Oh but it is a God send. Best guitar I have ever played including some Gibson LP's and it was a fraction of the cost. Rockfield SWC pickups are amazing. They are direct mounted for tons of sustain. The clean settings are awesome as well. The action is so low and the ebony fretboard so smooth, you barely have to touch the strings to get sound. I bought a Schecter C-1 plus the month before and sent it back. It was terrible. Couldn't get a decent clean sound out of it and when you turned the volume controls up all the way, it distorted really badly. The overall sound was very brittle. And to boot, Schecter is now building them in China as opposed to Korea where they used to have them made. The Michael Kelly Patriot Custom is superbly crafted. It blows away anything in it's price range and even guitars 2 to 3 times as much. This guitar is the best kept secret in the guitar world.

While this guitar is not the god send a lot of people say it is, it is a fabulous guitar with lots of great hardware and features that you find on guitar costing hundreds more. Pay for quality, not a label. The sound is great and compared to my epi elists les paul it is lighter. Really good balance and quicker fretboard. Very well constructed. Would have liked pickup rings but you can't win them all. This guitar sounds as good as it looks. Good thing it comes in a lefty!

Well, you can tell many of the reviewers here are old pros like me, because they always mention the Stratocaster, the benchmark, the guitar that you just can't put down, the perfect axe. Well, I didn't put my Strat up, but I did put it behind my MK Patriot Custom for now. This MKPC kicks so much butt I just can't put it down. C'mon, ebony fretboard, abalone inlays, push-pull coil taps, mahogany, some kind of graphite nut, and insane fit and finish. I have the cherry burst, and man is it beautiful. I have longer slimmer fingers, and I am liking the neck on the MK better than the Strat, plus the scale length on the Gibson-style guitars is a tad shorter, making the neck ridiculously fast. For me, the neck is the whole deal, the determining factor, and this neck is fine, the fretwork is railroad flat, a thing of beauty. I love the ballsy pickups, I notice some folks have swapped them out, but I am stone happy with them. I plugged this thing in and it played itself and wrote a new crunch-rock song all by itself in the first half hour. A Les Paul would be the obvious comparison, and I would never take anything away from the Les Paul, but if you want something different, but similar, and less expensive, this thing is one heck of an axe. It's not light, it's not heavy, it just has a good feel to it, the wood is dense enough to allow the strings to resonate and sustain for a long time, you can actually feel it. If someone from MK asked me what I would do to make it better, I wouldn't mind if they routed out the back like the Strat so it doesn't dig into my ribs so much, and maybe toss some covers over the pickups for a small cosmetic touch, but otherwise, this is a serious machine, and has become my number one, and I am proud to put it up against my buddys Hamer and my other buddys Les Paul. Don't look any farther, this is the real deal, it has so much guts I can't help smiling when I play it. Enjoy, and thanks to whoever made this thing.

I've been playing this baby for 2 years now, and I have had only a few problems; very minor ones, at that. I feel that I should mention them before I start raving about how wonderful this axe is.

1: The volume and tone knobs pop out for single coil tab, which is awesome. In the middle of a musical (little shop of horrors!), I popped the volume knob out and it actually came fully off. My only problem with this is that it was really hard to get back on for some reason.

2: It's really heavy. Possibly one of the heaviest guitars I've ever lifted. If you are a small and or young musician, I would highly recommend throwing on a strap and trying it out standing up.

Now those are out of the way, lets talk about the positive traits of this guitar. It has a beautiful finish, very solid and well done. Scratches are not very visible, and they come right off with a proper cleaner. The neck has beautiful ebony inlets, and the frets are close to perfect. I have had no problems with the nut, headstock, or tuners. In fact, the tuners are excellent and I found myself "spoiled" by them, causing me to have trouble tuning worse guitars.

Soundwise, this axe has it all. Plugged through my cheap Fender 15G Amp, with everything on 5, I can create tones ranging from a thick, full jazz tone to a crunchy treble-ish Ska tone, just by utilizing the single coil tap. I plugged it into my friends marshall amp set, and his jaw dropped when he heard the sound. He has a les paul, at least twice as expensive as this axe.

It stays in tune very well, even with my extremely thin strings (9's, I believe). I would highly recommend getting a profesional set up, because it plays like butter once you do.

If you're a hobbyist, with a budget, this guitar is a superb choice

I bought this guitar after playing a similiar model Michael Kelly. I instantly fell in love with it I played several other guitars around its price range including a PRS and a Gibson LP... I was blown away mostly by its pickups the clean sound on this guitar is amazing. I wanted to get a guitar with versatlity one that wouldnt break the bank and one that still looked good. This guitar is perfect for me. I completely love the Coil tap pickup system. I can get anything from a Tele sound to a more distorted Strat sound... My only complaint is the volume and tone Knobs seem pretty cheap but thats an easy fix.... Everything else as far as craftsmanship and sound I totally give an A+. My buddy who plays Strictly Gibsons was shocked when I told him how much I spent he likes my guitar better than his Gibby....If you want a guitar thats good for multiple genres and not just metal get this guitar.