Guitar Tech: Hohner OSC Review

By Jim Basara
Last week, we learned how the Hohner company endeavors to instill German engineering and quality assurance standards in guitar manufacturers in Korea, China, and Indonesia. I came away impressed, particularly that they put forth such a huge effort to set up each guitar with a list over $150.00.  But, the proof is in the guitar, and Hohner was gracious enough to send over a couple for us to evaluate.

The first review is on the OSC, in particular the OSC Archtop II. The OSC line is intended to be a guitar made from the best qualities of a Stratocaster and Telecaster, packaged in an innovative design. When I write guitar reviews, my intent is to make it an educational experience for the reader. It doesn’t do anyone much good for me to say the guitar is cool, has nice tone, and solid playability. I will try my best to put the guitars I review in perspective, as compared to similar, well-known instruments on the market.  I will also try to explain why I do and don’t like certain aspects so that you can determine how closely my tastes resemble your own. Even if you have no interest in the particular guitar I’m reviewing, you should find the discussion educational. With luck, you’ll learn how to better explain why you like certain guitars more than others.

For background, here are the specs that the company sent me:

OSC ARCHTOP II
- Body: Solid Ash single cutaway
- Flame Maple Top
- Bolt-on Maple neck w/ Rosewood Fretboard
- Grovertm die-cast tuners (chrome)
- High-performance Teslatm series pickups
- 25” scale length
- Available Finishes: Natural, Cherry Sunburst, Trans. Black
- MSRP: $ 679
- Street Price: $429

Now, on to the review…

First Sight

I always start a review right when I open the box/case. Is it love at first sight?  How do I feel about the look of the guitar before I even touch it?

In this case, I was very pleased with the look of the guitar. The influence of the Telecaster on the overall design was obvious but in a much more modern styling. The satin finish on the maple top was also unique and very stylish. The routs for the single coils were clean and nicely fit, unlike many mid-range guitars that often have spaces. There were no finish flaws on the top or on the hardware. 

One impressive feature that I noticed immediately was that the fret ends are hidden. As you can see in Figure 1 below, the fret tangs have been trimmed and the fret ends do not show on the side of the fretboard.  Compare that with Figure 2, which is what you will normally see, and it is evident how much more of a polished look this gives. 

Very, very few manufacturers make the effort to achieve this look.

Fender, Gibson, PRS, etc., all slot their fretboard all the way through and, if they want to achieve a hidden fret look, they do so with binding. Many boutique luthiers say that as the neck shrinks, the fret ends can protrude and harm the playability of the guitar. I’ve honestly never felt a neck where this has happened, but I do prefer the elegant look of hidden frets even though it makes it much more of a pain to re-fret.

After studying the guitar at length before touching it, the only three issues I could come up with were:  (1) that the headstock had too much gloss on it and could have been better matched with the satin top, (2) that black screws were used on the single coil pickups while chrome screws were used on the double humbucker (I’d recommend black for everything on this guitar), and (3) that a tiny bit of the routing hole for the double humbucker is visible. Note that these things are REALLY nitpicky and probably unfair comments for a guitar that sells for under $500. But hey, this is Guitar Jam and we’re a tough audience.

First Touch

In picking the OSC up for the first time, the initial thing I noticed was the weight – definitely lighter than I expected, given the surface area of the guitar. The guitar weighed in at a comfortable 7.2 pounds. 

Holding the guitar in playing position, several other impressive features came to light. First, the neck had a great feel. One of the most common playability issues with low to mid-range guitars is when the manufacturer heavily lacquers the back of the neck (with cheap lacquer) and causes a “sticky” feel. The OSC neck has a very light coat of satin and is smooth and comfortable. I also noticed that Hohner made the higher frets extremely accessible by doing two things very well. First, the combination of a forward neck and the cutaway being cut all the way to the 24th fret allowed my pinky to hit the 24th fret on the high E string in normal hand position with only a slight opening of my hand.  Secondly, the neck joint is very well designed. As you can see in Figure 3 to the right, the body is rounded to allow your hand to slide smoothly into position. Also, the heel of the neck protrudes only 0.69 inches on the high E side and 0.43 inches on the low E side. Compare that with the block-like neck joint of the Fender LoneStar Strat in Figure 4 below, which forces the back of your hand drastically out of position when you reach for the high notes. On this LoneStar, I can only play to the 16th fret without altering my hand position. When I re-work Strats for playability, I smooth out the neck heel as much as possible to maximize playability in the upper register. Figure 5 shows a set neck joint of a PRS Custom 24. PRS does a fantastic job on the cutaway, but the neck heel protrudes significantly from the body, such that I can only play in normal position up to the 22nd fret.  Realistically, I shouldn’t even be comparing the OSC against a USA Strat and a PRS because of the price range, but the accessibility of the OSC demanded the comparison.

The body contour is also worth mentioning. I really like the deep contour on the back, which goes from 1.64 inches down to .65 inches. This made the guitar hang very comfortably. My only very minor complaint here is that I wish the contour extended further back toward the tail of the guitar, like the deep contoured Strats do or the Anderson Tele-styled bodies, which have fantastic contour.

The final item that is worth mentioning is that Hohner appears to have softened the fretboard edge slightly, where as many of the mid-range guitars on the market have a very sharp corner on the fretboard. This makes the guitar much more comfortable to play.

Setup

The next step was to tune the guitar to pitch and see how it felt. Remember from my article on Hohner, the US techs do a setup on every Hohner guitar with a list price greater than $150, so I was expecting a clean factory setup on this guitar. I found it to be a solid middle-of-the road setup, pretty much what I would expect from any non-custom instrument. The neck was very straight and there were no visibly high frets (we’ll discuss this more later), which told me that there was probably a lot of room to improve the playability without major surgery. Remember from my earlier articles that manufacturers across the board set up guitars at a “safe” string height to take out any possibility of string buzz, even if the player has a hard pick attack. I personally hate this, but I understand why they do it.  Most players pick up guitars in stores and first play them without plugging them in. If they hear the acoustic buzzing that is present when a guitar is set up aggressively with low action, they immediately conclude that the guitar is crap.  Sad, but true.

Technical Setup Evaluation

Now it was time to pull out the calipers and gauges. The first thing measured was string height. The chart below compares the string height measurements on the OSC, as delivered, to the manufacturer specs of a 2001 American Strat, as provided by Stewart MacDonald.

String Height Measurements:

Hohner OSC

                Low E                High E

Fret 1        0.025                0.018

Fret 12      0.08                0.075

*****************************************

2001 American Strat

                Low E                High E

Fret 1        0.02                0.018

Fret 12      0.075              0.065

The next measurement taken was the neck width. When playing the instrument for the first time, I felt that the neck was a cross between a PRS wide/thin and a Gibson 60’s neck, so I decided to use those for a comparison, since I have a few here to measure.

Neck Width Measurements

2001 American Strat

            Hohner OSC        PRS Wide-Thin

Fret         1.72                   1.7

Fret 12    2.08                 2.05

*******************************************

Neck Thickness Measurements

        Hohner OSC        Les Paul 60's Neck

Fret         0.813              0.822

Fret 12    0.9                 0.869

In plain terms, if you’re a fan of baseball bat necks, like the Gibson ‘50s or Jeff Beck Strat, you might not find this neck substantial enough for you. I have seven or eight Strats in the shop now and I find the OSC to have a fairly close feel to those, on average, but a hair wider. The LoneStar Strat shown in Figure 4, for instance, measures 1.71” at the nut and 2.03” at the 12th fret.

Nut Slots and Intonation

If you’re wondering why I lump nut slots and intonation together, you didn’t read my earlier article on buying a guitar☺. As I stated in the article, you can’t expect perfect intonation until you slot the nut perfectly. The method I use for testing this is to tune the open note and then test the tuning on the first fret. The OSC performed pretty well, actually better than expected given its price point.  There are two slots that require slight adjustment to meet my standards, but this guitar is fine as is.  The intonation wasn’t perfect but again, it was well within the acceptable range. Overall, I found the nut slots and intonation to be on the good end of what I expect from any production guitar, including Strats and Les Pauls, and much better than I expect from a guitar at this price point.

Fret Check

As I stated earlier, the neck and frets looked good visually. That usually means the guitar is very playable and can be set up to be acceptable to most players. The real fret test, however, is to check how level the frets are using a fret rocking tool, such as Stewart-MacDonald’s Fret Rocker. This is a simple tool that allows you to test for high and loose frets.  On the OSC, I found 6 loose frets. That may sound shocking, but I just did a setup on a new Gibson Les Paul Supreme and found at least twice that many. Also, let me clarify that by “loose frets” I don’t mean that they fall out if the guitar is held upside down. A fret is “loose” when it isn’t completely seated or glued into the slot and it has some up-flex to it. So, you really can’t dress the frets because when you try to level them, the fret bounces back up after you file it. Frets that are slightly loose aren’t a huge problem unless you want very low action. If I had a customer bring me this guitar to lower the action into the “slinky” range, I’d recommend gluing these frets down. For a medium /medium-low action, they are fine as is.

Plugging In

After checking all of the measurements, it was finally time to plug in. For most of my sound tests, I use a Carr Slant 6, which is a boutique, hand wired amp that provides amazing tone and clarity.

The first step was playing every note on the fretboard – Yes, I practice what I preach. There was no fret buzz, but I really didn’t anticipate any since it came set up at medium action.

I then spent considerable time checking out the sound of the Tesla pickups since this was my first exposure to them. Tesla is a Korean company that is an OEM supplier (i.e. they supply a lot of pickups to manufacturers that put their own brand on them). The model that I tested had a VR-III humbucker in the bridge position and two VR-I single coils in the neck/middle positions. I found the Teslas to be great all-purpose pickups. They are very clean and balanced, with even response throughout the tonal range. They don’t have the “twang” that Fender Strat and Tele pups have, but they have richer mids and bottom end, as well as higher output.

Putting the amp into overdrive, the Teslas responded nicely, giving a great classic rock tone. They gave great overdrive tone without losing their clarity, whereas a lot of pickups get muddy

I then plugged in to a Line 6 Flextone III and tried the guitar out using the Mesa Boogie and the various Marshall models. Again, the guitar responded, ripping out hard rock and heavy metal tones, squeals, and trills that would satisfy most players. Even heavily distorted, individual notes remained clear thru lead runs.  Chords had great bottom end and mids, again with no muddy issues.

Setting It Up

Normally, this is a long part of my reviews, but to be honest, there wasn’t a lot to do here. I cranked down the action to see what I could get out of the guitar. Unfortunately, the bridge bottomed out before I could push it to an unplayable point. I love low, slinky action and an optimal setup for me lies right at the edge of the guitar being unplayable. I usually take the guitar over the edge and then back off until the guitar falls into its most aggressive setup. In most sub-$1000 guitars, I usually have to do some fret leveling or pull the frets and level the fingerboard before I can get happy with the setup.  With the OSC, I was able to get the strings low enough where I could be relatively happy with the guitar without even having to adjust the neck. Admittedly, if I were to want to play this guitar live, I’d still rework it, but it is pretty darn impressive for a sub-$500 instrument.

For reference, here are the original string height measurements as compared to those after setup:

String Height Measurements:

OSC String Height Measurements

                   AS SHIPPED

                Low E                High E

Fret 1        0.025              0.018

Fret 12      0.08                0.075

*************************************

                    AFTER SETUP

                Low E                High E

Fret 1        0.02                0.015

Fret 12      0.065              0.05

Not bad at all, considering no gymnastics were involved to get this improvement out of the setup.  With a quick filing of a couple of nut slots, this guitar is ready to go for just about any player.

Summary and Conclusions

The OSC is one of the best instruments I’ve played in its price range. It has the playability, sound, and solid construction to please any beginning to above average player. From the ads that I see for this guitar, Hohner appears to be targeting the jazz fusion market. While I understand and agree with the marketing strategy of focusing on a particular market segment to penetrate, the OSC is much more versatile and should be considered by any player in the fusion, blues, or rock genres.

Things I liked:

•    Great construction for a guitar at its price point – lots of things normally found in more expensive guitars
•    Excellent playability
•    Great tone

Things I didn’t like:

•    Bridge bottomed out before the action became unplayable

Things I hated:

•    None

All in all, a real winner, and a fabulous guitar for the money.  Great job Hohner!

Comments

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Thank

I just went out bought one for my son and liked it so much I got one for myself to.

Music Go Round was closing out brand new units for $150, WOW I feel I got a good instrument for a great price

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Talk about your unsung heroes. After I bought my OSC Arch1 it made me seriously wonder what goes into the pricing of other brands. Hohner, as a brand, has earned a lot of loyalty from me simply by producing such a gem. I'm considering a second purchase in the S/S/S configuration as well.

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