Schecter C-7 Hellraiser Review

My experience with the C-7 Hellraiser so far has been quite interesting, and you would do well to read this.

It took almost 3 weeks for Guitar Center to get my Hellraiser in. I think it was mainly UPS's fault. When I first got it, it was strung with GHS Boomers (10/56). I took it home, gawked at the utter beauty of the finish and the impression it made on me was amazing. When I first plugged mine in to my Roland 30x, the first thing I noticed was a little string buzz. No big deal, this happens with new guitars. I rolled up the volume, and let loose with Nevermore's "The River Dragon Has Come". WOW. Even on the clean setting, the combination of bright strings and the bridge pickup really makes the sound pop, and the neck pickup is mellow and jazzy, just like you'd expect.

Before I get into the negatives about this beast, let me tell you that the absolute beauty of this guitar, whether Black or Black Cherry - is stunning.

Those EMG 707's, especially in the bridge position, ROARED. I don't care what people say about these pickups, they are great. But one thing about the guitar wasn't so hot. The strings. They were dull and hard to play on, so I went to go pick up a D'addario set of 9-52's, this was a mistake on my part. Light guages suck on a 7 string. Here is where I noticed my large string buzz problem. It was all up on the neck, mainly on the bass end. I loosened the truss a bit, and that barely solved anything. (DO NOT ADJUST YOUR TRUSS IF YOU ARE NOT 100% SURE YOU CAN DO IT).

The next day, I took my Hellraiser back to Guitar Center, where they set me up with some D'addario 10-59's. I played on it a little bit, but I still noticed buzz. I took it back to the desk, and they messed with the truss a little bit. I took it home, and while there was still buzz on it, it was much better and I had some decently chunky strings.

I think I will take time to talk about customer support. Schecter's Diamond Series customer support is some of the best in the business, in my opinion. I emailed the tech for the diamond series, got an email back that same day. The guy was awesome, he sent me a manual, and didn't seem to waste any time getting back to me. He also offered that if the problem persisted with the string buzzing, Schecter would happily replace it, for free.

Besides all of the problems I am having with the string buzz,, the guitar looks so damn great, it sounds AWESOME, and I couldn't ask for better customer support. Hopefully the buzzing problem will resolve itself in a few weeks, with my frets being broken in and the strings having time to stretch.

Overall, I think I'm going to have a good time with this guitar, and if need be (just in case I got a bad one due to the buzz) I will replace it and keep it. These guitars are awesome, don't hesitate buying one.




UPDATE 7/18/07: I no longer own this guitar. I didn't think it was worth 700$ for the use I was getting out of it. It sounded good, but it didn't feel quite right. So I took it back to guitar center, and that was that. I still recommend it as an intermediate 7, if you don't mind the crappy QC and the chance that you might need to take it in for a professional setup (that I had experienced) and the extended scale.