New for 2011 Xaviere XV-400 "Jr"

[t_ross33]

No association with GFS, but THESE look pretty tempting. Anyone heard any reviews yet?

Just when I thought I had my GAS under control :thwap

 

[progrmr]

I've been gassing for a Jr guitar ever since I saw the beat-up Gibby Jr. in the local Sam Ash. That was priced at $645 so I decided against it. Then comes this thing - I'm pretty sure I'll be able to swing it next pay day.

I need one of those stands that holds like 10 guitars lol!

 

[Spudman]

They look pretty nice but every Xavier I've played had a really chunky neck. I din't find them much fun to play because of that. I wonder what the profile is on these?

 

[Spudman]

For the same price you can have 2 P90s. Or for $40 less get the Douglas which is really an Agile. Look closely at the design.

http://www.rondomusic.com/classicna.html

 

[progrmr]

You must be reading my mind Spudman - I've had my eye on those as well. I'm definitely not a fan of very chunky necks either - someone needs to take one for the team and give us the low-down on this Xaviere Jr.

 

[FrankenFretter]

For the same price you can have 2 P90s. Or for $40 less get the Douglas which is really an Agile. Look closely at the design.

http://www.rondomusic.com/classicna.html

Those do look eerily similar, but the Agiles are made in Korea, while the Douglas brand is made in China. I have SXs, a Douglas and an Agile; the Korean-made Agile is definitely worth the extra $.

 

[Spudman]

On these the Agile has the straight back and the Douglas has the contoured back. That's always been my gripe about Teles and Les Pauls, the straight back. I really like a contoured back guitar. Plus, the Douglas has a nicer bridge.

I'd take on for the team if I hadn't already made a promise. Zman should do it because I don't think I've seen any P90 guitars in his stable. oke

 

[progrmr]

uh oh - Just saw these on the Xaviere site too!

 

[Spudman]

uh oh - Just saw these on the Xaviere site too!

Uh oh! That's more my style. $&#(%&$#(#)!:nono:

 

[smodown]

XV-400 jr (alder)

I lke it, the neck is not thick at all. Compare it to an Epi neck. The alder sounds different than my other jr copies. I play it all the time.

 

[Spudman]

I lke it, the neck is not thick at all. Compare it to an Epi neck. The alder sounds different than my other jr copies. I play it all the time.

That's cool. How about doing a more in depth review of it? I'll bet more folks would like to know more.

 

[schmolze]

I just picked up a blem XV-400 sunburst for a whopping $154. I plan on making it into a project, but I'll do an in-depth review as soon as it arrives.

 

[bcdon]

I just picked up a blem XV-400 sunburst for a whopping $154. I plan on making it into a project, but I'll do an in-depth review as soon as it arrives.

(Hope this isn't posted twice.)

Nice score! And welcome to The Fret! When you have a chance, introduce yourself
over in the Players section so everyone can say hi! :dude

 

[Duffy]

LP special copy

I bought an SX GG1 or something like that, in antique burst, all mahogany with a set neck and the twin P90 set up, a few years ago. It was 139 and has a very black looking fretboard that does not discolor your fingers after long hours of playing. It is possibly ebony. It has a tonepro type bridge and a stop tail, like a typical LP or copy. Four control knobs and a three way switch and is not noise cancelling in the middle switch position.

I like this guitar and it is a beautiful antique burst. The P90s chime or roar. Quite nice sounding considering the small price paid.

My plan is to put some outstanding aftermarket P90s on it, possibly Lollars, but maybe Seymour Duncans or Gibsons or something with at least some hum cancelling. I want to investigate this more because evidently you give up some great tone when you get hum cancelling single coils, compared to high quality but noisy pickups. Once I figure out what the sensible route to take is I will get some high quality pickups for this guitar. A repair shop I use in Harrisburg claims the Lollar P90s are remarkable. I will have a pro install the pickups and other electronics and I won't be using GFS pickups. It is a guitar that is worthy of some quality pickups.

Also, I personally like the headstock on the SX LP special copy way more than the typical Xavier headstock. The SX looks like the Agile LP copy type headstock, very nice.

I have an Xavier XV-500 that has a three quarter inch solid maple top over the mahogany body and a mahogany set neck. The tuners are the worst I have seen yet but do their job marginally and are misaligned quite visibly. The pickups are the GFS fat PAT type and are direct mounted. They push the tube amp preamp into smooth distortion at low volume, much more noticeable than my higher quality HB guitars - but it is a pleasant tone I must say. The guitar sounds decent stock. The wiring looks real good. Compared to an Agile Al 2000 I bought for Charity's grandson, there is no comparison in build quality or sound and the Agile only costs about ten dollars more but you get way more than ten dollars of value added with the Agile.

Although I'm not thrilled with the GFS Xavier LP type guitar, even after exchanging it for one with achievable and acceptable low action, I'm not sure if I will keep the guitar.

Some aspects of it make it a nice guitar, seemingly, to build up, like the very impressive three quarter inch maple cap on the mahogany body and the decent sounding stock pickups. They must be some of the ones that have gained GFS a somewhat decent pickup reputation, as claimed by many GFS fans. The tone is still far from equal from most of the other LP type guitars I have owned and played.

Decent locking tuners, not GFS, and some nice pickups like Rockfields or even nicer, would be a good start at making this a real nice guitar. I think the basic elements are there with the Xavier to build it into a respectable guitar, however, it doesn't have any outstanding build qualities that make it really nice. The binding is at best average and there is very little of it. It's painted white so there is no exciting wood grain anywhere. The headstock has the canoe paddle profile which becomes more and more evident each time I play it. It's overall design does not strike me with any type of subtle grace or other appealing qualities.

Personally, I would get an Agile equivalent or spend just a few more dollars and get an AL 2xxx or 3xxx. The used Epi LP P90 gold top looks very appealing to me.

When I want to build up a guitar these days I always look for something "special" that I like about the base guitar that I'm building up. I never build up a plain old inexpensive guitar unless it has some outstanding redeeming feature or features, like a flammed maple neck or heavily birds eyed neck or body, plus all the other aspects, like action, are excellent. I find if I start with something exciting but inexpensive, I always wind up with an awesome guitar that has great intrinsic value, even if the value added is only appreciable by me. But I expect that some of my real nice modded guitars would bring respectable profits if I was to sell them as "hot rodded" guitars - which they really are. The thing is though, that you never want to sell a real nice guitar that you built up from basically nothing into an awesomely beautiful looking, feeling, and sounding guitar. I have seen people stand back light headedly after playing some of my hot rodded guitars, all biological bovine waste material aside.

If this Xavier is the guitar that you are going to transform into an awesome personally built up guitar, you will know it immediately. It's like picking out a puppy, when you find the right one for you, you immediately know it instinctively. Words, other people's opinions, etc., are irrelevant.

I hope you find the guitar to be exactly what you want to build up.

 

[schmolze]

Thought I was gonna get it today, but doesn't look like it...

 

[Brian Krashpad]

My plan is to put some outstanding aftermarket P90s on it, possibly Lollars, but maybe Seymour Duncans or Gibsons or something with at least some hum cancelling. I want to investigate this more because evidently you give up some great tone when you get hum cancelling single coils, compared to high quality but noisy pickups. Once I figure out what the sensible route to take is I will get some high quality pickups for this guitar.

I had a Gibson LP Special with hum-canceling P-100's, and they flat just were not P-90's. The furthest I personally would go in that direction would be to get a 2-pup Special-type guitar and get a set with one pickup RW/RP, so that the middle position is hum-canceling. Once you add a second coil on a single pickup, it's not going to sound like a P-90 imnsho.

Then again, I had a Partscaster with 2 GFS P-90's and thought they sounded fine, so consider the source: fwiw, ymmv.

Good luck!

 

[Duffy]

Special

Thanks Brian.

It is good to know that the Gibson P100s do not sound like P90s. I can easily believe this.

I should look around for some good P90s with one RWRP because this LP special copy is just too nice to not do something nice with, and I do like the sound of P90s.

I have been playing my tele that I put new Fender Vintage Noiseless tele pickups in, for the last two days. I lowered the bridge pickup and that eliminated the bass boominess. It now has a real good sound, quite unlike, however, a good single coil tele bridge pickup, but very pleasant and fun to play with a very enjoyable tone. The neck noiseless pickup is also very fun to play, very full and great with rythym; again quite unlike a traditional tele neck pickup, but providing great tone noiselessly. This noiseless tele is really a lot of fun to play, especially using high gain amps and amp simulations. Again, there is almost no noticeable tele sound with these pickups, but I haven't played it thru my Fender's clean channel. That might provide a more traditional tele sound. I will get back on that result.

I think the special copy would be great with some Lollars or other real good P90 pups, maybe SD's, if they are RWRP.

 

[ZMAN]

Hey Duffy. You mentioned that the guitar was not hum cancelling in the middle position. I have a P90 Gold top and I found that it will hum cancel if you have both volume knobs at the same Position/Level in the middle postion. I would try that wilh the guitar. My pickups are by Wilson in the UK and they are pretty good, now that I am using the Vibro/Supchamp XDs with them.

 

[Duffy]

Pups

Z,

I will make sure I have both the volumes up equally and try it with the SCXD.

I played a Jim Adkins semi hollow Fender tele with Seymour Duncan P90s today thru a Fender Deville with four tens. I messed with the switch quite a lot and couldn't notice ANY noise cancelling with those SD P90s in the middle switch position, both volumes up. This guitar, however, sounded really great thru that amp and didn't make an overabundant amount of noise. I also played a Fender Roadhouse strat that sounded real good thru the DeVille. I could see buying a regular DeVille.

 

[schmolze]

Well, I got my XV-400 yesterday, and have had some time to mess with it. As promised, here's my review.

TLDR version: it's a very decent Jr. style guitar that could be made into something excellent with a little TLC. Highlights include a nice finish (excepting the minor blems in my particular case) and a great-sounding P90 pickup. Fretwork is so-so, but playable as-is. Neck is a comfortable medium C shape. Hardware is pretty cheap looking but functional. Came with kinda junky strings and high action by default.

Alrighty then, pictures!

I didn't order any case, but the guitar came packaged adequately. They include a cord. I bought a couple sets of their strings (which I like), anticipating that I would be changing them ASAP.

I bought a blem (for $154!), so right away I set about looking for the finish imperfections. In this case, the finish on the sides of the fingerboard was bubbled, cracked or missing in a few places. This doesn't matter to me at all, since I plan on refinishing it. Aside from the blems, the finish is actually quite nice. The burst is well done, and the clear coat doesn't look too gloppy.

Here you can also see that the action was set pretty high.

Another shot of the action. This is way too high for me. I can only speculate that this was an attempt to minimize buzzing with the very light strings this thing shipped with.

Headstock pics:

 

[schmolze]

Part 2 (too many images):

The first thing I did was remove the strings. They were too light for me (I like 11s) and just didn't feel good.

Lots of the frets had little bits of polishing compound or something clinging to the corners. The fretboard was a little dry, but not too bad. Nothing a little of this stuff won't cure.

The fretwork was about what I expect from a guitar in this price range. Not terrible, but not great either. The edges weren't finger-cutting sharp, but they weren't real smooth either.

Lowering the action to a reasonable level with the stock strings resulted in buzzing. Again not terrible, but not ideal. After I strung it with 11s the buzzing improved, but it could still definitely benefit from some fretwork.

Here's a shot of the plastic nut with the strings off. The slots are cut a bit sloppily, and need to be enlarged to accommodate 11s, but should work fine with 9s and 10s.

Here you can see that with the 11s, things aren't sitting quite right.

Here's the guitar as it sits now. It won't stay looking like this for long :socool

Restrung with 11s, and putting aside the above issues, the playability is pretty good. The neck is sort of middle of the road thickness wise. I actually prefer fat necks (like 1"), but this one is comfortable. I think a good thing to do with any glossy finish neck is to rub it with some fine steel wool to improve on the "sticky" feeling.

Alright, so how does it sound? To me, this is the best thing about this guitar: it sounds great! As good as any Junior-style (or actual Junior) I've played. It definitely has "that" sound. I plan on replacing the hardware, but I'll happily stick with the pickup.

So, wrapping up. I think for the price that this is a very respectable Junior-style guitar. At minimum I would suggest an immediate string change and basic setup. After that, it is playable as-is. First on my list of optional improvements would be a fret level, crown and polish. Next perhaps a better nut. The tuners are cheap, but they appear to hold tune OK. I'll probably replace them with more Junior-appropriate tuners. The bridge is cheap too, but works, and intonation is fine. Locking studs might a good upgrade.

Anyway, I bought this with plans of modding it to hell. To my eyes, a Jr. needs to look old -- not necessarily "relic" old, but "vintage". My plans include stripping the finish, modifying the headstock to the Gibson shape, shaping the horn (again to match the Gibson shape), doing a fret job, refinishing with a light Tru-Oil top coat and new hardware (that I'll apply an ageing treatment to).

I'll try to get some sound samples uploaded within the next few days.

 

[Duffy]

Xv

I like your ideas on refurbishing this Jr guitar.

I think you can sand off 3/16" on each side of the headstock without any problem, and you should be able to form the head of the headstock with a sabre or jig saw into a more Gibson-like shape with no problem at all.

Rounding off the cut out horn should be simple unless you find some cavities or voids in the wood deeper in when you cut or sand it off.

I think these two mods will make the body of the guitar look way better.

What are you going to do for a bridge? High quality? Bigsby B50? That would add some metal to the string line and would affect the tone somewhat significantly I suppose. Or are you staying with the one piece bridge tailpiece or moving to an intonatable bridge and stop tail piece?

I also like your idea of sanding it off and oil finishing it. One problem may be that all or a significant amount of the stained looking burst body may be contained "in" the poly, as opposed to being absorbed and rubbed into the wood and then coated with a clear poly. In this case you may want to produce a burst effect by staining the wood yourself and then oiling the wood.

Removing all of the probably "thick" layer of poly could be time consuming. Are you going to sand the poly coating off or use a stripper chemical? I would think that getting it all off by a combination of using a palm sander and stripping compound will get you fairly quickly to a base surface that you can spend some time finely sanding and preparing for your antique burst or other staining and final oiling.

Sounds like you are going to put some quality time and work into making this into a beautiful Jr style guitar. I can see where this could be someone's pride and joy.

Along much simpler lines, I just had Fender Locking Tuners in brushed chrome installed into my Squier Classic Vibe 50's Lake Placid Blue strat. It already has an aged white pearl pickguard and Fender Custom Shop Texas Special pickups. It has a beautiful quarter sawn maple neck and fretboard. I have not touched the bridge or tremolo assembly and don't have any plans to at the moment.

I also have an SX dual P90 LP Special copy, similar to your Jr that I definitely want to put locking tuners on, along with some real good P90s, hopefully at least hum cancelling in the middle switch position. I like the beautiful antique burst finish and set mahogany neck and body that it already has. Tuners and pickups are the two things I want to replace on it as soon as I can put my plan together. An electronics upgrade may happen at the same time as the pickups are installed. I don't think noiseless P90's would retain any of the classic tone, do you? I must admit, I am less than fond of sixty cycle hum. I played a beautiful Jim Adkins Fender semi hollow dual P90 noisy telecaster with a black wash finish two days ago. Great guitar but noisy even with the "real" Seymour Duncan high quality soapbar P90's on it. I played that thru a nice new Fender Hot Rod Deville with four tens. Both channels were great and at showroom volume levels the noise was not disgusting.

I like the tone of P90's and will have to learn to live with the noise, like I'm learning to do with my "great" sounding new MIM std tele I bought when I was in Nashville this past summer as a sort of souvineur. Beautiful maple fretboard and white body and pickguard. I won't be putting noiseless pickups on it, as I just put a test set of Fender Vintage Noiseless tele pickups on a real nice walnut stain Squier Standard tele I have. It sounds great and greatly improved from the stock pickups, but not like a real tele. My new MIM tele has absolutely no noise cancelation, even in the middle switch position - but it has really great hot telecaster tone. The noiseless tele sounds great, warm and quiet, and is really a pleasure to play and a greatly improved guitar - but it doesn't sound like a tele. The sound is great though, don't get me wrong, but I'm probably convinced that you lose a lot of tone any time you move to noiseless pickups and can't expect the guitar to sound much like it originally did. Now maybe those stacked single coil noiseless Seymour Duncan tele pickups retain the tele tone, I don't know. Maybe I'll find out some day. In the meantime I'm sticking with the noise with my new MIM tele because I like the tone. I don't know how pro's deal with all that noise at stage levels when they stop playing - maybe volume pedals or turning the guitar volume down quick. A noise gate would probably also suck tone big time from a hot telecaster.

Will you gig with this Jr? Then you will be able to tell me how you plan to deal with the noise when you stop playing.

Thanks for the great pictures and description of your impressive sounding project. It definitely looks achievable.

 

[schmolze]

About those sound samples? May have to wait...

This is after some paint stripper (didn't do much) and a heat gun and sanding (much more effective). There's a thick layer of sealer which still needs sanding off.

I like your ideas on refurbishing this Jr guitar.

I think you can sand off 3/16" on each side of the headstock without any problem, and you should be able to form the head of the headstock with a sabre or jig saw into a more Gibson-like shape with no problem at all.

I was doing some measurements yesterday, and the Gibson headstock is narrower and longer overall. This one can be made narrower, but obviously not longer without some surgery. I might actually cut off the headstock entirely and glue on a new piece of mahogany...

What are you going to do for a bridge? High quality? Bigsby B50? That would add some metal to the string line and would affect the tone somewhat significantly I suppose. Or are you staying with the one piece bridge tailpiece or moving to an intonatable bridge and stop tail piece?

I was thinking about the pigtail aluminum bridge that StewMac sells, but a Bigsby sounds pretty cool!

I also like your idea of sanding it off and oil finishing it. One problem may be that all or a significant amount of the stained looking burst body may be contained "in" the poly, as opposed to being absorbed and rubbed into the wood and then coated with a clear poly. In this case you may want to produce a burst effect by staining the wood yourself and then oiling the wood.

Yeah, the burst came right off with the poly, as expected. I'm planning to do exactly what you suggest: sand down to bare wood, then stain by hand and finish with Tru-Oil.

I don't think noiseless P90's would retain any of the classic tone, do you? I must admit, I am less than fond of sixty cycle hum.

...

Will you gig with this Jr? Then you will be able to tell me how you plan to deal with the noise when you stop playing.

I was pretty impressed at the low noise with this guitar. That said, it is a single coil pickup and I fully expect the hum will make itself known under the right conditions. I've tried various noiseless single coils, and I have yet to find one that really sounds the same.

I do expect to be gigging with this thing when it's ready, so I'll report back then.

 

[Duffy]

Xv

Personally, I would not cut the headstock off and attempt to put a new one on. This brings up a few serious challenges.

First the joint would have to be aligned exactly and this would be difficult. Your design would have to be well thought out and the nut would have to be in precisely the correct position. The holes should also be placed correctly.

Also, professionally or even semi professionally finishing the replacement head would be extremely difficult. Matching the natural flow lines of all the surfaces of the neck at the joint would be very difficult. Then sanding and staining and finishing the joint would be extremely difficult in order for the joint to be indistinguishable from the rest of the guitar. In fact the joint would probably stand out very prominently and noticeably in the final result.

I think it would look very excellent if you just slimmed down the headstock and formed the crown in a way acceptable to you, I think this would look very professional and compliment the rest of the guitar.

Your plan sounds like a great one and it looks like you are moving along quite rapidly. I think your final outcome is going to be stunning and a big improvement over the stock guitar.

I agree with you on the disassociation of noiseless single coils from the traditional sound of single coils. I like my Fender Vintage Noiseless tele pickups and their characteristic sound very much, but I also really like and am starting to appreciate more the noisy stock hot ceramic pickups on my new MIM std tele, because they have super great tone - they just produce a lot of noise, increasingly so with the more gain and other overdrive that you run them into. I am learning to live with the noise and might even get a volume pedal for when I play standing or sitting. Problem is I play in a reclined position most of the time. I even like to play in the dark at night, which is a good way to work on breaking that insidious eye / fret hand fixation habit, and develop your ear at the same time.

Hope you don't mind my suggestions and comments. Good luck. Looks like you are getting right on it. It is a very interesting project. I hope you keep us updated.