Well this beast arrived. It's heavy, in every way. Sonically, mass, color... thing is heavy.
Feel is interesting. Going to take some getting used to.
Never had true neck dive, but now I know. Got a thick padded Levy's 3" strap which will mould to my shoulder and help with body placement. I'm experimenting with different body positions as this thing is just big.
Neck feel is pretty good, smooth and fairly flat. Radius isn't listed but feels 10"ish, nut is 38mm and it doesn't flare much to the body.
Satin black finish is stellar and looks amazing. Might lose the stock tort pickguard for full stealth.
The bridge is annoying, it's my first go with a 3-bolt and adjustments aren't precise or fun to make, at all. It's taking a long time to get intonation dialed as each microadjustment of the bridge height throws off everything and it's a near total reset. There's enough play on the string intonaters (is that the right word?) so I can get it dialed but man it's a PITA and frankly I'm close but not perfect, but I just wanna play for now. First world problems I guess, my Peterson strobe tuner does not lie.
The sound.. it's interesting. Mid growly active, this is a rock machine. Tone goes from tinny hollow to whomping between the tone and bridge controls. It is not at all like the Probuckers on my Epiphone Embassy which are passive but are closer to a Thunderbird, this thing has it's own sound. It's strange and I like it but, yeah, it's strange. I'm curious to see how it isolated in a band setting.
To complete the 'heavy' package I put DR Black Beauties on it, and taper heavies (50-110) at that. This thing will see lots of pick use (rockNroll) so I went full tone potential although I'm finding I really like light DR's (40-100).
I ordered it late on Sunday and it arrived, from Germany, to SoCal in 3 days on Wednesday. No idea how ThomannMusic gets that done but, boom, it arrived less than 72 hours after ordering.
All in with shipping it was $287.00 US which makes it a superb value. I'm not entirely sure how much time it's going to get as after an hour of playing it I picked up my Ibanez SR500 which comparatively felt like a soprano Ukulele. It's going to be a song/gig specific axe methinks but I gotta spend some time on it, break it in, feel and learn and bond with the character, of which it has a ton (literally). For sure not something to sell/return, it fills a strange sonic and visual hole. Will be fun on stage.
Feel is interesting. Going to take some getting used to.
Never had true neck dive, but now I know. Got a thick padded Levy's 3" strap which will mould to my shoulder and help with body placement. I'm experimenting with different body positions as this thing is just big.
Neck feel is pretty good, smooth and fairly flat. Radius isn't listed but feels 10"ish, nut is 38mm and it doesn't flare much to the body.
Satin black finish is stellar and looks amazing. Might lose the stock tort pickguard for full stealth.
The bridge is annoying, it's my first go with a 3-bolt and adjustments aren't precise or fun to make, at all. It's taking a long time to get intonation dialed as each microadjustment of the bridge height throws off everything and it's a near total reset. There's enough play on the string intonaters (is that the right word?) so I can get it dialed but man it's a PITA and frankly I'm close but not perfect, but I just wanna play for now. First world problems I guess, my Peterson strobe tuner does not lie.
The sound.. it's interesting. Mid growly active, this is a rock machine. Tone goes from tinny hollow to whomping between the tone and bridge controls. It is not at all like the Probuckers on my Epiphone Embassy which are passive but are closer to a Thunderbird, this thing has it's own sound. It's strange and I like it but, yeah, it's strange. I'm curious to see how it isolated in a band setting.
To complete the 'heavy' package I put DR Black Beauties on it, and taper heavies (50-110) at that. This thing will see lots of pick use (rockNroll) so I went full tone potential although I'm finding I really like light DR's (40-100).
I ordered it late on Sunday and it arrived, from Germany, to SoCal in 3 days on Wednesday. No idea how ThomannMusic gets that done but, boom, it arrived less than 72 hours after ordering.
All in with shipping it was $287.00 US which makes it a superb value. I'm not entirely sure how much time it's going to get as after an hour of playing it I picked up my Ibanez SR500 which comparatively felt like a soprano Ukulele. It's going to be a song/gig specific axe methinks but I gotta spend some time on it, break it in, feel and learn and bond with the character, of which it has a ton (literally). For sure not something to sell/return, it fills a strange sonic and visual hole. Will be fun on stage.
Last edited:
