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After reading Jason's review of this guitar I was prepared to do some serious setup work when mine arrived. Didn't happen. The factory setup was as close to perfect as you could get. It even had a card with it that had a 15 point inspection an actually signed by a quality control worker. The action was perfect; never seen that before in a factory setup. I was amazed at the fretwork. No sharp ends and there were no low or high frets that I could find. They were also expertly polished. You never find that on a guitar in this price range. The tuners are nice and remind me of Grovers. The bridge was properly intonated and the only thing I did was change the strings to a lighter gauge. The pickups are nice too: no swapping out needed. In single coil mode you do not lose any volume and they clean up a bit and have an added bite when playing with distortion. Very cool. The only negative I could find was the tone knobs are hard to pull out to put in single coil mode. I will probably switch those out with speed knobs with rubber around them. Overall the guitar is amazing for the price. I ordered the red model with a gig bag. No need for a hard case because the gig bag is heavy duty. You owe yourself the pleasure of playing one of these so go ahead and order one. You won't be sorry.t

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Seen a lot of mixed reviews on this company and I get it , I had some issues with customer service dept, and their lack of service for musicians. Some of us use these instruments to make a living, and while we are not stadium filling pro's we do still deserve a solid product and solid service. After asking for a manager the service dept put me in touch with Steve Pisani send he handled everything and was super awesome as well. My guitar is absolutely amazing , action, fit , and finish. Sounds amazing tons of different tones from one guitar in fact as far as what is is capable of sound wise none of my other guitars come close. And right out of the box it played as well as too I'm 53 and have about 12 guitars various styles and brands from a life time of playing and collecting and will definitely buy another michael kelly probably the hybrid special

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I just received my Michael Kelly Patriot Decree open pore, and I have to say, I was totally Blown Away!!! The quality of this guitar for the price is simply amazing. It looks awesome in the pics, but even more phenomenal in real life. It was beyond my expectations, and I will be ordering another one soon.

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Received this earlier today , was worried about a bad shipping experience , but all good.Out of the box this was a Wow ! Tuned it up and that was it - had one of the best factory setups I ever saw on any guitar.The finish, weight and overall feel of the guitar is great , neck is awesome on this.Sound-tone and sustain are what you would find on a higher end guitar.It’s a keeper and highly recommend this no matter what your playing experience is, you won’t be sorry about this.I own some high end guitars and for the value - the quality of this is very good.I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another one if I needed too.

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This guitar is difficult to review. It is stunning to look at. The finish is perfect to the eye and to the touch. The fret marker inlays are absolutely beautiful. I love looking at this thing. I own 11 guitars with all sorts of pickup configurations. I've done a lot of pickup swapping. Active, passive, humbuckers w/ coil split, single coil, ceramic, alnico, etc. The pickups in the Patriot Decree are like none I've ever heard before. They are sonic perfection to my ears. They both sound great humbucking or split. The neck pickup in particular is unbelievable. With the volume all the way up, it has a unique growl to it. There are some amazing sounds in this beast. It would do well with any genera. For rock, blues, or jazz, this is it. I can't imagine finding a guitar that sounds better in those generas.The string through tune-o-matic bridge makes this guitar super comfortable to play. I've been raving about this guitar, so why do I find it hard to review? Out of the box this thing had what was hands down the worst setup of any guitar, any any price level, I have ever bought. I always expect to have to do a setup on any new guitar. This was next level bad though. It was totally unplayable out of the box. I've read a ton of great reviews on Michael Kelly guitars out of the box setup. I don't know what happened with this one.First off the strings were corroded. No biggy but very weird on a new guitar. The biggest issue was that the nut was cut too low. I had to remove it, shim it, and adjust it. What a pain. I probably should have returned it but the two day shipping took nine days to get to my door, I was too excited to actually play my new guitar. The bridge was lowered all the way down and the strings were just resting across the frets. This helped to hide the fact that the frets were super unlevel. The second fret was massively high and there were about a dozen others that were in need of leveling to mild degree.Once I got the frets fixed and strings swapped, I was surprised to find that the intonation was spot on as is. Even with all of the work required to get it playable, I would still recommend it to any experienced player. The work was well worth it. This is now one hell of a guitar. The guitar feels solid as a tank.

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