Buy Washburn HB Series HB15TSK Electric GuitarWashburn HB Series HB15TSK Electric Guitar Product Description:
- Semi Acoustic Hollow body- Single Cut
- Mahogany Top, Back, and Sides
- Grover 18:1 Rotomatic Chrome Tuners
- 2x Duncan USM Active Hum bucker
Product Description
Hollow body guitars are typically lighter and more resonant than their solid body counter parts. This gives a somewhat more mellow tone to the guitar making it well suited for Jazz, Blues, or Rock. The HB17 is unique among other hollow bodies in that it features active hum bucker pickups, resulting in higher output more suitable for rock and blues.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Honestly, this is a great guitar!
By Zelie Nic
Like I said in the title, this is a great guitar! And I mean that.A lot of people will slag on this guitar just because it's a Washburn. While I don't like Washburn guitars that much, I a huge fan of this particular model. It has the look I wanted, plus the sound is thick and warm. It really does sound a lot like those 1920s-1930s "floating pickup" guitars that it is modelled after. The thick neck feels real good in your hands.There are three different versiosn of this guitar. There's another HB-15 that has the volume and tone knobs on the body itself, and then there's an HB-15 with a single cutaway. Personally, I REALLY wanted the knobs on the pickguard, so that's what I bought. The tabacco burst is cool looking.I sanded my guitar's neck and body. The neck's so smooth and the guitar looks older, as if it may actually be from the 1930s. The only other alteration I made was moving the strap peg to the neck. Most guitar snobs I know (and we all know a couple) are surprised to hear that this jazz-box is a Washburn. A comporable guitar will run you $600!The only downsides I've had with my HB-15 is a little buzzing around the fifth fret. I had the fret filed by a luthier (about $10) and haven't had any more buzz since. Oh, it does pay to keep the bridge around the same area, because it can set the intonation off.Washburn's HB-15 is a GREAT guitar for looks, sound, playability, and affordability.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.A Great Guitar For The Money!
By R. Laplander
When I retooled, I set out to find the 'right' guitar for what I am playing now - 1930's thru 1960's Honky-Tonk, Hillbilly Boogie, early Western Swing and pure form rockabilly. Several years ago I had a Washburn cutaway very similar to this style and had enjoyed it, but found it to be an unnecessary guitar at the time. With that in mind, when I started my search this time that was where I began, and quickly fell into this little beauty! Right out of the box it had the tone and 'vibe' I was looking for. It has that vintage sound rarely found in today's guitars, even without being plugged in. I gave it a run along the neck and was very satisfied, though a little tweaking was in order for my individual playing style. Then I plugged it into my 1938 Supro amp and was very pleased to hear that the mini humbucker - which has an either you like it or you don't reputation - did just what I wanted. It produced a nice warm vintage sound while with just a twist of the knob was able to really honk. (All to often the tone knob doesn't do enough on a budget guitar for a pickup to really 'live'.) Through a modern amp with more balls and tone capability it raps through a whole range of tones and capabilities with ease.The 'touch' of the guitar is also enough vintage to satisfy those of us who learned on the old, cheap classics while being light enough to be a delight to play. A good, strong feeling neck with decent size fret wires feels good. The setup out of the box was fine after just a skootch of tweaking. The floating bridge is something I needed to get used to again and may be a little weak - time will tell. That is what I will watch most. Like all arch tops, until the strings settle in you will have tuning issues. I personally may try a different bridge with metal string saddles somewhere down the road, but am unsure what this would do to the tone, so we will see. Just keep your graphite handy when you string it up with your favorites. The depth of the body is less than the one I had before and fits my frame perfectly. I'm a smaller guy - if you are a big fella, you may want to stay away from this guitar as you'll overwhelm it. Strangely enough for a Washburn, 'robust' is not the word that springs to mind with this guitar either, as most Washburns I've experienced are built like tanks. However solid this guitar is. It's got a vintage feel to it, though not in a cheap or delicate way, more in that 'dependable' way.Looks wise, it has it all going on. Remember: even the vintage guitars were bright and shiny when they were new, as is this one. If you want that 'vintage' look, meaning a guitar that looks 60 or 70 years old - then go out and get one of those old dogs, baby sit it and deal with the problems. If you want a 'vintage' look, meaning a guitar that looks like those guitars of yore when they arrived in the eager musician's hands, then this is your new puppy, ready to begin life and make music. Travel back in time with it, and this would have been one of the top of the line guitars in fit and finish. It truly is a beautiful guitar, well accoutered and finished. And Washburn is serious about their quality control as well - I found one from a dealer for less than half the normal $350.00 price tag because it had a tiny chip in the paint on the back of the headstock. I'll live with that 'imperfection', I'm sure.Now, the guitar is not for everyone. This is not going to be your weapon of choice if you are playing rock, or in a very loud environment - feedback WILL become an issue. Nor would I recommend this for anyone serious about jazz leads, unless they are all about retro. The guitar is excellent for rhythm and second guitar work, but in my opinion would be weak for serious lead work. The pickup wouldn't be able to keep up with the necessary nuances for that sort of work either (in my opinion). However, in what I have experienced with this guitar for my role (second guitar with only a select number of actual leads) this guitar holds up excellent.Whether you are a Washburn fan or not - and I have generally not been over the years - this guitar should please you. Are we seeing a turning point to Washburn? I hope so. At one time they made excellent guitars for the folk market. Then they got crappy (like an awful lot of others did too). Whether they have finally turned a corner or not will remain to be seen (I haven't bothered to keep up with their developments), but in my opinion they hit it right on the head with this box. Just remember what it's good at and I think you'll be as happy as I am.Robert J. LaplanderLead singer and frontman for Texas '55
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.It is a great guitar!
By Micky
This guitar is wonderful. It's acoustic sound is suprisingly good, and plugged in it's a dream. The neck, the action, and setup were spot on out of the box. It's great looking, too. For a couple hundred bucks and some change, this guitar is an utter bargin! Of course, this guitar is not for everyone. It would probably feed-back in a typical rock band, and it's old-school looks are not exactly fasionable. But for jazz, blues, folk and other forms of music that don't make your ears bleed, this guitar is great. And for the music I play, this guitar is perfect. It's is a keeper.
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