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Hatsubai « Strat-scaled EC »
Published on 05/31/11 at 19:58The K-500 is a model that LTD released for fans of Kelly Hayes of Cold. The guitar features a mahogany body with a maple set neck and an ebony fretboard, unique spider inlays with the name at the 12th fret, 24 extra jumbo frets, a TOM hardtail bridge, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a three way switch.
UTILIZATION
The guitar's most unique feature is that it has a 25.5'' scale. This adds some bite and tension to it that most normal ECs don't have. The guitar itself is pretty decent in that the finish wasn't too bad, but it was very thick. The fret ends weren't perfectly rounded, but they didn't cut my hand when I played it, so no real biggie there. The frets were mostly level, but it could have used more attention. The inlay work was surprisingly good, and I was pleased to see that.
SOUNDS
I am really not a fan of the EMG HZ series, so keep that in mind. The guitar resonated nicely, but thanks to the HZ pickups, the bridge sounded a bit thin and not nearly as "direct" as a normal EMG 81 would sound. The neck sounded very bright. I'm a big fan of using fatter sounding humbuckers in the neck to get a huge, powerful sound and make it easy for fast legato runs, so something brighter like the HZ-4 kinda threw me off my game when I played it. If you like brighter neck pickups, this could work for you, however.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're a fan of Cold and Kelly Hayes, you might want to check out this guitar. In the end, I thought the guitar was dead average. The 25.5'' scale was unique, but I much prefer 24.75'' for these kinds of guitars. The guitar was fairly resonant for an LTD, and that was a nice addition, but the fretwork still had some issues in certain places.
UTILIZATION
The guitar's most unique feature is that it has a 25.5'' scale. This adds some bite and tension to it that most normal ECs don't have. The guitar itself is pretty decent in that the finish wasn't too bad, but it was very thick. The fret ends weren't perfectly rounded, but they didn't cut my hand when I played it, so no real biggie there. The frets were mostly level, but it could have used more attention. The inlay work was surprisingly good, and I was pleased to see that.
SOUNDS
I am really not a fan of the EMG HZ series, so keep that in mind. The guitar resonated nicely, but thanks to the HZ pickups, the bridge sounded a bit thin and not nearly as "direct" as a normal EMG 81 would sound. The neck sounded very bright. I'm a big fan of using fatter sounding humbuckers in the neck to get a huge, powerful sound and make it easy for fast legato runs, so something brighter like the HZ-4 kinda threw me off my game when I played it. If you like brighter neck pickups, this could work for you, however.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're a fan of Cold and Kelly Hayes, you might want to check out this guitar. In the end, I thought the guitar was dead average. The 25.5'' scale was unique, but I much prefer 24.75'' for these kinds of guitars. The guitar was fairly resonant for an LTD, and that was a nice addition, but the fretwork still had some issues in certain places.