nick_desimone's Reviews
22 reviews Back to nick_desimone's Equipboard
252
not bad, needs work
NOTE: this is a discontinued model introduced in the late 90s, mine is a 2000 model. There isn't necessarily an equivalent in the current EX line, you're either going cheaper with the EX-50, or one of the nicer models. The particular guitar that I have is pretty heavily modified: Mother of pearl designs attached to the stock finish, one EMG 81 in the bridge, one knob for volume, and the tone knob is replaced with a push-button killswitch as a monument to my poor taste, but also makes it a one of a kind instrument. It desperately needs locking tuners - the stock ones have massive stability issues when it comes to playing hard as I tend to do. It barely held together during its first live set recently...a tuner upgrade and possibly the old light steel wool trick to make the neck more satiny than glossy for playability and this will be a hell of a guitar. As it stands, my custom version looks really cool live!
252
outstanding, versatile
Absolutely love this guitar! The satin feel makes the neck look slick without impacting playability the way gloss so often does as someone who suffers from insanely sweaty hands. The 81/60 combo is a great pickup set for heavy music in general, but my tone in particular is based around the sort of compression that active pups provide, so all stock everything works just fine for me. Middle and neck position with the tone rolled back still give a pretty reasonable facsimile of tele twang. I've totally fallen in love with the high-end shriek of alder in the context of low-tuned heavy music. I keep this guitar in Open C tuning generally and find it's very stable overall. It's definitely my main both live and in the studio for all these reasons.
252
I can't help it! My sweat is totally corrosive and makes it an absolute sonofabitch to play glossy necks live or use picks that don't have some kind of a grip to them