Optek Music Systems Fretlight 421 Guitar (Classic Jet Black)

CNET editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.0 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jasmine France
• Edited by:
  James Kim
• Reviewed on: 04/07/2005
• Updated on: 03/09/2009

Editors' note: The Fretlight 421 Guitar featured in this review has undergone a number of enhancements. To find out more about the current product line and the improvements that have been made, please visit Fretlight's Web site. Also, note that the information and rating contained on this product page only applies to the old product and should not be considered an accurate representation of any current product in the Fretlight line.

It's not often that we CNET editors get to pretend we're rock stars and play around with conventional musical instruments. So you can imagine our surprise and delight when Optek Music Systems contacted us with a desire to send us its $600 Fretlight 421 guitar. Why would the company want a tech site to review its specialty instrument? Put simply, this is not your average guitar. It can connect directly to a computer, and it features LED lights in the fingerboard meant for teaching novice musicians the basics of play.

Does $600 seem a bit much to spend on an instrument? Then consider that a Standard Fat Strat Fender guitar, which boasts a design strikingly similar to that of the Fretlight, would cost you between $530 to $580. Of course, the Fretlight's no Fender, but the Optek instrument is more technologically advanced than the Strat. We'll get to that later but first, the basics: The Fretlight weighs 8 pounds and is roughly standard size at just more than three feet long and about a foot across at the widest point. While our test guitar came in Classic Jet Black, Optek also offers it in Pearl White, Red Light Red, and Tobacco Sunburst. The body is alder, styled after the Stratocaster, and the neck is maple with a polyurethane finish, and it's curved for comfortable gripping, as is the case with most modern guitars. On the pearl-colored pick guard, the Fretlight features a one custom humbacker/two-single-coil setup. As with the Standard Strat, there are 21 vintage-style frets, a master volume knob, two tone-control dials, a 1/4-inch amp jack, a five-position pickup switch, and all-chrome hardware.

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Recent user reviews

• Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 reviews
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• 2.0 stars

  "Guitar is really Junk"

  by rnoggin on May 5, 2005

• 2.0 stars

  15 out of 15 people found this helpful

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  by ethernet76 on April 23, 2005

• 5.0 stars

  "A unique learning tool that every guitarist should own,"

  by major7 on April 18, 2005

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