Strats are apparently like buses. You wait for ages and then 2 come along at the same time. I wasn't looking for this but someone offered it in trade for my MIJ Ibanez RG so here it is.
This is a very nice guitar. Very well made. Plays superbly. Looks cool if you can get on board with the brightness of the green (seafoam it ain't). Great neck. Good pickups. A solid trem with a big block.
Annoyingly nice. It's challenging any notion I may have unconsciously held about where guitars are built. This is an Indonesian Schecter, retails for $2300 in NZ (in lefty, the right is $2k), and has many features I rather personally prefer.
Some cool features:
- Ebony board.
14" radius.
Brass circle inlays.
Roasted maple neck.
Spoke wheel truss rod adjust.
Locking tuners.
Graphtech nut.
Big mushroom head strap buttons (*underrated imo).
Little cutaway around the handshake (like a Jackson).
Big trem block
Master vol/tone witjh a regular 5 way
Very bright green
Side mounted jack
Impeccable fretwork. Seriously. The only frets I've seen like this have been ESP Japan
2 pt trem:
More inlays:
Handshake:
The headstock shape isn't my favourite but works well enough:
The neck is chunkier than I expected. I don't know why but I was expecting a shreddy chopstick thing but it's meaty, bigger than the Tokai neck, and feels bigger than a '60s Gibson. I like it. The roasted maple is satin finish so no sticky gloss back there and it just sits pleasantly in the hand. With a 14" radius and jumbo frets you can get your wank on too but I find it reassuring to have the amount of timber under your fingers for when you're just rocking a Bm chord.
Since I couldn't find any info or specs anywhere about the pickups I did some measurements:
Bridge - 8.6k
Middle - 6.5k
Neck - 6.2k
B+M - 3.8k
M+N - 3.2k
That tells me they're using different winds for each position rather than lumping the same pup in each spot like a lot of other brands (easier to produce that way) and they're honestly really nice. Bright enough, spanky, a great mid-gain tone that responds nicely to what I'm trying to do. The bridge has a lot of balls for a strat bridge with minimal hiss and schmutz. The cavity might be shielded but tbh I didn't look. I've seen pictures that it's a swimming pool route under there so it wouldn't surprise me if shielding paint was used. They're a little hotter than your typical strat, they sound like A5 magnets (I've seen that mentioned online so that sounds right).
I had my Tokai refretted and setup last week by a pro here in Auckland. This Schecter has better fretwork. I'm not sure how I feel about that but whichever way you slice it this is some good work.
Colour me impressed.
Have an artwank photo:
