Schecter C7 Hellraiser Review

Ok, a slow day at work means it's time for...

The Hellraiser Review!!!



Construction: Fit and Finish, Cosmetics, etc.

First off, there's no denying this guitar is total eye candy. A deep red quilted top (lighter than it looks in the above picture, sorry 'bout that), abalone body trim and fretboard inlays, dark chrome hardware... This is just a classy looking guitar.

However, the cosmetic finishing was actually the area where this guitar came up the shortest. Nothing was really bad, per se, but there were a few little slip-ups - the black body binding at the very edge had a quarter-sized whitish spot on the inside of the upper cutaway, and the chrome "schecter" logo on the headstock seems to have had the second "c" broken off during installation, and installed at a slight angle under the clear. I'll try to update this review with pics at some point. There's a tiny bit of filler apparent at the neck joint too. Nothing here's really obvious, nothing particularly bugs me, and I'm cool with this on a well-spec'd guitar at this price, but it's not perfect. I guess also worth noting is that the "Hellraiser" engraved on the truss rod cover is a touch cheesy, and while the quilt top is beautiful, it won't quite compare to a $3k PRS or anything.

Aside from that, though, really this guitar is impressively made and finished. The finish is smooth and even, the inlay work is clean (presumably CNC cut), and the fretwork is excellent, easily on par with any non-prestige japanese Ibanez I've played, and possibly equal to the prestiges (it's been a while since I've played one). Oh, and did I mention it was gorgeous?

Playability: How's the Damned Thing Feel?

Well, the first thing you notice when you pick it up, especially if your "main player" is a UVPWH, is that between the thicker profile and the extended 26.5" scale, the neck just feels BIG. It takes a little while to get used to it, but within a day or two of going back and forth between the two guitars I was completely comfortable on the Hellraiser.

I've never really gotten the "you need a thin neck to shred" argument, and if this guitar is any indication, even with its extended scale thin-neck purists have some explaining to do. The neck profile (a roundish C near the headstock flattening to a medium D by the time you get near the body) is very comfortable under your hands, both for chording and lead work. I'm a big legato guy and even with the chunkier neck and longer scale I had NO problems opening up on this one. Strung up with 10-68's, the extra inch gives you a little extra string tension relative to a 25.5", but bending was not a problem, and a couple weeks of playing while I can still feel the difference between my UV and the C7, it doesn't throw me.

It may be a combination of the longer scale and taller frets, and it may be the fixed bridge, but this guitar is also an alternate picker's dream - for some reason, you pick this up and it just begs for fast picked runs. Like I said, legato licks are no problem, but I tend to find myself doing faster picking on the C7 and flowing legato on the UV. Either technique works just as well on either guitar, but the C7 seems to like picking just a bit more than the UV, for some reason.

Upper access is slightly restricted above the 22nd fret, due to the lower cutaway, but you can still get up to 24 if you're paying attention to what you're doing.

Tones: A Hellraiser in Name...?

This was the big surprise for me here. I love the sound of my UV, but I was kind of looking for a nice mahogany guitar to track rhythm parts on the album I'm working on, for a bit more differentiation in the mix. Additionally, I've always been a fairly low gain sort of guy, favoring passive pickups in low-gain amps. So, buying an EMG-equipped axe was basically crazy.

However, what really surprised me here was just how well the EMG's work for moderate-gain lead work. Holy crap. I'm sure it's partly the fixed-bridge and the extended scale, but these things have the most terrific attack to them - I suspect it's because a 707 is essentially a very low gain pickup with a very high gain internal pre, but there's something almost singlecoil-like about the explosive attack, scooped low-mids, and tight, focused bass to them, and if you don't completely fire-bomb your preamp with them it's actually amazing just how much you can do with your picking hand. Sure, they're not as touch-sensitive as passives, but you can really dig in with them and get some pretty explosive results. They're just excellent lead pickups, particularly the neck 707.

Ironically, getting a great rhythm tone is where I've had the most trouble. Again, I don't use a tremendous amount of gain for rhythm OR lead, and that wonderful attack you get while soloing translates to a lot of treble bite without the thickness of my Blaze bridge in the UV at lower preamp gain settings. I suspect most of the people who'd be buying one of these things wouldn't use nearly as little gain as I tend to, so this isn't a problem, but I'm still trying to dial up a thick but not super-saturated rhythm tone from them. I can cheat and just up the gain (and did I mention that, with the focused tone and wonderful attack of these things, these pickups LOVE gain? Both for lead and rhythm, if you up the gain towards the extremes of what my Nomad can put out, this guitar sounds noticeably more focused than the bassier, looser UV), but I'd rather tough it out and find a EQ/mic combo that gives me a nice, growly low-gain tone. Updates to follow, but I suspect if you're looking for a fairly mid-to-low gain heavy rhythm tone, like me, then a Blackjack might be a better bet.

Clean, again, if you think of this as a guitar with pickups voiced more like a singlecoil than a humbucker, then you can dial up some great tones. It's very crisp and sparkly, and not as dark and round as you'd expect from a humbucker. Particularly in the lower registers things get very piano-istic. Add just enough drive to your tone to get a little bit of sparkly breakup, and it's a surprisingly strat-y vibe - roll back the highs a little and drop the gain a bit and it sounds more like a traditional humbucker. Also worth noting is if you're a heavy effects user, the 707's powerful attack lends itself well to a sea-of-delay sort of clean tone.

So, in short, I'm not sure why EMG's get the bad rap they do. Sure, they love gain, but they also kick ass for bluesier lead settings, and their clean tone is totally useable. If I could just dial in a crunch rhythm tone I liked as much as the Blaze bridge, my UV would be getting a set of these, too.

One note on the EMG's, however - because they are quite bright, this guitar is fairly susceptable to amplifying fret buzz. On my UV I can have slight fret buzz when chording in the lower-to-mid registers and the pickups and amp will smooth it over, but on the Hellraiser you really need to keep the neck perfectly bizz free if you want to get a full, powerful tone, as that slight buzz will come right through the amp sound. So you need to run the action a touch higher than you might on a non-EMG-equipped guitar - still not very high (I'm probably in 2-3mm range, though I haven't measured), but even while soloing you can't accept a small amount of buzz and just rely on your amp to cover it up.

Overall Impression

Buy one. You know you want to. It's an absolutely stunningly beautiful guitar that's just FUN to play, it's very comfortable, and it's about twice as versative as i'd have expected it to be. Hellraiser or no, you can totally play blues on this, the clean tones are quite cool in a rather crystalline, sparkling way, and it's just a guitar that smokes for lead work. For the price and for the features, it's one of the better sevens on the market right now.

Rating: out of 5 's