keith_bowen's Reviews

WOW

This thing is pretty nuts. The amount of sounds and changing you can do to each sound is very daunting at first, but you can change each trigger to be w/e you want. Hours of fun with just jamming with loops and creating new kits before you even start writing and recording. It has so much I couldn't ever write enough about it. The construction seems very nice and haven't had any problems with it.

Shocked

Purchased new in '92 was amazed and the change in sound. You can really contour your sound adding that little something extra.

well made

Very well made with smooth operation. Don't really know what to add, it's an expression pedal.

If you like metal you'll like this

Three channels you can set clean, lower gain and extremely high gain. From hair metal to death metal, this thing has the gain. It's pre 5150, but it can get similar gain sounds from it. If you see one, check it out.

Why are they gone

Bought new in '92, so loud and great for modelling. You can adjust whether it sounds like a tube amp, solid state, or in between and you can set the channels separate for some pretty unique stereo setups. Super clean and quite and I wish they still made them.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Fun

I bought this just for a fun little guitar to have and upgrade. After my upgrades it's a 5 star guitar, but didn't start that way. The stock pickups are powerful, but muddy sounding and the frets were sharp with some high frets (just a couple and not all the way across the fingerboard). For a sub $200 guitar it's ok, but lots of fun to play and upgrade (would be amazing for the youngins). Also, the short scale length makes it pretty unstable (especially with the stock nut). I suggest to use thicker strings to offset the scale length, I use .11s (at standard tuning) and that fixed it.

great player

Such a nice bass, well made with no flaws in it construction. It sounds pretty good, but could sound a hair better (will swap out pickups in the future).

Awesome

This is an amazing piece of gear. So great at integrating my gear together and sounding pretty frickin' excellent. I deducted a star (more like a half star) for some amp sounds not being super accurate . I can't tell you all the goodness this has packed in it.

Could be better

First off, this thing sounds great. The Fishmans are amazing sounding and the semi-hollow body gives them this unique punch. The neck (which I mostly like) can sometimes feel too chunky and uncomfortable. I hate the bridge and the string lock assemblies are poorly designed and pretty difficult to use especially the lower strings (most likely not an issue on the 6 string versions). The plating on the bridge flaked off after a few months, but Strandberg, with the help of Sweetwater quickly remedied the situation. It remains one of my least played guitars.

Metal machine

I have no problems with this guitar, but the pickups weren't to my liking, so installed Fishmans. Everything else was great, but if you hate wide necks, you won't like this.

great player

Great feeling and quite beautiful construction. The Sustainiac is fun to play with and can do some very interesting things.

excellent for decades

I bought this guitar new in 1992 and had it upgraded with an EMG 85 in the bridge pos. and a original Floyd Rose. I had gone years without tuning and messing with it and when I picked it up it was still perfectly setup. Amazing guitar and haven't felt a neck like it since.

Great

Best quality and playing feel of any of the guitars I have ever played.