Larry Carlton L7 TS

Ever since Sire made the Marcus Miller basses I was curious about this brand, and long behold after some years they made the guitar line: strat, tele and les paul. I purchased the Larry Carlton L7 more out of curiosity and overrall I am pleased but the guitars isn't as great as they make it sound on youtube or guitar magazines.

The good stuff: The guitar came with no visual imperfections in the finish, nice rounded frets, no problem with the electronics and overrall i'd give it a 9/10 presentation wise. Locking tuners are nice but the nut was not cut deep enough and I noticed some tunnings problems.

After I changed the strings and did some minor adjustments tot he nut, the guitar sounded better already, but it seems to me that the pickups they are using are rather weak, and not not compensate with the modern feel of this guitar. Also I should mention that the satin neck feel wonderful and does not stick to the palm of your hand. I have not weighted the guitar but it feels like ti's around 3,80 kg or maybe even 4 kg, all in all its a good feel for a les paul type guitar.

The bad: Sire should put Graphtech TUSQ directly because it makes the change alot more easy, the existing nut on the guitar is fine after I enlarged the string gauges but I will probably put a Graphtech TUSQ soon. Also I dont like the pickups, they lack character.

Decent solid body guitar. It doesn't sound any close to a Les Paul but it has a fine bright sound of it's own (in case you'd like a bright sounding Les Paul)

Features are fine, keeps well in tune, satin neck painting is a nice touch. But easthetics and built quality are the weakest points here:

Jack nut went off a few days after playing it.

Knobs aren't well set in the body, but the worse thing is how they behave: from, say, 10 to 3 nothing happens so you'll find your sweet spot between 3 and 0. Forget a proper swell.

Neck binding was full of black stains probably because filling material ran out between the wood and the binding. Impossible to remove.

Right out of the box some strings were rusty and there was a noticeable ding on the side of the body

Setup right out of the box was kinda terrible; even if the nut was cut a bit high and some frets were buzzing...

So what to say here? I sent it back cause nothing felt "safe" with this instrument, (this is my 1st return to Thomann in more than 15 years)

Having a few guitars, some exellent ones and some trashy ones I'd say that this one fits well the price range. If price is the main factor of your purchase then this one could be ok