HILS NEXT Series Headless Guitar HN3 - Metallic Green

Probably like most people looking at a HILS HN3, I had previously looked at Strandberg, but balked at spending $2000 for such an non-traditional instrument. When I saw videos about the HN3, with a (cough) very similar body but a more traditional neck, I was curious. At this price, I had to grab one and try it. I'm very glad that I did. As I get older, ergonomics become more and more important to me. The HN3 is easily the most ergonomic guitar that I've ever owned. I recently switched from typical rock player position (guitar balanced on right leg and horizontal to the ground) to classical position (holding the guitar neck around 45 degrees). With any traditional guitar (acoustic or electric) this requires you to balance the guitar either between your legs or resting on your left leg, and it pushes the neck far left of it's regular playing position. The HN3 can be rested comfortably on my right leg, leaving the neck right where I need it. My back has never been so happy about my playing position. I did wonder if their output jack placement would be a problem, but it's actually in the perfect spot for playing the guitar balanced on your right leg. The guitar itself seems very solid. I'm not crazy about the pickups, but I don't hate them either. I had all of my gear EQ'd for a PAF style pickup, and on those settings the HN3 was very, very bright. That's not a deal breaker by any stretch, but it does mean that I would not be able to instantly switch back and forth between the HN3 and my regular guitar without resetting all of the tone knobs and EQs. The coil split function is a nice bonus, but I use humbucker pickups 100% of the time. The frets are good in the playing area, but the fret ends, especially above the 12th fret, are a little sharp. It's not annoyingly sharp; I have definitely had worse. However, if you know how to use a fret file you'll probably want to give the frets a little extra love. The neck is very comfortable. It's very darkly roasted, and feels good in my hand. The neck heel is a sculpted bolt-on, and I can easily reach the higher frets. The design, with a nice volute for your hand to bump into at the end, takes away any difference in feel between this neck and a guitar with a headstock. I love that they've engineered in a little ledge so that you can attack a clip-on tuner. At least, that's what I'll be using it for. The nut was perfectly cut on my guitar. I'm always glad to see that. The tuners work fine. The D and G strings are a little annoying to tune because the adjustment knobs are packed so closely together, but it's not a problem for me. If you have really big fingers, you might find it harder. The finish baffles me. The green metallic color is fantastic, and it is applied perfectly to the guitar. I can't find a flaw in the paint anywhere. However, it doesn't feel like a guitar that's been hand-sanded. There's an extremely light texture to the paint, not a slick gloss. I used to build guitars as a hobby, and I know what a nightmare it would be to hand-sand and buff this body, so I can't imagine that this is finished by hand. Some kind of electro-static process, maybe? Regardless, it's remarkable at this price point. Also, I simply can't overstate how nice the gig bag that comes with the guitar is. I've bought instruments 4X the price that came in a cardboard box. The bag for the HN3 is wonderful, and as I intend to travel with the guitar, it's a big reason that I made this purchase. I haven't changed strings yet; that will be a real test for how I get along with this hardware. The strings it came with were fine. I saw a video from Gear Fest where they were showing new models that had vibrato systems. I plan to get one of those as well.

I will start by prefacing that I have owned or currently own different PRS, Fender, Gibson/Epiphone, Ernie Ball and Sterling Music Man, Ibanez, Schecter, Jackson, and other brands and have played across a handful of Strandbergs. Let's start top to bottom, with the neck first. The titanium headpiece is ultra-durable, it has a perfectly cut bone nut, no zero fret, and a flare at the end of the neck to hang from a wall. The fretboard edges aren't sharp at all and are semi-rolled for more comfort, and the stainless steel frets are well-leveled, and had very minimal sharp ends. The frets are between a medium and medium-jumbo size due to their leveling procedure. Adorning the beautiful (but dry, oil it up when you do your restring and setup) rosewood fretboard are abalone-like fretmarkers. On the backside, you see a lovely, smooth, and very comfortable and still fast neck made of roasted maple. To the body... the finish was darn-near flawless with my only gripe being a couple of very small dings on the rim of the neck bolt cavities - no big deal at all, since I look at the front of the guitar anyway. All else was flawless, with a beautiful satin metallic green finish all over the mahogany body. To the hardware... We get two humbuckers, bridge at ≈15K, and neck at ≈11K. Excellent output, not muddy at all, and fairly well-rounded in terms of balance, although there is more of a spike in the mids, which I don't care for although I can just EQ it out. They are wired to a large volume pot and a push-pull tone pot with an orange drop capacitor (awesome). Wiring cavity cover was coated with foil on the inside and the cavity coated in a conductive paint too to make a good electrical seal. The barrel input jack is also very secure, in a great spot, and cable insertion is very satisfying and smooth. The bridge seems very solid, made from an aluminum alloy - very low-profile and aesthetically pleasing. The bottom of the guitar (standing upright) has rubber grommets too to not only balance it when standing up, but also protect the body and finish. Awesome idea. On to the setup. This is where I wasn't expecting much, as I've always had to adjust and fine-tune guitars because I like my action LOW. It came well in-tune, string action was high (2.0mm+) but the intonation (surprisingly) was just about dead-on as well as the neck relief (very slight neck relief, which is perfect). I managed to restring it, oil up the fretboard, lower the saddles, and fine-tune the intonation. With about 1.2mm of action, it was rocking virtually no fret buzz. Plugged in, it was killer. I don't plan on doing a pickup swap any time soon, if at all even, and tuning stability is great. The bridge design is unique and a bit of a different process to learn to restring, but it's very straightforward and easy after the first string change. Let's not exclude the case and the tools they add as well as a quality control certificate as well. The case is easily among the best cases I've seen provided for any guitar up to a couple grand or so (looking at you PRS CE). My wish is that they would have clear-coated finishes offered, but seeing as how HILS is just introducing to the US market, patience will have to do. My 3 suggestions to improve the guitar follow. 1) Include (or install from the factory) smaller grub screws for the saddle height. With lower actions they will stick out of the top of the saddle, although they are not really sharp. 2) Offer clearcoated finishes. 3.) Increase the cut of the rounded corners of the pickup cavities. I noticed upon adjusting the pickup height that the the corners of the pickups were very snug against the corners of the routes. Other than that, stellar job. I had low expectations on first sight, saw some YouTube reviews, and had modetate expectations with high hopes, and I was not disappointed. If you are on the fence whether to get this guitar, just do it. You won't regret it.

I saw a few reviews of this guitar on line, and decided to take a chance. I couldn't decide between Metallic Green and Ivory, so I flipped and coin. Ivory it is. This guitar was excellent right out of the box. The fit and finish are what I would expect from a much more expensive guitar, and the setup was just the way I like it. This is a personal thing and your mileage may vary, but I had nothing to complain about. The action is in the "Goldilocks zone" I prefer (not too high, not too low). There is zero fret buzz up and down the neck. Intonation was spot-on. The neck feels great. I've never had a guitar with a finish on the body like this one has. It's almost frictionless. The pickups and electronics are versatile and sound good to my ears. I play pretty much everything except super high-gain djent type stuff. I was surprised by how light the guitar is. It's going to be hard (in more ways than one) to pick up my Les Paul after this. If I have any complaints, they are extremely minor: 1. I realize this is a headless guitar, but there's a little "ledge" where I can attach a headstock tuner. Problem is, none of my headstock tuners work very well on this guitar. This is obviously not the guitar's fault. 2. The tuning pegs are pretty stiff. They may limber up over time, or that might just be the way they are, but in any case once the guitar is in tune it stays that way. 3. I'm not a huge fan of the little rubber "feet" at the bottom of the body. I'm not sure how they'll age. But we can cross that bridge when we get to it. 4. The output jack is in about as good a place as could be hoped for, but I don't love it. That being said, I can complain about the placement of the output jack on just about any guitar you can name (except of course a Strat). Bottom line: This guitar is well worth the price, and then some.

I've had the guitar for a week and have about 10 hours play time on it. I've been playing guitar for 40 years, and do my own luthier work on my guitars. Like every guitar I buy, at any price point, the first thing I do is get out my feeler gauges, tools, files, and lube. On the plus side, the slots in the (bone!) nut were cut perfectly and the intonation was 99% perfect - it's rare to get these both right on an inexpensive guitar as they are both time consuming to configure correctly. While the nut slots were perfectly cut, the rest of the nut wasn't given any attention at all so it had rough/sharp corners and there was too much material left above the slots - neither are a big deal and can easily be addressed yourself with a cheap file if you have inclination to do so. The neck had zero relief from the factory; I added a little bit to my preference (Fender spec). String Height was on the high side, which is always a concern as it can mean they are "hiding" fret buzz with high action. I dropped the string height (saddle-adjusted) significantly and to my delight there was no fret buzz at all! The fret ends were slightly sharp, and being made of stainless steel, they're tougher to tame. I don't think they'll be an issue for many/most players but here's how I took care of mine: Cover your pickups with a towel/tape/something. Take fine steel wool and rub it up and down the neck, particularly along the edges where the frets may slightly protrude. This will round-off those fret edges AND will add a very slight "rollover" to the edge of the fretboard which most players prefer the feel of. This takes 10 minutes and will significantly improve the playability. You will get steel dust EVERYWHERE, and that dust will stick to your pickups; hence the covering them earlier. I put a very thin layer of a mixture of beeswax and boiled linseed oil (recipes can be found online) on the back of the neck and fret board, rub it in hard with a towel, remove excess with clean towel. After the above, the guitar plays absolutely amazing; as good as any! The materials all see fantastic - roasted maple, rosewood(!!), stainless, bone, etc. Great stuff. The weak point on the guitar is very easily the pickups, and the sole reason for giving 4/5 instead of 5/5 stars. They are very high output ceramic pickups (~15k in the bridge), and accordingly they are bright and harsh. Don't expect a lot of "color", "subtlety", or "complexity" from these. If you're into thrash metal, you are in luck! Otherwise, you might want to factor the price of new pickups into the purchase. They DO look great in the uniform black covers though. One last point. This is my first headless guitar and one thing that caught me slightly by surprise was the position of your picking hand is a bit further toward the rear of the guitar than a typical guitar. I think, in trying to keep the guitar/neck compact, they've pushed the bridge assembly as far back to the rear of the guitar as possible. It makes sense, and it's not a big deal at all. Good purchase!

Excellent! Lightweight! I ended up enjoying the pickups enough to actually keep them without needing to upgrade. I love the option to split coil and use single coils when needed. The humbuckers were quiet on stage, as expected. They sounded similar to Seymour Duncans. Not AS high gain as EMGs, but worked perfectly for my tastes. The guitar plays wonderfully and is very comfortable. It did require some tweaking out of the box, regarding intonation and action, but that's to be expected anytime you ship a guitar.

Delivered with two stripped tuner pegs not even attached to the guitar. The A and D tuner pegs were stripped and unable to tune.

The guitar came with an unusually high action. Turns out the reason for that was a lot of high frets and sharp fret ends. I thought the rest of the guitar was great. Nice neck carve. Incredible sustain. I would have really liked to keep it but, at this price point, I could not justify extensive fretwork on a brand new guitar. If the frets were larger (so sacrificing some height would not matter), I might have taken a chance on leveling the frets. If you can get one with better fretwork, I think this could be a really great guitar. The controls are a little too close together but I could have lived with that.

I've had the HN3 for a little while now. My thoughts: I play everything from standard scale to a 30-inch baritone; the HN3 is incredibly comfortable and light. Came with a quality case, signed inspection document, and tools to adjust the action. Smart bridge design; it'll be easy to adjust string height/intonation when swapping out strings. It came nicely set up, low action, no fret buzz. I opted for the black model, and I really like the matte finish. No aesthetic or functional defects. Finally, the stock humbuckers/ electronics sound great; it's a nice platform to potentially modify later down the line. For $500, it's a steal. There is no competition for this style of guitar for that money. I rarely write reviews, but it is such a good deal I felt compelled to. Also, I know this is a review of the product and not the shipping, but I feel the need to mention that I ordered the HN3 on a Saturday via Amazon, and it shipped Sunday. Unbelievably fast shipping.