I want to know the Good and the bad about Halo Guitars

[twiztedchild]

I have heard some bad things about Halo guitars like they forgeting to install and drill the furels on the Octivia.


But I want to know as much as possible about them. (I did a sreach and coulnt really find anything about them I didn aleady know)

so thaanks in advance for any info.

[Josh Lawson]

This guy is a friend of mine and he works for Halo:MySpace.com - The Munk - 37 - Male - SF Bay Area, California - www.myspace.com/themunk
I have only seen a Halo guitar once in the "flesh". It looked pretty nice but who knows? You might try looking up some HC reviews: Halo Guitars Guitar Reviews: Harmony Central® - User Reviews
This thread might help as well: Halo guitars bh-7

[MF_Kitten]

i´ve heard lots of bad things about them. not because they don´t know what they´re doing, but because they´re too young and unorganized a company to work at the scale they´re working at. forgetting to make string ferrules is a pretty big deal, ya know?

they have issues like loooong waiting times, only to get the wrong specs, having to send it back and wait a looooong time for a new one, and having that be wrong as well, etc. also, i´ve heard complaints about halo guitars being uncomfy in general, but i´m not sure what to believe.

i wouldn´t trust halo at this point, simply because they´re not in sync with themselves quite yet, and their low prices probably means low quality control.

their specs and looks are subjective, of course. i was actually planning to get a custom 30" 8 string made by halo at one point, but then i read up about their custom shop quality and backed off.

i think they have potential though, as their marketing departement is hyperactive at work, so if they could work up a good customer base, then i think they could throw some more money into quality control etc.

this is all how i percieve the whole thing, of course. i know waylon is a nice guy, and he´s been equally frustrated with the inconsistencies and errors being made, so i know they´re trying to pull it all together. i haven´t heard anything lately though, so for all i know, they may have fixed some of these issues?

[TemjinStrife]

I played a 6-string Octavia with Kahler at a local store. It was used and slightly abused, but even so finish quality was suspect, and playability was terrible. Sounded nice, though.

[technomancer]

If they can get their build quality, quality control, and shipping together they could put out some decent guitars... but as of last year / earlier this year when I dealt with them it hadn't happened yet.

Basically my experience was as follows:
- Ordered Octavia with some custom specs and was promised 90 day delivery
- 90 days came and went with no guitar
- I got the Octavia in six months
- the Octavia had the wrong neck construction, wrong fretboard wood, a crooked bridge, and uneven frets... oh and no allen wrenches to adjust anything
- we agree that I would hold on to the guitar while they built a new one, which would arrive at my door in 45-90 days
- after four months I still had no new guitar, and the neck on the one I did have had warped so badly that the four higher strings were sitting on the fretboard

At that point I shipped back the guitar I had and got my money back. That was my experience, you mileage may very. I will say that they did try to make things right when screwups happened, as I had the option of a full refund when I got the initial guitar as well.

At the end of the day my main concerns were completely missed delivery dates and poor instrument quality that they failed to catch. One of the company owners played my octavia before they shipped it to me and didn't notice the bad fretwork or crooked bridge

[Josh Lawson]

Originally Posted by technomancer

If they can get their build quality, quality control, and shipping together they could put out some decent guitars... but as of last year / earlier this year when I dealt with them it hadn't happened yet.

Basically my experience was as follows:
- Ordered Octavia with some custom specs and was promised 90 day delivery
- 90 days came and went with no guitar
- I got the Octavia in six months
- the Octavia had the wrong neck construction, wrong fretboard wood, a crooked bridge, and uneven frets... oh and no allen wrenches to adjust anything
- we agree that I would hold on to the guitar while they built a new one, which would arrive at my door in 45-90 days
- after four months I still had no new guitar, and the neck on the one I did have had warped so badly that the four higher strings were sitting on the fretboard

At that point I shipped back the guitar I had and got my money back. That was my experience, you mileage may very. I will say that they did try to make things right when screwups happened, as I had the option of a full refund when I got the initial guitar as well.

At the end of the day my main concerns were completely missed delivery dates and poor instrument quality that they failed to catch. One of the company owners played my octavia before they shipped it to me and didn't notice the bad fretwork or crooked bridge

Now that is a horror story of epic proportions!!

[Toshiro]

I ordered a 7 string V from them a couple years ago. Got the guitar pretty quickly, but it was full of finish flaws, horrible fretwork, and just general "Made In China" BS. Oh, and their site listed it as 27" scale, guitar was 25.5" scale. Sent it back for a refund(which took forever) and ate $100 in shipping on a $300 guitar.

I would NEVER buy anything from them again, nor tell anyone else to.

[Mattayus]

Yeah, i've only ever heard bad about them man. Stay well away. They look very gimmicky

Those are some ....in horror stories! ^

[Leec]

I thought one of the guys from Halo guitars posted here quite a bit? Perhaps he can chime in a bit to save his company some rep (although those are two fairly bad horror stories).

[Papa Shank]

Wayland I think his name is? He occasionally posted but nowadays I think the distaste for Halo appears to keep him off the forum.

They first have to get the quality control to acceptable standards, then they have to get the specs right first time everytime, then they can rebuild their rep and build on their client base. Not the other way around like someone else suggested. The way it looks to me is that by being inconsistant they've ....ed themselves over, who now really wants to take a punt at Halo and hope they get it right over going to someone with a good reputation like Sherman or Oni or one of the other proven luthiers on this forum? If it's down to price then I'd rather spend $2K+ on something that's worth it than $1k on something that ain't.

[Sponge]

I had a good experience with Halo. Being a lefty, its good to know that at least someone out there will build a guitar for you. You have no idea how difficult it is until you actually call around and speak with the companies that offer lefties.

I purchased a Halo Octavia 28' with EMGs in the neck and bridge positions, ebony fretboard, and a quilt maple finish. It plays well and does what I want it to do while playing without having to struggle or feel uncomfortable. I have a few Schecter 7 strings and could use them as comparison for being more difficult to play. As for sound, very heavy and bright. The lows are handled well because of the mahogany and its a BIG sounding guitar. It has boom to it. It handles the low E very well. Haven't tried yet but was thinking to do a possible Eb or D.

Jeff and Waylon have always been willing to take time on the phone to go over ideas with me as well for the guitar and for that and the product I will be buying my second 8 string from them. If you have questions, call them? Ask for yourself what they can do for your ideas on an 8 string. There are lots of things they'll do to customize a guitar for awesome prices.

Anyways, my experience with them was excellent, and to sum it up, I'm buying from them again. You'll get a few regular haters here that jump to hate given any chance. Call them yourself is my advice.

[twiztedchild]

Originally Posted by Sponge

I had a good experience with Halo. Being a lefty, its good to know that at least someone out there will build a guitar for you. You have no idea how difficult it is until you actually call around and speak with the companies that offer lefties.

I purchased a Halo Octavia 28' with EMGs in the neck and bridge positions, ebony fretboard, and a quilt maple finish. It plays well and does what I want it to do while playing without having to struggle or feel uncomfortable. I have a few Schecter 7 strings and could use them as comparison for being more difficult to play. As for sound, very heavy and bright. The lows are handled well because of the mahogany and its a BIG sounding guitar. It has boom to it. It handles the low E very well. Haven't tried yet but was thinking to do a possible Eb or D.

Jeff and Waylon have always been willing to take time on the phone to go over ideas with me as well for the guitar and for that and the product I will be buying my second 8 string from them. If you have questions, call them? Ask for yourself what they can do for your ideas on an 8 string. There are lots of things they'll do to customize a guitar for awesome prices.

Anyways, my experience with them was excellent, and to sum it up, I'm buying from them again. You'll get a few regular haters here that jump to hate given any chance. Call them yourself is my advice.

Wow. one good thing I was thinking about ordering the Reaper in a 8 maybe (Would be the same price as the RG2228) also Im surpised at all the resopnses in one night thanks for all the info guys

[Ulexes]

I unfortunately have a horror story to share...

I ordered a custom S-nine august of 2007... i waited 7 months only to find out that it was built to the entirely wrong specs and was being built in a chinese shop (which i was never told beforehand)... I was promised it would be only 90 days until the new one would be finished... over six months later i got it, and it was nicked up and the neck was warped beyond playability. After berating their president and being a total douche bag i worked out a refund agreement, (i kept my american Kahler and seymour duncan pickups and they refunded the difference)... after all that was resolved i sent an E-mail to Waylon (the VP and founder)... He apologized up and down and told me that he would be discontinuing the over seas line and would be rebuilding Halo as a US only company.

For now i am done with them. I will re-evaluate that decision after seeing this new american line. But i will never deal with them again without playing the guitar before i buy it.

Waylon was extremely apologetic, and confessed that in the crazines move he was not aware of my situation. We talked thinsg over for a bit, which left me feelign abit better about the situation, but still not thrilled (obviously)...

Like I said... we'll see what the future brings... they are a small company just getting rolling...if they keep their heads above water and ge their QC straightened out, there is no reason they can't bounce back.

=peace=

[bulletbass man]

Some of the photos they've shown of the recent "us lines" have been pretty ridicolous. Horrible looking fretboards, crooked bridges, bad frets, misaligned pickups, If the quality is so bad you can see it in a picture presented by a worker it's best to stay away.

[Ulexes]

Got a link to any of thos epics? i'd be interested to see them.

[hmmm_de_hum]

My octavia does sound fantastic, there is a few issues with the fret work but that it all easily sorted. But the bridge issues i had were actually just unnacceptable, the lack of response or communication back from their customer support was even worse. I didnt buy the guitar from Halo personally, so naturally im not in a position to complain to the company and get this issue resolved, but to even ship the guitar without ferrules is just pure ignorance. Something of which people should consider when ordering from them.

The other guy who bought the lefty quilted maple octavia got a guitar which Halo probably set out to give a reputation, but the ratio of horror stories to success stories is unparallelled.

[twiztedchild]

wow, that sucks for all of you guys storys.


But arent they like going to do "Something Big in 2009"??

[darren]

Did anyone else watch the recently posted video where Waylon was talking about all the benefits of the Kahler bridges? I'm paraphrasing, but one of the things he said was that because of the Kahler's range of saddle adjustment, "even if your neck warps, you can still set it up so the strings hug the fingerboard."



I don't mean this as a personal knock against Waylon, but i really don't think he is knowledgeable enough in the finer points of instrument building. Yes, he can certainly talk specs, but i don't get the feeling that he really understands them. (The above comment about a Kahler bridge making a warped neck playable is an example of that.)

It seems to me that Halo Guitars is a company that's trying to run with the big dogs without learning how to walk first. They tried to start big, and ended up falling flat on their faces. They've definitely taken their share of negative criticism, and it seems like their recent move to ditch their Chinese manufacturing and start building guitars in the USA sounds promising, but the photos of the new line don't exactly inspire confidence that they've learned their lessons with regards to quality control. At the very least, if something is wrong, it will hopefully get remedied much faster with a shop that's local and directly under their control, that it would dealing with a subcontractor halfway around the world.

My advice would be to wait until their new line is launched and hopefully check out some of their production instruments in person before jumping in with a full custom, sight-unseen.

[Ishan]

I don't like to talk/read about Halo because all the bashing bore me to death honestly but here's what I think about them anyway :
All Halo guitars I've seen online looked unrefined and unfinished in the design department. It seems they rush pointy designs to production with no regards to aesthetics and visual balance, ergonomic, usability, etc...
Most of them look uncomfortable and have that thick polyurethane coating that make them look like plastic toys. They'd look so much better with thiner coatings and a few satin/natural finish.
I don't bash the guitars, when they don't have issue I'm sure they are pretty good.
What they really need is a good designer (You CAN'T improvise yourself as the new HR Giger) who would give some harmony and sexiness to the designs, a bit like what ESP did with the F shape (and gives them some REAL headstocks, not those horrors I've seen).
Else I think they'll be stuck selling guitars to the cheesy part of the extreme metal scene.
That's my opinion, I don't make and/or design guitars so I'm no one to criticize but I really think they should take the time to refine their shapes and quality control.

[TMM]

I've only played one, an Octavia 6, and seriously, everything about it was pretty terrible. Playability, sound, fit, finish... I've played Squier Bullets of higher quality.

[twiztedchild]

wow.

thats crazy

[Stealthdjentstic]

W4D is the username of the guy from halo on here. Might want to PM him.

[MaxOfMetal]

Originally Posted by darren

Did anyone else watch the recently posted video where Waylon was talking about all the benefits of the Kahler bridges? I'm paraphrasing, but one of the things he said was that because of the Kahler's range of saddle adjustment, "even if your neck warps, you can still set it up so the strings hug the fingerboard."

I just watched the video again and I'm fairly certain he means the "Radius" of the fretboard, and how the Kahler allows for adjusting individual string height, thus matching virtually any radius. Watch from about 1:30 - 1:55, he never says anything about the neck.

[twiztedchild]

Originally Posted by MaxOfMetal

I just watched the video again and I'm fairly certain he means the "Radius" of the fretboard, and how the Kahler allows for adjusting individual string height, thus matching virtually any radius. Watch from about 1:30 - 1:55, he never says anything about the neck.

Im sure that is what he meant Because I was watching other videos about the Kahler Trems and they say the same thing

[darren]

Originally Posted by MaxOfMetal

I just watched the video again and I'm fairly certain he means the "Radius" of the fretboard, and how the Kahler allows for adjusting individual string height, thus matching virtually any radius. Watch from about 1:30 - 1:55, he never says anything about the neck.

Watch again. From 1:10 to 1:20, he says "warped" twice, AFTER he talks about being able to set the radius of the bridge to match their 16" fretboard radius, which in itself is interesting, because Kahler locking nuts are 15" radius, which is why the Agile Intrepids have that same spec.

Originally Posted by Halo Guitars

If your guitar or your neck ends up warping throughout time, if anything happens to it, your guitar is not wasted. You can completely mold your saddles to the curve of your neck, no matter if it's warped or if it's regular, or if it's straight, if it's 16" radius or anything.

He's clearly saying that a Kahler can compensate for a warped neck, which in theory, yes it could, but the guitar would still play like shit.