Reviews

The designer was very easy to use. If you are unsure about a selection, the "Help Me Choose" option can help you understand more about the options available to you. Any special instructions you have, they will cover all the bases with you to ensure that everything is done correctly.

When I took a first look at my Sanctus, I was amazed. Everything was how I specified and completed with very fine attention to detail. The preview of the guitar was spot on. The neck is extremely smooth, the gloss finish on the body is mirror-like, action setup correctly - no buzzing. I have nothing to complain about, Halo has a 5/5 from me and I am already considering another order.

very happy with the service and the instrument

I ordered a 6 string, left handed guitar. I love it!

Outstanding, dream come true. absolutely great product and customer service was quick, helpful and personal.

Why are these Chinese made guitars so expensive? Just cause you assemble them in the United States doesn't mean you can mark them up as if they were USA built. Why the lack of original body styles? The very few Halo offers are absolutely abysmal. The majority of their lineup of body styles are direct rip offs of other big name companies. Not even an original inlay option? Horrible.

Go look at what used Halo guitars sell for. Not even 1/4th of their build cost. They do not retain value.

[Halo Admin Response] - Hi Harvey, our custom shop guitars are relatively expensive because we painstakingly build them one at a time and we only use the highest quality material, hardware, and electronics possible. On top of that, our luthiers are experts in the craft with over 20 years of experience each, on average. We could sell our guitars for less if we reduced the quality and customization across the board, but that's not what we're about. We hear what you're saying on the design side and we will work on that. Thanks. - Jeff Lee, Halo Custom Guitars

The guitar is gorgeous (custom shop TJ semi hollow baritone guitar)! All the little details I asked for were done very well. I was especially happy with how the f-style mandolin headstock turned out. It is beautiful! The custom inlays turned out better than I could have hoped. The guitar plays really well and the bare knuckle and lollar pickups sound great. It was a long wait but was well worth it.

Halo could improve with shorter build times, updates throughout the build with pictures of progress, and a 360° view on website when designing the instrument. Continue adding more options to the online design builder. More detailed pictures and questions to make sure everything is correct during final correspondence before guitar is shipped. Continue adding articles explaining all the different aspects of the options when building/designing the instrument. This helped me a lot when researching before I ordered. Maybe one on one consultants that can give advice on options/builds to make sure what the customer wants is done properly and makes sense for the overall instrument design/function.

Communication with Jeff was great when I had any questions or changes. Always got back to me very quickly and addressed any concerns I had to make things right. I know there is a lot of builds and other things he probably has to take care if but I felt he genuinely wants to help and make sure you get exactly what you want.

It was quite a long wait for the guitar, but now it has finally arrived. Looks even better than the images you sent prior to shipping. Perfect setup and action right out of the case, it just required minor tuning. The instrument sounds absolutely great, neck feels ultra smooth. The Buckeye cap and the fretboard look awesome, it's tough to put the guitar back into the case. The t4m bridge fits and works perfectly. Honestly, this is one of the best guitars I ever got in my hands (and I have quite a few, ranging from Gibson custom to music man monarchy...). I am truly impressed with the craftsmanship and the overall product quality, this is exactly what I had hoped for. Congrats for the perfect build and keep up the excellent work!

Beautiful guitar, great value, killer tone and really great staff. The guys at Halo were a real pleasure to talk with and I ended up buying 2 guitars...this one is mine and the other one I picked up for my nephew for Xmas. It was just before the holidays and I had done some online browsing and was starting to settle in on a guitar. Then while I was out running errands I was driving by the Halo showroom and thought I'd stop in and see what they had. They set me up with a killer guitar for my nephew and while we were talking about that one, this one caught my eye. I love the wood selection and the reveal. Custom shop quality at reasonable prices. Highly recommended.

Sweet guitar and great sellers to deal with!

Ordered a Lefty 8 string Merus - I like it a lot! Perfect to play, great clear tone, it arrived exactly as described! The guitar order was checked in depth before starting the production and all the potential issues were brought to my attention to avoid bad surprises, with multiple options to improve the problematic points. All my questions were always answered may it be before or during the build process, and even after the delivery.

I love this guitar! 6 string Merus Neck through with Ebony fretboard, wenge and maple neck with stainless steel frets, Floyd Rose whammy, with Dimarzio pickups. aqua blue with blue burst quilted maple top. I can't gush enough or write enough compliments about how awesome my new custom guitar is that you made me. It is virtually everything I've ever wanted in a guitar. I love it.

I played it at my gig Saturday night and it performed beautifully. Everyone wanted to see it and learn about it. They were impressed, both band mates and the audience alike.

Some cool things: the tone of the guitar is outstanding and during practice on Friday, the band remarked several times how much better it sounded than my other guitars. I have a lot of nice guitars and many have top of the line pickups installed, so for this one to stand out as much as it did in their minds is a testament to the amazing high quality of this guitar. I love all of the tonal options and the ability to switch between them easily. I'm still getting used to it and I haven't tapped in to all of the options yet, but so far, so good.

Usually at a gig, I swap between 3-6 guitars for different tones and in some cases, different tunings. Saturday's gig all of the songs were in standard so I didn't need to worry about that. But I ended up playing the new custom guitar exclusively through the whole gig and never grabbed my Tele or any of my Ibanez guitars. It just sounds so good in so many situations I couldn't put it down. I even left my acoustic in the case and played my new custom electric for the five songs I would've used the acoustic for. Neither the band nor the crowd complained!

Next, the feel of guitar is unlike anything I've ever played. The smooth ebony fretboard, the satin finish on the neck, the neck through body so access to the upper frets was easier, the awesome job Brandon did on the satin to gloss transition on the neck felt perfect and shape and contour of the body and neck made it comfortable to play.

It looks beautiful and I still can't get over how gorgeous the color, bindings and fret inlays look. The headstock looks super good, and it is, the whole guitar, just a gorgeous piece of art. I'm impressed. In fact, I caught myself staring at it while playing almost losing myself while playing!

The whammy bar plays just the way I want it too. Tight but loose, if you know what I mean. Somehow, you struck the perfect balance. Even better is the ability to yank that thing up & backwards, I really appreciate the extra effort you took to deepen the cavity so I can do that.

All in all, this is an A+ guitar that has everything I've ever really wanted/needed in a guitar. Every time I play it, I'm in heaven. It really is amazing what you guys have done. Never before have I been able to get all of these features in the same guitar, from the tone woods, the neck through, the shape, the feel, the finish and look, the pickups, the controls with coil splitting and hi pass filters, I mean it is crazy good.

There are some website options that I think can be improved: the neck I chose includes Purple heart but the website doesn't mention this. I personally am really glad that this turned out the way that it did, but it would have been nice to know ahead of time.

Your pickup options: I think you should have Gravity Storms as an option, they sound so good.

More locking whammy options would be nice, Ibanez has a really nice whammy system.

The purple color for the purple burst is too dark on your website, it might be better to brighten it up a bit.

Allow the control configuration that I have: all four knobs for tone and volume and the pick up selector in the same place.

If Satin and Gloss are chosen on the same guitar, masking/polishing options, especially for the neck.
That was an issue I ran into and had I not lived so close to your shop, I would have been disappointed & angry when I got the guitar.

Having the body rounded on the bottom like I have is a great option and I am so glad you made it available to me. Having it as an option for website would be great.

Having a set-up page: how high/low the action should be, how balanced the pickups should be and close they should be to the strings, what type of strings you want, how straight the neck should be, how the whammy bar should be set up, etc, having a page that is dedicated to that at the end of the process would be a cool way to finish the order.

Finally, the ability to paint the guitar different colors on different parts of the body. So, for example, having the bottom of the body be a bright Blue but have it fade into a dark purple towards the top, or something similar would be a nice option on the website. So much of it is visualization and to have those options would be cool.

Obviously, the time it takes to get the guitar done from order to finish is something that needs to improve, and it appears you are addressing that by hiring more workers.

Got a 7 String Guitar and... I cannot express how much I love it! It’s perfect, it sounds perfect and it’s just everything I could have dreamed of and more! Thank you so much and the team at Halo Guitars!

Guitar showed up this weekend looking even better in person; Jeff was amazingly helpful through the probably unusually long purchasing process for me.
So psyched to finally have this one in my collection!

Ordered a Tele bass. It's awesome and is as cool as I imagined. Shorter lead times could be an improvement.

I ordered a custom guitar (6 string neck through salvus) and I absolutely love it. I've played Gibsons, Fenders, Gretsches, Ibanezes, and EVH's, and the guitar I received knocks them all out of the park in terms of playability. The attention to detail and the quality of the build provided me with a guitar that looks and feels like something straight out of a dream. For improvements, the only thing I can really think of is faster build time, but even that is a small flaw in the big picture. I know that I, and likely most guitar players would rather wait for a well built guitar, then get a bad one quickly. I was really happy with the overall transparency from you guys. If there were any delays or other problems with guitar, it wasn't hidden from me and I really appreciate that.

I ordered a Halo Custom Shop Merus 6 with Seymour Duncan Blackouts, Hipshot Fixed Bridge, Ash Body, Flamed Maple Top and Maple Fingerboard. This guitar is more than I expected, it is absolutely amazing. I will be ordering a second guitar similar to this one because I like it so much. The whole process of designing the guitar to receiving it was great. If I had questions or concerns during the build my emails would be answered quickly by Halo. The Halo luthiers did an amazing job, this guitar is flawless. Anyone in the market for a true custom guitar: I would Highly recommend Halo Custom Guitars. In my opinion, there is nothing to improve on. I am completely satisfied with the guitar's build quality and tone. It is now my favorite guitar.

Ordererd an Electric Guitar and absolutely love it! Could post more pictures of customers' guitars somewhere on the web

Ordered a Custom Clarus, beautiful guitar. Halo can improve by being more upfront with issues and completely upping their communication game.

Ordered a Custom shop Tj 6 28” baritone. Let me tell ya, I love this thing. The attention to detail is INSANE and everything turned out amazing. Jeff was great to work with and very easy to talk to. He made sure everything was correct and exactly what I wanted. Best playing guitar I’ve ever owned. How can Halo improve in general?
I have no real complaints. But it would be cool to see progress photos as updates through the building process.

Ordered a custom guitar and I love it! I honestly think you guys are doing amazing. You guys have amazing service and I love the guitar. Keep it up! You guys pranked me hard with the packing peanuts. When I opened the box they just flowed out. It took me forever to clean it. But I'm glad you made sure the guitar wouldn't get damaged in shipping. It was just funny.

Custom 6 string guitar, blue/green burst with scalloped frets. Plays like a dream and puts my other guitars to shame. Showed up only needing to be tuned and it was ready to play.

I ordered a large neck electric guitar. I loved it.

Headless Octavia 9-String Fretless Guitar. I like it a lot.

Ordered a Custom V and love it. Communication with the customer is key in setting expectations. There were a few design elements which caught me by surprise, such as the top binding not visible when looking directly at the front. The guitar builder showed a clear outline of the guitar which was part of the intended design. The head-stock had this, but not the body. It's a minor gripe on my part, but some customers may be very unhappy with that change in the look. The body width was also slimmer than I expected at the top where it tapers to the neck, but this was a welcome change as the access to the higher frets is awesome. All in all, a great build quality, great play-ability and all round beautiful guitar. Very happy!

5/5 stars. 7 String Salvus with Bare Knuckle black hawk pickups and a Evertune bridge. Heard about Halo through Google. More guitar body shapes would be cool.