Hello there cats, kitties, dogs and beach bunnies! I hope your day is as pleasant as you are. Bobby Lil' Cat welcomes you to another episode of Tune up to Blues, with a most warm new year's greeting.
I should not be looking at local music gear ads, but still, this activity replaced reading the daily news more than a few months ago. I decidedly have every piece of gear I need so I pass on almost everything, unless it's a deal too good to resist. This is how I happened to buy two stereo PA amps (2*200 and 2*50W) in a rack cabinet (on wheels) for about €75, and then a Hiwatt Maxwatt B100-15 bass combo for my bassist son at the same price.
So, last spring I was eyeing this beauty:
She was on offer at €270 for quite a while. The quilted maple cherry burst top, the gothic crosses and the abalone binding place her looks somewhere between kitsch and country fair trifles. Still, I could not resist revisiting those photos.
Fast forward to January 2020. The guitar reappeared on my favourite ad site, uploaded by non other than the former owner of my trusty Epiphone G-400 SG, Barbory. She was somewhat dirty and beaten, with a ding on the body and one on the head, and the seller (who is a good guy though, but seems to be unable or unwilling to take good care of his gear) was open for offers. I offered him a trade of his former Epi SG for the Schecter and he accepted. So as of now, I have got a new beater and could not be happier with this new workhorse (or workwhores?). Wanna read a few lines about her? There you go!
Made in 2006 in Korea by WMI for Schecter Guitar Research under the S-1 Elite Diamond Series model name, in my opinion she is one of the most underrated (and rarest) models on the used market. Da bitch is a real mongrel, though:
-The body style and the choice of materials follows the LP double cut recipe: mahogany body with maple cap, mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard, 2 humbuckers,
-The controls (V-V &T with coil split on the Duncan designed HB-101 pickups) are inspired by PRS,
-The hardware consists of black chrome Grover tuners and Tonepros TOM-style bridge, but with a string-through-body design in place of a stopbar,
-With a surprising 25.5" scale length reminiscent of Fenders. Do not be fooled by the faulty information available on the interweb. Measured. 25.5!
(All this reminds me of the joke about the old peasant's answer when hearing about the specs of a giraffe:
"Now son, that kind of animal just can not exist!")
Well, this mix is just what I was looking for, or at least missing in my everyday workhorse bad-weather beater SG! This should be a versatile instrument, a jack of all trades and mistress of none, maybe just the thing what I need for my non-obtrusive 'vanilla' tone and playing style.
And now for my first impressions after having spent a week together.
She is built like a tank, rock solid, somewhat on the heavy side; my first guitar where I feel that I could easily use her the beat a man to death, paddle a boat, than continue to play in tune with no worries about the new dings she earned in the process. Of course, the coating is too thick for tone purists, but super-dooper smooth, making the not too thick neck with 22 jumbo frets very comfortable to play. Quite low action with negligible buzz (the bridge almost bottoms) - but that may change when I get rid of the current 12-54 strings that forces me to play tuned to Eb6 to E1, all perfect fourths.
On a strap she balances much better than the neckdiver SG, I could even say: perfectly. Seated, the balance is fine, maybe less comfortable than the lighter and less fat-bottomed SG. A solid feel in my embrace or on my lap, you know, like a real meat'n'curves lady as opposed to those insta-fashionable anorexic chicks. She may lack certain body and neck resonances that my Ibanez semi-hollow and my Fender U.S. Strat possess, but she moans and growls just fine when I tickle her down there - open strings and at the first few frets. Her sustain is fine, and boy, the way the abalone projects colours onto the strings, that is just sixties-trippy.
Just as the facts above are based on my first impressions, the following will neither be definitive, as I am playing a string gauge and tuning that is not as planned, with all its effects on setup, playability and tone. (Well, unless I grow so used to 12-54 in Eb/P4 before restringing, that I will keep to it.) So, yeah, on to dat toan!
Now, I am not an expert on it by far, but the supposedly PAF-inspired HB-101 Duncan designed pickups are surprisingly hot, especially for my taste and in comparison with the Super 58s in my Ibanez and the Epi 57CH and HotCH in the SG. I presume that the difference mainly stems from those stupidly heavy strings (and possibly these being my first uncovered humbuckers), but even at extremely low pickup position they easily overdrive my Zoom and Guitar Rig presets. On my favourite cleanish sounds splitting coils results in a heavy volume drop, but depending on the amount of overdrive they can add clarity and remain usably loud. The electronics cavity seems to be shield-painted, the single coil buzz and overall noise is quite low, the only weakness is that the tone pot turns with almost no friction.
Oh yeah, the usual counter-lefty fuckups are also present on this axe: the pots max out counter-clockwise, but the speed knobs read '0' at that point, whereas the logarithmic tone push-pull pot is wired in a manner where it is only effective in the bottom few notches of its travel - as if it was a tONe-OFF switch. We badly need lefty luthiers and guitar manufacturing team leaders in Asia. Oh, and as we are at the shortcomings, the frets seem to have been levelled, but not crowned at a certain point in her 14-year-history, and filing the black Tusq nut for these heavy strings could have gone better (some tuning instability occurs), which is also a design issue, with the lateral break angle possibly even worse than the Gibson design.
To sum up, this fine-looking beast is a promising jazz player in its current state, but bluesy bends are not her cup of tea due to the heavy gauge string. I shall keep on using these strings for a while, for who am I to throw away a perfectly usable set, and also to seize this opportunity to experience down-tuning (SRV, Jimi, here I come); but until then I cannot give a final verdict on the playability, feel and tone. This is why she has not received a name yet. After bonding, that will certainly come.
Until then, as usually, stay tuned!
From Hungary with love, meow and purr,
BLC
