NGD: 10-string Agile 27"-30"

[Dayn]

Here are the photos first.









I wanted a 10-string for a while, but Agile was never an option, given I'm Australian. Then I saw that a local music store was stocking Legator guitars, and they had 9-strings! But the price was pretty crazy: about $2,200AU for the normal 9-string, and over $2,800AU for the Lucas Mann signature? No thanks. So I finally saw that Agile had 10-strings back in stock in October 2021, and I instantly jumped on it, price and risk be damned. I figured, if it arrived in good condition, I could spend money on getting the frets dressed etc.

Turns out the Rondo Music webstore won't allow me to pay by card as I couldn't input an Australian state, so it couldn't verify. So I paid an extra $80AU to have Paypal do the conversion, after waiting for the payment to be reversed. Then I had to pay about... $340US to get it shipped here. Which is pretty goddamn insane, but hey, I've never had something so big shipped before across the world, so maybe not? Then it finally shipped, and I didn't realise that it had to clear customs as it was over $1,000AU. So I had to pay a bit more than double for the import fees than I expected, but I paid that immediately. Which was totally on me for not knowing, but I still blame that cunt Gerry Harvey. So overall I paid about... $2,000AU? Or a tiny bit over? Worth the same as an Ibanez Iron Label, or a basic cheap Ibanez Prestige. But still vastly cheaper than Legator.

The first photo is in natural light indoors. Other four photos are in direct sunlight. It's a beautiful dark wine red colour. Cosmetically, it's mostly perfect. The inside finishing of the pickup routes is a little rough, but that's all. There are no marks, nothing wrong with the electronics. I had to jostle the bridge pickup to set it free so I can adjust it - it was pushed down deep. The frets are mostly fine, I think there's a little nick on the highest frets near the top strings, so I might pay to get them dressed properly. No sharp fret ends, nothing raised so far. Otherwise, after what I've heard from their QC, I'm very grateful that it came in very good condition. About the same price as my Ormsby Goliath 8-string, but the frets aren't as perfect and the setup suffered from being shipped from the other side of the world. It was also packed well enough in the case to survive the journey.

I'm glad there were no problems. The case is a little light, though. When the delivery guy handed it to me I was worried there wasn't a guitar in it - but the case is just very light. Nowhere near as solid as my Ibanez's case.

Ten strings, 27" to 30" multiscale. Active pickups. Standard tuning. I believe the F# is a .072, the C# is a .090, and the G# is a .110. I need to adjust the setup, and I might need to get shorter screws and shorter saddles. Surprisingly, the C# seems to be intonated well, and the .090 works well. The F# is sitting high, so that'll need to be fixed. The G# is... well what do you expect? I need at least either a .115 or a .120. Electronics are acceptable. I need to fiddle with the pickups a bit more, after I get it set up properly. I wish the bridge pickup was angled more towards the bridge, but it's not a big deal. Still sounds good. They're not what I'm used to, but I'm fine with a bit of variety. I can't say I 'like' them, but they're perfectly fine.

The tone knob is in an annoying position. I often sit with one leg crossed over the other in classical position, and the tone knob hits my leg, causing the knob to move. The body has a kind of arch to it, without a forearm contour, but it's of no consequence. The neck is a bit thicker than my Ibanez RG2228, but it still feels thin for its size, with shallow shoulders. Very comfortable. First neck-through. I've never had a problem with upper fret access with all my bolt-ons before, but I can't deny that it's certainly very comfortable.

Overall I'm super happy with the risk I took. I'm bloody jealous that those in the US get easy access to these cheap guitars, amazing for the price. I just need to set it up now and get used to it. I want a 27"-30" 8-string acoustic, but with all the price for importing and the risk, that'll have to wait a while...

 

[bostjan]

The tone knob is in an annoying position. I often sit with one leg crossed over the other in classical position, and the tone knob hits my leg, causing the knob to move.

Do you use the tone knob?

If the answer is anything other than yes, bypass it. You could even remove it if it's still a bother.

Standard tuning.

Does that even mean anything with a 10 string?! I'm assuming G#C#F#BEADGBE. I'd ask for clips, but I already expended all of my ss.o-specific clichés in another thread.

Congrats and Happy NGD!

PS: Just have fun with it™

 

[CovertSovietBear]

Glad the guitar made it through all the crap you had to go to, happy NGD! Love the red

 

[Dayn]

Do you use the tone knob?

If the answer is anything other than yes, bypass it. You could even remove it if it's still a bother.



Does that even mean anything with a 10 string?! I'm assuming G#C#F#BEADGBE. I'd ask for clips, but I already expended all of my ss.o-specific clichés in another thread.

Congrats and Happy NGD!

PS: Just have fun with it™

Yep, standard as in 'throw another string on it a fourth below and keep going'. The .110 is a bit loose but alright clean and with a light touch. I still need to set it up, and I'm not satisfied with the pickups or tone just yet.

Good call on the tone knob. I do use it on my other guitars, but this guitar is just extra for the sake of it. Might look into replacing it with something else.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Hell yeah dude! I love my top-line Agiles. I would like to recommend you check to make sure the case is deep enough for the tilt of the headstock. I've had to throw some extra foam under the neck brace to keep the the tip of the headstock from pressing into the back wall of the case pretty hard.
Edit: I can tell from the shit ass winding they're still using Labella strings.

 

[Dayn]

Hell yeah dude! I love my top-line Agiles. I would like to recommend you check to make sure the case is deep enough for the tilt of the headstock. I've had to throw some extra foam under the neck brace to keep the the tip of the headstock from pressing into the back wall of the case pretty hard.
Edit: I can tell from the shit ass winding they're still using Labella strings.

I think it is fine, but my first thought was to make sure the case is a lot more padded than it already is. It made it all the way here from the other side of the world in that case, but I don't want to take any other chances.

From what I can tell they're still La Bella strings. I haven't used La Bella in a long time, but I'll be getting Newtone strings after I play around with it some more. The tuning pegs are Grover and they don't feel instant like my Prestige Ibanez's tuners. I'll see how they go once they're restrung.

Interestingly, the high E snapped when I was adjusting intonation. The end of the string (snapped at the ball end) somehow flicked back and drove itself into my fingernail from the top, making a little .009" hole in my nailbed, drawing blood. Never had that happen before.

In any event, I need to get shorter screws for the saddles. There looks to be enough room for intonation, but the string hits the screw, preventing it from being properly set back. Perhaps they should move the saddles back slightly more.

Similar comment for the bridge pickup. After getting them set up with the right height for the right output level, I took a fair bit of bass out of my usual tone that I use for all my guitars, and they tightened up a lot better. Slightly different character of tone compared to my other instruments, of course, but it sounds pretty good. Even the low G# sounds good, if it doesn't rattle. 'Good' being relative for such a low note, of course.

Might have to get the frets looked at. They're almost entirely fine, but I think there are just a few minute parts that aren't completely perfect. Which I expected. But overall, it's better than I expected, and I'm pretty damn happy. It's a heckin' chonker of an instrument but still easy to handle.

 

[OmegaSlayer]

Awesome guitar and congrats for having the guts to take the risk

It's so bad that in US the guy have Agiles and here in EU we must deal with Harley Bentons
You can see the assembly like and factory is the same, but the QC is on different universes

 

[wcw]

Here are the photos first.


View attachment 102979
View attachment 102980
View attachment 102981
View attachment 102982
View attachment 102983


I wanted a 10-string for a while, but Agile was never an option, given I'm Australian. Then I saw that a local music store was stocking Legator guitars, and they had 9-strings! But the price was pretty crazy: about $2,200AU for the normal 9-string, and over $2,800AU for the Lucas Mann signature? No thanks. So I finally saw that Agile had 10-strings back in stock in October 2021, and I instantly jumped on it, price and risk be damned. I figured, if it arrived in good condition, I could spend money on getting the frets dressed etc.

Turns out the Rondo Music webstore won't allow me to pay by card as I couldn't input an Australian state, so it couldn't verify. So I paid an extra $80AU to have Paypal do the conversion, after waiting for the payment to be reversed. Then I had to pay about... $340US to get it shipped here. Which is pretty goddamn insane, but hey, I've never had something so big shipped before across the world, so maybe not? Then it finally shipped, and I didn't realise that it had to clear customs as it was over $1,000AU. So I had to pay a bit more than double for the import fees than I expected, but I paid that immediately. Which was totally on me for not knowing, but I still blame that cunt Gerry Harvey. So overall I paid about... $2,000AU? Or a tiny bit over? Worth the same as an Ibanez Iron Label, or a basic cheap Ibanez Prestige. But still vastly cheaper than Legator.

The first photo is in natural light indoors. Other four photos are in direct sunlight. It's a beautiful dark wine red colour. Cosmetically, it's mostly perfect. The inside finishing of the pickup routes is a little rough, but that's all. There are no marks, nothing wrong with the electronics. I had to jostle the bridge pickup to set it free so I can adjust it - it was pushed down deep. The frets are mostly fine, I think there's a little nick on the highest frets near the top strings, so I might pay to get them dressed properly. No sharp fret ends, nothing raised so far. Otherwise, after what I've heard from their QC, I'm very grateful that it came in very good condition. About the same price as my Ormsby Goliath 8-string, but the frets aren't as perfect and the setup suffered from being shipped from the other side of the world. It was also packed well enough in the case to survive the journey.

I'm glad there were no problems. The case is a little light, though. When the delivery guy handed it to me I was worried there wasn't a guitar in it - but the case is just very light. Nowhere near as solid as my Ibanez's case.

Ten strings, 27" to 30" multiscale. Active pickups. Standard tuning. I believe the F# is a .072, the C# is a .090, and the G# is a .110. I need to adjust the setup, and I might need to get shorter screws and shorter saddles. Surprisingly, the C# seems to be intonated well, and the .090 works well. The F# is sitting high, so that'll need to be fixed. The G# is... well what do you expect? I need at least either a .115 or a .120. Electronics are acceptable. I need to fiddle with the pickups a bit more, after I get it set up properly. I wish the bridge pickup was angled more towards the bridge, but it's not a big deal. Still sounds good. They're not what I'm used to, but I'm fine with a bit of variety. I can't say I 'like' them, but they're perfectly fine.

The tone knob is in an annoying position. I often sit with one leg crossed over the other in classical position, and the tone knob hits my leg, causing the knob to move. The body has a kind of arch to it, without a forearm contour, but it's of no consequence. The neck is a bit thicker than my Ibanez RG2228, but it still feels thin for its size, with shallow shoulders. Very comfortable. First neck-through. I've never had a problem with upper fret access with all my bolt-ons before, but I can't deny that it's certainly very comfortable.

Overall I'm super happy with the risk I took. I'm bloody jealous that those in the US get easy access to these cheap guitars, amazing for the price. I just need to set it up now and get used to it. I want a 27"-30" 8-string acoustic, but with all the price for importing and the risk, that'll have to wait a while...

Reminds me of when I got my Agile 10, I bought the exact model and color and including shipping was about 1.7k SGD, then shortly after I paid the Rondo music owner told me that he couldn't ship it to me because it was rosewood and I immediately started freaking out cuz that was the first time I ever spent that much on something and now this guy was telling me I wasn't going to actually get it, but there was the grey color which was made of ebony or whatever so it all worked well in the end and when the thing came, it was massive heart wrencher because all the bridge saddles are ever so slightly misaligned with the holes in the string through body, which was negligible on the higher strings but 10th string being unable to come out from the body when I was trying to put heavier gauges on it. So basically I had to, on the first day of receiving it, drill into the most expensive guitar I had bought and had shipped across the world, in order to actually use it. Then it turns out that the pickups, which were active, were microphonic for some reason?? So I went out and bought 50 candles to melt to wax pot them, which somehow worked, and surprisingly well too, but now the pickups look absolutely jank. Eventually I just got tired of active pickups as a whole, but mostly due to them looking like crap, I contacted Rondo Music to get passive Agile 10 pickups, and in the meantime I redid almost all the electronics into just two push pull volume pots for each pickup. Funnily enough, its my most expensive guitar and is also the one I operate on the most. I do hope you don't experience any of these problems though they were a real pain for me.

 

[Pietjepieter]

I admire your courage by trying to tame that beast!

All those strings, love the look of it! Is it a little possible to reach the low string?
I am a 8 player and always felt that 8 would be the maximum for some reason!

Whould be nice to see a demo on how you use it!

 

[pondman]

That looks really nice. Congrats.

 

[Dayn]

So I've ordered strings which probably won't get here until the end of the month. I've been having some tuning and intonation issues, so I figured I'd get some fresh strings on it to reduce those variables. As for gauges, I went from .074 to .070 for F#. The .074 is proportionately larger than its surrounding strings, and has had some intonation issues. Surprisingly I think the .090 for C# is bang on for intonation. Instead of the .110 for G# I'm trying out .115 and .120, but I don't know how that will improve anything, if at all.

I've gotten shorter screws as well to increase the range the saddles can be moved back. The issue with that is that the string holes should have been drilled further back. When the saddle is way back, the thicker strings have to bend back before going over the saddle. Being thicker, they can't really bend, and it can lift the saddle up - obviously making proper intonation impossible. Which means moving the saddle forward makes it sit lower, giving it more speaking length - it's a silly balancing act. But it's still strange that the .090 is great. I might need to look into how I can topload the strings beneath the saddles.

I think the neck is fine, but when I've done as much as possible, I'll likely get a tech to make sure everything's level with a proper setup. Drilling might be involved, or maybe even tapered strings could be on the cards.

I admire your courage by trying to tame that beast!

All those strings, love the look of it! Is it a little possible to reach the low string?
I am a 8 player and always felt that 8 would be the maximum for some reason!

Whould be nice to see a demo on how you use it!

It's fairly simple. The neck is maybe 2mm thicker than my RG2228, and it has shallow shoulders so it doesn't get in the way. I play in classical position, so with the neck in the crook of my thumb there's plenty of reach. Muting is simple enough, but a lot of strings are a lot of strings.

I'm used to 8 strings, but I've always had fret markers. I must admit I'm occasionally finding myself a little lost at times.

 

[ElRay]

Nice.

Dang, I miss the old "Violin Varnish" Interceptors from the early 2000s.

 

[odibrom]

So I've ordered strings which probably won't get here until the end of the month. I've been having some tuning and intonation issues, so I figured I'd get some fresh strings on it to reduce those variables. As for gauges, I went from .074 to .070 for F#. The .074 is proportionately larger than its surrounding strings, and has had some intonation issues. Surprisingly I think the .090 for C# is bang on for intonation. Instead of the .110 for G# I'm trying out .115 and .120, but I don't know how that will improve anything, if at all.

I've gotten shorter screws as well to increase the range the saddles can be moved back. The issue with that is that the string holes should have been drilled further back. When the saddle is way back, the thicker strings have to bend back before going over the saddle. Being thicker, they can't really bend, and it can lift the saddle up - obviously making proper intonation impossible. Which means moving the saddle forward makes it sit lower, giving it more speaking length - it's a silly balancing act. But it's still strange that the .090 is great. I might need to look into how I can topload the strings beneath the saddles.

I think the neck is fine, but when I've done as much as possible, I'll likely get a tech to make sure everything's level with a proper setup. Drilling might be involved, or maybe even tapered strings could be on the cards.

It's fairly simple. The neck is maybe 2mm thicker than my RG2228, and it has shallow shoulders so it doesn't get in the way. I play in classical position, so with the neck in the crook of my thumb there's plenty of reach. Muting is simple enough, but a lot of strings are a lot of strings.

I'm used to 8 strings, but I've always had fret markers. I must admit I'm occasionally finding myself a little lost at times.

I have average to small hands, 8 strings are my limit, 7 is the perfect count. I admire your courage venturing into that... beast. Would love to hear a musical piece coming out of it.

Congrats on the new guitar, may she serves you well for years to come.

 

[MetalHead40]

I can't even imagine trying to play something like that myself. Power to ya.

 

[BeyondAntares]

Man we Aussies go through so much trouble to ship decent gear over here. The hammer us on the exchange rate, secondly the ridiculous shipping costs and finally being slapped hard with customs and duties on what we can't get here locally.

Glad you got your guitar in the end and happy with it in the end. How's the reach when playing on the tenth string? How are the stretches on the 30" neck?

Finally, if you want to remove all the #'s in the lower 3 strings, you might want to tune down a step and drop tune the 10th string.

from
G#C#F#BEADGBE to ABEDGCFAD

 

[Dayn]

Man we Aussies go through so much trouble to ship decent gear over here. The hammer us on the exchange rate, secondly the ridiculous shipping costs and finally being slapped hard with customs and duties on what we can't get here locally.

Glad you got your guitar in the end and happy with it in the end. How's the reach when playing on the tenth string? How are the stretches on the 30" neck?

Finally, if you want to remove all the #'s in the lower 3 strings, you might want to tune down a step and drop tune the 10th string.

from
G#C#F#BEADGBE to ABEDGCFAD

Physically, it's quite easy to play. I can reach the 10th string without any issue in classical position all the way up to about the 21st/22nd fret. Some of the stretches are a bit daunting when playing wide voicings for things, but it's not an issue - after all, there are so many strings, you can just phrase it on the lower strings higher up the neck.

Apart from my classical, this is the first instrument I have without any inlays. It's mostly fine, but because of the extreme fan, when I look at the higher frets, I sometimes play one fret higher. That's because the side dots are located between the frets, but on the bass end, so straight-line vision ends up with me playing the 20th as if it was the 19th fret. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I appreciate my Strandberg having slightly offset side dots to counteract that slant.

It's getting a proper setup at the moment. I'll be posting an update when I get it back. In short, it's what you'd expect from reading reviews of Agile: frets might need a little bit of work, and the nut is really not cut properly at all: everything is too high, which is partly why the intonation has been difficult. Despite that, I set it up in as reasonable condition as I could given my lack of fine tools, including intonation, so I'm expecting to be very happy with it.

I have new strings now from Newtone which are great. I tried a .115 and .120, but settled with the .120 for G#. I'm fine with the tuning, but no doubt I'll tune it up to A when needed.

 

[trem licking]

I have new strings now from Newtone which are great. I tried a .115 and .120, but settled with the .120 for G#. I'm fine with the tuning, but no doubt I'll tune it up to A when needed.

did you have to drill out the ferrule/body to fit that .120?

 

[Dayn]

did you have to drill out the ferrule/body to fit that .120?

No, I got stupidly lucky, I didn't think about it. The body is fine, but the saddle opening is about .120 wide, so with a little bit of wiggling it just made it through. Anything bigger would be impossible without filing the saddle wider.

 

[trem licking]

No, I got stupidly lucky, I didn't think about it. The body is fine, but the saddle opening is about .120 wide, so with a little bit of wiggling it just made it through. Anything bigger would be impossible without filing the saddle wider.

awesome, this was a concern of mine when i was considering getting one. as easy as drilling out the body probably is, it's not something i really want to have to do. does that string intonate fully?

 

[Dayn]

awesome, this was a concern of mine when i was considering getting one. as easy as drilling out the body probably is, it's not something i really want to have to do. does that string intonate fully?

Right now, not really! Waiting for it to get a full setup.

I did manage to get it very close, by taking the spring out and putting in a shorter screw to pull the saddle back. Enough to make it sound fine for the first seven frets. I think it's a matter of getting it as good as possible and then just settling for the reality that a G#0 at 30" is never going to have perfect intonation at guitar tensions. The .070 for F# and .090 for C# I could get intonated close to perfect, afterI did some work on the nut.

There's a 'design flaw': the string-through holes and saddles should have been placed further back. The saddle can't go 100% of the way back as it would cover the hole. ...I don't think drilling would fix that, but given how close I could get it with a trash nut, it should be fine, for such a ridiculous string. I'll post an update when I get it back, see if my tech could make it work.