Danelectro DBS68 Reissue Baby Sitar VS

I purchased this after buying and being very disappointed with a real sitar in the same price range, so here's the opinion of somebody who has experience with both. This thing sounds in the ballpark of what a real sitar sounds like, and comes with the added benefit of ease of use and way more versatility. It is also surprisingly light and compact. The intonation beyond the 12th fret isn't the best, but the range of a real sitar means playing that high doesn't really sound very authentic.

Don't pay too much attention to a lot of the demos online, almost all feature people who don't understand how to get the best out of this instrument and treat it like a novelty guitar. My advice is to tune it to DADGAD or similar, find a tampura drone online, then focus on playing melodies on a single string whilst letting the others ring open, instead of just bashing out chords or riffs, it'll sing.

Very pleased with it. Would buy again.

My reason for buying this is :- Two of my most favourite songs by the Hollies , Magic Woman Touch and The Baby feature the guitar sitar played by the multi talented Hollies Member Tony Hicks. Having seen the Hollies live close to 70 times I have always said wow I want one of them soon as Tony walks on with his sitar, but up until now you couldn't buy one only that god awful sitar swami peddle. So of course soon as I saw this in Thomann it was a case of I am having that straight away, it came 3 days later (big thanks thomann) a little bit of tuning , plugged it in and was completely blown away by the authentic sound that was coming out my amp, as I too can play my favourite hollies songs on my sitar guitar now instead of my acoustic 12 string (also purchased from thomann) so end result is clearly it was worth waiting years for and yes it was the best and quickest decision I have ever made Well done to the Thomann team for their excellent service as always Mark

You have to fiddle around with the setup to get it nice and playable, the intonation is not spot on but that's to be expected I guess, considering the buzz bridge, tuners are not made from the best metal but they turn well and hold the tune with no issues. The thing is really light, as usual for danelectros. If you buy this try playing it with open tunings and let the strings ring out, I believe that's where it shines, although standard tuning works great as well. Overall I'm happy with the purchase, even though I know it won't get as much use as a regular guitar, it's a nice sound to have.