Epiphone Songmaker DR-100, Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar - Natural

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 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.