Guitar Story #13: DeArmond M75
Details
- 1990s DeArmond M75
- Year Purchased: 2004
- Price Paid: $275
- Notes: Me no likey
I played this guitar at Boogie Man Music in Ellensburg, WA while on a road trip with my wife. I was really into the idea of branching out from the single coil sound and the pickups sounded really good in the shop. They had the girth of a humbucker with a lot of bite. The guitar haunted me for a day or two after I got back to Seattle so I called them up, bought it and had it shipped.
After spending some quality time with it the guitar I was finding that I wasn’t really digging it so much. The finish was really thick and plastic-y feeling, the block inlays looked cheap, one of the brittle plastic knobs broke the first week I had it. I hadn’t noticed any cosmetic things in the shop because I was so focused on the sound of the pickups which did sound good. The biggest issue though was tuning stability. The nut they used one these was made of plastic and was super wide so it took a lot of fine tuning to get the strings not to bind. I sanded and polished the slots, added graphite and I still had issues with the 3 high strings binding. If I would have liked the guitar more I probably would have yanked the nut and replaced it with bone and spent some time getting it perfect. The bottom line was the guitar seemed really cheap and I didn’t like it enough to invest any time making it play better.
I really wanted to like this guitar. I love Guild guitars and DeArmond pickups and the idea of this guitar really appealed to me. I know people who really dig these so it is possible I got a lemon but the overall vibe of the guitar for me was cheap cookie and cutter. My wife really liked this guitar though and still mentions it now and then: “I really like that blue guitar you used to have”. Eventually I did a straight swap for a MIM Stratocaster on Craigslist.
