Epiphone Songmaker DR-100, Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar - Natural

I have owned other electric guitars but am still a beginner so my input is limited the physical quality of this model guitar. I tend to go overboard when buying things and like to stick to the higher end products. But from all my web searching this seemed to be a good guitar for beginners for a cheap price. It came in a well packed box with plenty of foam padding wrapped around the guitar. Unpackaging this guitar i was so excited the sunburst looked amazing and glossy. After close inspection i found a few flaws. But keep in mind these are not hand made like gibsons. These are machine made in china and hand inspected. First thing i noticed were the strings. There was a fair amount of rust on the strings in some spots and the low E string actually had the winding gouged off in one spot. Second was the paint on the top of the body had some imperfections around the sound hole. Things like the black paint didnt have perfect coverage on the inner lip of the hole. Third was the edging around the back had a spot where it didnt have enought acrylic coating like something had touched it while it was wet. Fourth was there was excess glue on the nut and it didnt fit perfectly flush to the fingerboard. As said i cant really comment to in depth on the sound or how it plays since i am still a beginner. But to me it sounds good. Nice bright tone to it and stays in tune pretty well. With all that said after changing the strings i love the guitar. I told myself i was not going to go overboard on another guitar to try and learn on. All things considered even with its few imperfections it is a great guitar and Epiphone is a name brand(china made gibson). But to be able to buy a name brand musical instrument for 100 dollars to learn on is amazing. I would not think twice to buy this guitar again if i had to.

It's basic. But it looks great and sounds great. I don't need a $500+ acoustic... I'm not playing live shows. This is just something to strum away on when I don't want to use one of the electric guitars. The coolest thing is that the sunburst color really pops. Epiphone did a great job on the paint. The sides and back are just medium stained while the front is black with the orange burst. There is trim around the body pieces. The pick guard needs a good heavy wipe since the plastic sticker leaves residue. The Epiphone E is proudly displayed. Guitar stays in tune. Comes pre-strung with decent strings. I prefer a slightly lighter gauge, so these will be changed as soon as these start wearing. Includes a truss rod which you should NEVER use. I don't know why they included it. You can literally snap the neck if you don't know what you are doing. On a guitar this affordable, I just play with the factory setting. But if you want to raise the neck (to make the strings closer to the fretboard) then please have someone do it who is experienced with this process. Otherwise it's a $120 mistake. Came packed tightly in a good box, wrapped in protective covering and padded with much bubble wrap. Does not include any picks or capo or extra strings. No case. No strap. So basically it is the guitar as is. No frills. Which is good, because I hate paying for cheap accessories that I won't end up using or just replacing anyway. If this if your FIRST guitar (congratulation on getting a terrific guitar from an amazing brand!) I recommend getting picks if you so desire (I use Fender medium gauge celluloid). Also a strap if you want. A capo is important for many songs, so make sure to get one soon. And a tuner - mainly I use it when re-stringing (make sure it can tune both electric and acoustic - you set it against the guitar for acoustic and plug in for electric). Avoid a lot of the lumped together bargain deals on Amazon, these are usually lower quality. And a stand and case are also nice. Make sure to stow the guitar away from traffic areas since acoustics are much touchier than electrics (mostly), knocking it down can do irreparable damage if it dings the body, especially the back. Bottom line: don't get one of those off brand sub $100 guitars. I have read too many horror stories. Epiphone crafts good guitars and I have played many of their instruments over the years. My favorite guitar is the Epiphone Les Paul Classic (in black!). And since I don't want to spend $2500 for the Gibson version, Epiphone is just fine. Until you hit about $350, this is arguably one of the better guitars out there. At $350 you can get some amazing Yamaha acoustics and can even select your body material (love the mahogany). But sub $300, there are a couple of Fenders and a couple of Ovations that are good, but this is a solid choice. My one negative is that this is made in China and then inspected in the US. But for this price I guess you can't get an American or Japanese made guitar. Sadly those are going to start at about $500 for most quality brands.

I'm still learning, but after comparing it to others in stores and of my friends I like it more than most guitars that are 3 or 4 times the price. They obviously needed to take some shortcuts to make such a nice looking, well built, quality sounding, easy to play guitar for this cheap, but they are mostly inconsequential. For example, the pick guard just has a printed logo instead of the metal Epiphone applique found on their higher end models. There isn't a built-in tuner but you'll have an easier time tuning with an external tuner anyways, I love my Snark SN-5 Tuner for Guitar, Bass and Violin , it's cheap and easier to use. Also, there isn't an amp output on it, but it can play very loud acoustically and if you're starting out it's unlikely you'll need to amplify beyond that anytime soon. The only reason to pause before buying this one, is if you want to use an amp or a game/e-learning app like Rocksmith 2014 Edition - PC/Mac (Cable Included) , you'll need the amp out and a modern PC or game system, and you'd probably be better off with a cheap Epiphone electric. Also, the strings seem a little lighter than some others I've tried, it seems to me that this makes playing notes easier, at the expense of a little string buzzing until your technique improves. Overall, I think this guitar is an exceptional value, it has it where it counts at a price that's fantastic.

I am an intermediate level guitar player, who was looking for an acoustic guitar to leave laying around the house or to play by a campfire. This guitar is perfect for that, it was inexpensive enough that I can play it anywhere or let anyone play it without worrying about what could happen to it. I am not saying that it is not a good instrument, it would be a perfect guitar for someone who is looking to learn how to play. Quality: For the price range, I am impressed with the quality of the guitar. I bought the guitar with the sunburst finish. It looks high quality, and has been resistant to pick scratches. The neck plays well, but the edges of the frets could use a little bit of filing. I would expect to have to do some fret work on any guitar of this price range. The bridge pins and nut seem to be a low quality plastic, but that is to be expected. The tuners work well, and it holds tune okay. Sound: The guitar sounds okay. With the stock strings it did not have a very deep, warm sound, but a better set of strings helped. I would not use this guitar gigging, but it sounds good enough for what I bought it for. Overall, I am happy with my purchase of this guitar. It fits what I was looking for when I bought a guitar in this price range. If you are a beginning guitar player, this would be a good instrument to start on before moving to a more expensive model in the future. If you found this review helpful, please click helpful below.

This is hands-down one of the best sounding guitars in this price range (the $100-ish budget range). I am quite blown away by how great it sounds-- it's very similar to any of the solid-wood Epiphone Masterbilt guitars, which is also a great bargain because they sound just like their Gibson counterparts (e.g. the AJ) -- which sound somewhere between a Martin and a Taylor -- not too dark/muddy as some Martins can get, and not too harsh/bright which most Taylors are... It's just perfect. Really great projection/volume too when you do full strum, and clear articulation and voice at any volume. I keep saying to myself, how do they make any money off this thing? Almost all "beginner" or budget guitars that I've played sound very shallow and "boxy" (like the sound is coming from a small cardboard box). They all do this-- any cheap Yamaha, Takamine, Washburn, whatever. But this DR-100 (also known as PR-100 if sold by Guitar Center/Musician's Friend) is just miles above those other guitars in sound quality and voice. I would say this sounds like a $500-800 guitar. Whether you're an experienced player looking for a backup guitar (which is why I bought mine-- wanted a laminate guitar that I don't have to worry about and just leave out and play whenever at the office or take with me outside), or a beginner, this is the perfect guitar and most bang for your buck at $100... plus it's a Epiphone with a lifetime guarantee and not some no name brand... Of course, a guitar can't be perfect at this price range, so I'll tell you where they cut corners. They didn't cut corners on the finish-- the finish is very nice and glossy and the binding is very nice and has a lot of great details such as the nice big headstock. But here's where it needed some work: The frets. Ouch. They needed to be dressed BADLY. They were so sharp that I think you can really cut and bleed sliding up and down the neck... I spent a good 30 minutes just filing it down and smoothing it out as best as I could and now it's so much better. You can tell these were just pressed in by machines in a factory and that's it-- no one hand dressed them and filed them down and finished them-- that sort of manual hand labor is where it costs money and this easily can be a $500+ guitar... The other part that they cheaped out on are the tuner machines. They are not terrible, and fairly usable, but they aren't the best. If I had to modify one thing on this guitar, it would be to swap out the tuning machines with some good Grovers and call it a day. Specifically, when you turn the tuner, for the first 1/16 of a turn, it doesn't do anything, and then it turns and then sometimes it doesn't do anything... So it's not a 1:1 translation of turning it and the turning changing, which makes tuning the guitar a bit cumbersome. I was lucky to have bought the guitar and it didn't need a truss rod adjustment and the action was fairly good. I did file down the saddle nut about .5mm to lower it a bit more, but that's really it. Even with the crap strings that come with the guitar, it sounds good and that's what I'm basing this review on, so obviously with a better set of strings (I like the Elixir Polyweb in Light or Medium) it only sounds better. The stock strings corroded easily (noticeably changed colors) so I took off the strings from one of my other acoustic guitars and put them on this one. In short, based on just the sound of the guitar-- I'm amazed that a laminate guitar sounds like a mid-level solid wood guitar. At this price, I don't have to worry about it getting dinged up or whatever, and yet it plays beautifully. I believe the Tak Jasmine S35 also gets good reviews for its sound, but I haven't had a chance to play it in person, so I can't compare...

I'm sure a lot of people cross shop this guitar with some of the cheaper offerings from Rogue like the RA-100D, so I'm going to compare the two as I have experience with both. I'm a new guitar player but I have played Sax for years and, having owned several, have a good sense of quality instruments, so take this as you will. All in all I'm very happy with this guitar and have no reason to spend more money on something better right now. It's a great guitar for learning and lacks nothing that prevents you from progressing. Something I've learned over the years is you really just want a nice quality instrument to learn on. You don't need perfect quality high end, but really low end instruments have deficiencies that can cause distractions and hinder your learning. I purchased this guitar after I gave away my Rogue RA-100D. I had previously purchased the Epiphone Les Paul Special II and was very happy with the quality for the price, so when I was looking to get another acoustic I went with the brand I knew. Now the Rogue was by no means an awful guitar. It was my first guitar, and I was lucky in my purchase of it and was actually surprised by the quality for the money. I had originally paid $70 on sale, and the 100D is two steps up from the "starter" and RA-090D, all Dreadnought style guitars made by "Rogue". The frets were smooth and didn't chew up my palm like an awful electric I tried previously, the body was solid, the tuners were perfectly functional and the finish was decent. Perfectly suitable for learning and the sound (to me) was fine once I replaced the strings. Problem is Rogue is just a brand name, I have no idea who the actual company that makes them is, they don't seem to have a website and nobody to contact if I had an issue with it. That said, it's a $70 guitar, what more do you want? As I said I had tried a cheap budget electric guitar from here so I could learn with Rocksmith 2014, so I bought the "Legacy Solid Body Electric", and it was awful. Intonation was off, it wouldn't stay in consistent tune, the finish was imperfect and had bubbles and chips, and worst of all the edges of the frets were sharp and would scrape up my palm as I played. Sound was terrible as well, so I sent it back within a week. So having one good and one bad experience with these cheap knock-off guitars, I decided to go with what I knew should be good and looked for another Epiphone. The Epiphone DR-100 was the closest match to what I was learning on before and it was reasonably priced. Compared to the $70 Rogue RA-100, what does the extra $30 for the Epiphone DR-100 get you? Well, the body of the Epiphone is not quite as thick/deep, which is something that affects the sound slightly, but not very much. Overall I'd say the Epiphone is more consistent in tone, a little less rich than the bigger, more bulbous Rogue. That said, I think I like the size of the Epiphone better, it sits in my lap better, easier to get my arm around it, but I think the Rogue had the ability to get a little louder due to the body size. Build quality - The Rogue wasn't bad, but the Ephiphone is clearly better The details are much nicer, the lacquer finish is more consistent, and if you look inside the body the workmanship is clearly more clean and consistent with the Epiphone. Features - Tuning machines feel virtually the same to me between the two. The nut is plastic on both guitars, I don't know enough to say one is better than the other. The Epiphone has a strap pin on the heel, something the Rogue did not have, which means if you use a strap with the rogue you'll need a head strap loop. The truss is adjustable on the Epiphone, not on the Rogue. Both have the same number of frets. A nice detail for beginners on the Epiphone are the marks on the edge of the head to note frets when you look down. I replaced the strings on both guitars shortly after I bought them, but just to note the strings on the Rogue appeared like they were corroded or old when I got it. Not a big deal, it's usually a safe bet to just put fresh strings on a brand new guitar anyway, but just something to note.

Big, beautiful dreadnought style guitar with a warm, bright tone straight out of the box. Comes equipped with light steel strings, which I think accounts for the bright high b and e strings. I was learning to play on an old knock-off Stella parlor guitar (with a neck so bent the action was impossibly high)...this is a major step up. The action on this Epi is nice and low, which is fantastic for a beginner like me - I can practice for hours every day and I don't have to press nearly as hard to avoid fret buzz. The 25.5 scale is a bit of a stretch for my hand, but the sound this guitar makes is absolutely lovely ♥ I do wish that there was a size comparison photo to let you know, visually, just how big this guitar is when viewing it online. I am almost 6ft tall, so it's an okay fit...but if I was a smaller person, I might have a hard time with it - especially lugging it around once it's in the case. I brought the guitar to a couple of friends who play professionally, for their assessment and they all agreed - a very nice guitar for an excelent price. * I also purchased the Epiphone EDREAD case to house and protect it. It was the only case I was certain it would fit, and it does fit perfectly.

Epiphone D100 Arrived quickly and in great shape. After letting the box acclimate to the temperature inside, I unboxed and found to my surprise a really attractive instrument. I am a Gibson guy and this was a gift for my son in law. So my expectations of a <$200 guitar wasn’t to high. But this far exceeded my expectations! I immediately replaced the cheap factory strings with Elixer NanoWeb 10-47 and it sounded so much better. It plays well and the action is not bad but it could use a few tweaks to make it play like butter. Don’t get me wrong… this is no J45, but for the price it is well worth the money.