Epiphone Songmaker DR-100, Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar - Natural

Ordered this guitar for my grand daughter who has already gone through a "beginner" guitar and got fairly proficient! She LOVES this unit. Says the action is much superior to her last, as well as everything else.

As a beginner this guitar is perfect for me. Had it setup with lighter strings the action was a little too high easy fix! Very happy with this guitar!!!

I'm sure a lot of people cross shop this guitar with some of the cheaper offerings from Rogue like the RA-100D, so I'm going to compare the two as I have experience with both. I'm a new guitar player but I have played Sax for years and, having owned several, have a good sense of quality instruments, so take this as you will.All in all I'm very happy with this guitar and have no reason to spend more money on something better right now. It's a great guitar for learning and lacks nothing that prevents you from progressing. Something I've learned over the years is you really just want a nice quality instrument to learn on. You don't need perfect quality high end, but really low end instruments have deficiencies that can cause distractions and hinder your learning.I purchased this guitar after I gave away my Rogue RA-100D. I had previously purchased the Epiphone Les Paul Special II and was very happy with the quality for the price, so when I was looking to get another acoustic I went with the brand I knew.Now the Rogue was by no means an awful guitar. It was my first guitar, and I was lucky in my purchase of it and was actually surprised by the quality for the money. I had originally paid $70 on sale, and the 100D is two steps up from the "starter" and RA-090D, all Dreadnought style guitars made by "Rogue". The frets were smooth and didn't chew up my palm like an awful electric I tried previously, the body was solid, the tuners were perfectly functional and the finish was decent. Perfectly suitable for learning and the sound (to me) was fine once I replaced the strings. Problem is Rogue is just a brand name, I have no idea who the actual company that makes them is, they don't seem to have a website and nobody to contact if I had an issue with it. That said, it's a $70 guitar, what more do you want?As I said I had tried a cheap budget electric guitar from here so I could learn with Rocksmith 2014, so I bought the "Legacy Solid Body Electric", and it was awful. Intonation was off, it wouldn't stay in consistent tune, the finish was imperfect and had bubbles and chips, and worst of all the edges of the frets were sharp and would scrape up my palm as I played. Sound was terrible as well, so I sent it back within a week.So having one good and one bad experience with these cheap knock-off guitars, I decided to go with what I knew should be good and looked for another Epiphone. The Epiphone DR-100 was the closest match to what I was learning on before and it was reasonably priced.Compared to the $70 Rogue RA-100, what does the extra $30 for the Epiphone DR-100 get you? Well, the body of the Epiphone is not quite as thick/deep, which is something that affects the sound slightly, but not very much. Overall I'd say the Epiphone is more consistent in tone, a little less rich than the bigger, more bulbous Rogue. That said, I think I like the size of the Epiphone better, it sits in my lap better, easier to get my arm around it, but I think the Rogue had the ability to get a little louder due to the body size.Build quality - The Rogue wasn't bad, but the Ephiphone is clearly better The details are much nicer, the lacquer finish is more consistent, and if you look inside the body the workmanship is clearly more clean and consistent with the Epiphone.Features - Tuning machines feel virtually the same to me between the two. The nut is plastic on both guitars, I don't know enough to say one is better than the other. The Epiphone has a strap pin on the heel, something the Rogue did not have, which means if you use a strap with the rogue you'll need a head strap loop. The truss is adjustable on the Epiphone, not on the Rogue. Both have the same number of frets. A nice detail for beginners on the Epiphone are the marks on the edge of the head to note frets when you look down. I replaced the strings on both guitars shortly after I bought them, but just to note the strings on the Rogue appeared like they were corroded or old when I got it. Not a big deal, it's usually a safe bet to just put fresh strings on a brand new guitar anyway, but just something to note.

I am an intermediate level guitar player, who was looking for an acoustic guitar to leave laying around the house or to play by a campfire. This guitar is perfect for that, it was inexpensive enough that I can play it anywhere or let anyone play it without worrying about what could happen to it. I am not saying that it is not a good instrument, it would be a perfect guitar for someone who is looking to learn how to play.Quality: For the price range, I am impressed with the quality of the guitar. I bought the guitar with the sunburst finish. It looks high quality, and has been resistant to pick scratches. The neck plays well, but the edges of the frets could use a little bit of filing. I would expect to have to do some fret work on any guitar of this price range. The bridge pins and nut seem to be a low quality plastic, but that is to be expected. The tuners work well, and it holds tune okay.Sound: The guitar sounds okay. With the stock strings it did not have a very deep, warm sound, but a better set of strings helped. I would not use this guitar gigging, but it sounds good enough for what I bought it for.Overall, I am happy with my purchase of this guitar. It fits what I was looking for when I bought a guitar in this price range. If you are a beginning guitar player, this would be a good instrument to start on before moving to a more expensive model in the future.If you found this review helpful, please click helpful below.