and start practicing with it. And with that, it truly becomes a good beginner guitar.
RJ Gitarang Tipid Para sa Bandang Tipid – Les Pu Acoustic Electric Bass Guitar w/ Truss Rod
Price: Php 3,999.00
Notable Features:
22 frets
Equipped with a truss rod
Mahogany Ply
Equipped with a tone and volume knob
My Personal Take
I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve played an acoustic bass guitar and this one feels really good!
Plugged in, it sounded a bit too bright for my ears. You’ll probably need a bass limiter enhancer and bass compressor to make it sound better as your ears develop to appreciate the lower end of the bass frequency.
It’s not really good for slapping and after a few attempts playing Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Aeroplane, I decided this instrument was not suited for that kind of music despite its brightness.
The equipped strings on the instrument I tested were a bit rough but I was still able to play some respectable walking bass lines and sliding all over the place. Skinned my finger tips a bit though but well worth it.
I think I could realistically gig with this instrument as long as I don’t have to do the slappa da bass techniques (Paul Rudd from I Love You Man movie).
Final Verdict:
Get it.
If you’re planning on becoming a bassist or playing bass as a serious hobby, this is an excellent instrument to play with.
There were so many times I got frustrated as a bass player practicing the instrument in my younger years because I would have to plug a lot of things in just to enjoy the instrument. By the time I plugged the bass in, the initial emotion I had that made me want to pick it up had waned.
The Les Pu Acoustic Electric Bass Guitar will help you cut all the plugging in time and just get you started on noodling immediately.
Get it.
Get it.
No seriously, get it.
RJ Basics Electric El Cajon Para sa Bandang Tipid
Price: Php 3,999.00
Notable Features:
On/Off Toggle switch
Volume knob
Top: Spruce Face
My Personal Take
I can’t play drums to save my life.
This is funny because I used to play the bass drum, the snare and tom-toms in our high school marching band. If you make me hit a single percussion instrument, I can play it. If you make me tap along on the table using different fingers to produce different sounds, I can do it.
But make me play bass with my feet and hit the snare or other percussive instruments in a drum set and I am a complete mess.
I guess that’s because I was never really good at multi-tasking.
But years ago, I found out that I could produce respectable sounds out of a bongo. I eventually graduated to a cajon and I guess I was a passable player.
So this gives me hope that I can create my own beats at home and record it straight into a DAW to make songs.
At the store, the attendant showed me how to play it and I awkwardly tried to follow suit. What he played with what little the instrument had to offer in terms of features was astounding.
Mine came out as a clumsy tug-tug-boom.
It had a nice snare and bass sound though. Even without amplification, it sounded loud enough.
Final Verdict:
For a budget cajon, the Electric El Cajon is an excellent product.
Its ability to let you play plugged or unplugged gives it that versatility that will allow you to graduate from your bedroom to being onstage and getting paid for playing a gig.
To Get or Not to Get the Bandang Tipid Guitar, Bass, and Cajon Set?
The Les Pu series was released way back in 2012? Correct me if I’m wrong. But I remember laughing when I saw it advertised somewhere. I kept saying these things would never sell.
10 years later and I’m the one seriously considering getting a Les Pu guitar and bass.
How the times have changed, huh?
Other than hating the headstock for looking like dimebag’s dean guitar, the Les Pu guitar and bass are great instruments for the price and perceived value.
But is it really tipid?
I went in with a Php 10,000 budget.
Let’s see:
Php 1,999.00 (RJ Les Pu Guitar) + Php 3,999.00 (Bass Guitar) + Php 3,999.00 (Electric El Cajon) = Php 9,997.00.
Hey! You still get Php 3.00 back!
Yes.
Good buy.
Goodbye.
