[ohio_eric]

If you want a more rounded and meatier neck then the EVO should suit you fine. Just make sure you budget for good pickups for it.

[budda]

I'll theoretically have $750 off the bat for this, once my tokai sells.

how much do they generally go for? I'm probalby gonna have to evilbay one from the states.

I happen to have a Blaze 7 handy already heh

[ohio_eric]

I think they usually go for far less than $750. So you should be all set.

[budda]

I went to ebay.ca and i couldnt find aany lol.

but i dont have the money yet, so it's all good. If i can score one in good condition with the same finish as Dave's, that'd be hawt - my next guitar cant be a solid finish haha

[eleven59]

I'm willing to bet the Blaze won't really get the Les Paul vibe to come out, but it'll probably still sound better than the stock pickups until you figure out what you want in there.

[noodles]

I really love my Evo, but it does have all of the shortcoming of a Les Paul: it's heavy, it has a prodigious upper midrange response, the upper fret access is difficult, and the neck is fat like a baseball bat. However, it does have a real 3/4" maple cap--albeit underneath of a veneer on the quilt top models--and unlike most Gibsons these days, it has the long tenon neck joint. Running the bridge pickup wiring up to the switch was a PITA, since the neck pickup cavity is made extremely crowded by the neck.

There is absolutely no comparison between this and an Epiphone LP7 Goth. I play Zepp88's, and was completely unimpressed with it. It was obviously all mahogany, a bit neck heavy, with barely decent fretwork and a muddy low end that could not be dialed out. The traditional 24.75" Gibson scale does a seven no justice. The Dean also has jumbo frets, so you're not right down on the fretboard like Gibson's wide/low frets. The neck carve is pretty similar on both, which is to say a big C, just shy of boatneck. If you're comfortable on a Schecter, you'll be comfortable on a Evo. For me, it gets fatiguing after extended periods of play.

I just measured the width of the neck at the nut on both my KxKs and my Dean, and there is virtually no difference. The neck binding adds just shy of 1/16th" to the width of a neck, which makes my unbound Sii-7 slightly narrower than the V7 and Evo.

The drawbacks are typical of any import: the pickups are shit, the nut is cheap plastic, the tuners are the crappy Grovers, all of that black plastic clashes with the binding, and the bridge is the cheaper TOM. I replaced the rings and switch tip with creme, the knobs with amber, and the pickups with Duncans. I still need to replace the nut with bone, the tuners with a locking set, and the bridge with the nicer Gotoh (Tonepros are a gimmick).

For what I paid for it, it was an absolute steal. I'd put it in the same class as the Agile LPs, which is to say about as good as you're going to get this side of two grand. I've played some nice Gibson LP Studios, but I've played a whole truckload of shitty ones. This may be the only Evo 7 I've played, but I've hardly played any bad Deans in the $400+ range.

[noodles]

Originally Posted by eleven59

I'm willing to bet the Blaze won't really get the Les Paul vibe to come out, but it'll probably still sound better than the stock pickups until you figure out what you want in there.

I will never understand why people want to put that pickup in Mahogany, expecting a Gibson vibe. The midrange is completely wrong. Duncan is the company to go with for that sound, since Les Pauls are what Seymour designed half of his pickups for. I've got a Jazz/Custom set in my Dean, and I used the Jazz/JB in my old Les Pauls. I really wish I could recommend the JB7 to people, but not without a detour to Wolfe MacLeod first.

As a general rule, Duncan = growly midrange, while Dimazrio = focused/processed midrange. You just have to let the midrange of all the mahogany open up, or it will always be a farty, unruly wood.

[TemjinStrife]

+1 to everything Noodles said. I've seen them go for $350-400 if you can find one, but be prepared for a $20 bridge swap, a creme switch tip and creme pickup rings plus pickups. I can actually pretty strongly recommend the Duncan Designed Jazz copy (the standard DD 7-string neck pickup) as it really has the character of a full Jazz, very clear, open, and well-defined without becoming "flubby," even in a 22-fret LP-style 7-string. Avoid the JB7, it's pretty much mush on anything below a D. A Duncan Custom or Dimarzio D Sonic 7 would be my recommendations for a bridge pickup... or you can go Phase II Blackouts for the real slam-and-crush sound you can only get with a Gibson-style guitar loaded with actives.

Also, I may have lucked out, but mine is ridiculously light. We're talking about six to seven pounds all told.

[noodles]

Wow, mine is ridiculously heavy. It feels like a real Les Paul.

[telecaster90]

Originally Posted by noodles

I really wish I could recommend the JB7 to people, but not without a detour to Wolfe MacLeod first.

Who's Wolfe MacLeod? Does he do JB mods?