I've got myself a new guitar last week. A Schecter C-1 Hellraiser. I wanted to wait a bit longer with the review to have some more experience with it. But as Praetorian is interested in this guitar, I guess I'll just write it now.

The Features:
Mahogany Body
Quilted Maple Top
Mahagony Set Neck
Rosewood Fretboard
Abalone Binding
Grover Tuners
Graphtec Tusq Nut
String through body
EMG 81TW/89 Pickups (splittable)

Now when inspecting the guitar a bit closer at home I noticed that it was made in Indonesia. So it seems to me that Schecter did also move away from South Korea to Indonesia like ESP LTD did. Probably be because of the new minimal wages in South Korea. Not really good behavior and at least in LTD's case the quality seems to have suffered. So I went on to look for flaws.

And I've found some. The first thing I've noticed is that the wood on fretboard didn't look very even (color wise). After cleaning and oiling it it's already looking far better. Next thing: The binding around the upper Cutaway is a bit uneven. It's almost invisible but you can feel it. Then there were some tiny glue residues on the "Schecter" Logo on the headstock. Also the quilted maple top was not as deeply figured (what's the correct way to say this in english?) as the one on my Schecter C-1 Classic. The body consists of two parts of mahogany glued together. I know this is often done but still, I don't really like it. Finally the setup seems to be wrong, may be I just messed it up by switching from .010 to .009 Strings. (If any Instructor is reading this, a lesson series on setting up guitars by a pro would be REALLY great and very useful). This are all the flaws I could find when carefully searching for them. Most of them are virtually invisible and do not affect playability.

Now enough ranting let's look at the positive side. The build quality is comparable to what I saw from ESP LTD's 1000 Series, which I consider good. Not as good as my "perfect" C-1 Classic though. The playability is about equal (after a proper setup). The neck is clearly thicker than an Ibanez wizard neck but still thinner than what I'm used from les pauls. Comparable to some of the bc richs. But don't let that fool you. The neck feels just right (for me). Thiner does not always mean better. It's also a light guitar. Lighter than my Ibanez S470! And as far as I can tell now it's going to be my new primary axe! And the reason for this is...

The Sound of this guitar is great. Thanks to the EMG 81tw/89 set you can go from almost acoustic cleans to smooth leads to bone crushing metal. I'll write a bit about the settings I use:

My metal rhythm setting:
Tone and volume cranked using the EMG 81 tw. Lot's of attack, clarity and bottom end punch. It sounds a bit scooped though so I added a bit more mids on the amp.

My lead setting:
The EMG 85 in the neck. Volume cranked, tone a little bit dialed back. Very smooth and warm and dynamic. For some applications it might actually be to smooth. But I mostly like it. It's easy to add some grit/dirty on the amp.

My clean setting:
Using both pickups, both set to single coil mode. It sounds almost like an acoustic. Great!

This guitar clearly isn't for everybody. If you don't like emgs, you better stay away from it. If you're however looking for a great versatile metal axe at a great price the Schecter C-1 Hellraiser is worth serious consideration.


...I thought this was going to be tiny...

Conrats mate! Sounds very interesting, i never seen a Schecter and of course never played one (probably in Latvia they aren`t popular), so i`m curious it`s something like ESP? I mean really good for metal?
Would be great if you can post some pictures too

This post has been edited by AlexLion: Apr 1 2009, 09:30 AM

Im fortunate enough to have the same guitar but it was made in south korea and has no finish blemishes that I can see and like you say it is very very playable with great action and sustain. The guitar is also fantastically versatile as you can get strat, les paul and tele like tones from the pickups due to the coil tapping.

I find the tw versions of these pickups to be less mid scooped than those of the normal 81 and 85 ( I have an ltd mh-1000 with this combination) and to have less of a "dark" tone so on the contrary if you are not a fan of emg pickups I would definitely check these out. Just to be clear though crank the gain on these and it will still tear your nuts off!

Looks beautiful, i prefer only Jackson headstocks, but maan that headstock looks just great as the guitar do! And yes i`m not a fan of 81\85 EMG, hmm i`ll check about those Tw mods. Thanks for pictures!

Im a sucker for Schecters, I had a Hellraiser with a FloydRose for awhile but I finally sold it to get a EJ Strat.

Once your playing a strat, you relize how much youve been missing (Shred and Metal Wise ) from this guitar.

Just a fantastic guitar, yours is beautiful and enjoy it

Thanks for the write up! I didn't know they had moved production to Indonesia...good to know!

Total beauty man!

Nice review!!!! Do you mind if I copy it into the Gear Wiki???

Great review mate! I think possibly you could have wrote it in the Gear Review section, but it's cool.

Go ahead

It was intent to be a tiny review for praetorian but I guess it go a bit out of hand.

Jonas

Thanks Jonas! I'll get that done later!!!!

This is now in the Wiki!!!!

HERE!!!

Nice guitar man!

The quilt is memorizing like a river of Satan's blood.