Dean Custom 350 Floyd Electric Guitar with Floyd Rose Bridge - Gloss Natural

It was a shock to see this abomination in person. It's does not look like the guitar that's pictured on Amazon or on Dean's own website. The top (front) of the guitar has a horrible paint job that makes it a light beige color (almost white). It's coated on so thick that you cannot see a single grain of the natural wood underneath, and there's no texture to it. The pictures on Dean's site and Amazon's site show an almost quilted texture, but mine is just a flat blob of beige. I thought I had ended up with an off-white painted guitar, but you can see the natural wood on the back and sides, which are several shades darker than the front. To get an idea of the color difference, use a webpage or Photoshop to see these colors: front is #f0ebd5, back is #d18e37. That's a HUGE color difference, almost to the point of white vs. orange! The back and sides actually look quite nice since they are not painted over and shows the natural wood. Unfortunately, I may have figured out why the front was painted a blank beige: Rather than the two-piece woodwork that's shown online and on trade shows/sites, my guitar is made of 7 cuts of wood glued together for the body! It's clearly visible when viewing the back since the grains don't line up. Even my headstock is made of two separate woods that are glued together horizontally! Counting the neck and headstock, this guitar is made of 11 different pieces of wood glued together. No wonder they tried to cover it up with a thick coat of paint. What a disappointment. The action feels good but after 30 minutes of tinkering I still can't get the fret buzz out of the three heavy strings. I may have to take apart the entire Floyd Rose bridge and re-seat it a couple of millimeters higher, as there is no other way to get the buzz out. The coil tap works, the FR works without taking the strings out of tune, but the rest of the guitar is a disaster. What a disappointment.

I was very surprised by the quality of this guitar when I first bought it. This on is actually the second one I bought. Now I have the trans red and the natural. They're both fantastic. I can't believe such a quality guitar could cost less than $300. Is it a high end Les Paul or Strat? No, but you get everything you'd possibly need for any style of playing with this guitar. Love it...or should I say, "love them"?

I paid $290 for this guitar which is a great value. It has a nice sturdy feel and looks great.

Great guitar for the price comparable to one $400 or more

Let me get this out of the way, I have already written a review prior to getting a professional setup on my guitar and the guitar was very good, now it's awesome. First, the tone. As another reviewer stated the pickups are import versions of the DMT Nostalgia and DMT Equalizer pickups and they sound awesome. They compliment each other very well. Since my first review I have been playing some songs that the coil tap is needed and it doesn't disappoint on either pickup. I truly believe that Dean makes the best stock pickups in the business. These are better pickups than the EMG 81/85 combo I have in another Dean that cost me twice as much. The key, and I can't emphasize this enough, is to take this guitar or any new guitar to a luthier for a professional setup. As I discovered it's not just about setting the Floyd Rose up, but adjusting the pickup height as well. Next is playability. It has a modern C-Shaped neck that seems like it's compound radius and very easy to play. Access to the upper frets is great and the frets are dressed well and there are no overhanging or en-even frets. Lastly is looks, it is a stunning looking guitar. I have the Flame Maple Trans Blue and the finish is perfect. It's also very durable. My cat has knocked it off it's stand twice and it hasn't even sustained a scratch. But my cat knocking it down was a huge blessing in disguise. I had to take the guitar into the shop to have it set up again because it knocked the neck out of alignment, it came back from being a great sounding guitar to being an awesome sounding guitar. I have two other guitars that cost a whole lot more than this guitar, and are very good sounding guitars in their own right, but in all honesty this guitar sounds and plays better than both of them. Please disregard the negative reviews from people who have no idea how to properly set up a Floyd Rose equipped guitar. Because I have no idea how to properly set up a guitar myself, but I didn't screw up my guitar by trying to do it myself.

I'm in two minds about this guitar. It needed a comprehensive setup to start with and there were areas of corrosion on the Floyd bridge, so it wasn't the best of first impressions. However, it now plays great after hours of setup which proves there is a decent guitar to be found in it. The other thing is the pickups, they're high output with coil split on the tone knob, but they lack character (very flat response), even when dialling back the volume control. I think a good quality set of pickups will transform this guitar from ok into the first guitar I reach for. The 24 fret neck is nice and fast, the body carve is very comfortable and the finish was good even thought it looks much more yellow than natural to me.