James... « Great beater for tours »
Published on 12/14/11 at 19:02Made in Korea I think, along with the ltd line which is also really solid. As far as the "foreign" made guitars are concerned I think these and the Ibanez guitars coming out right now are great. The Tempest Gold Top is your typical les paul copy from schecter with duncan designed pickups. Nothing you haven't seen before. Really it does look a bit weird but for all purposes it's a les paul. Price point is pretty good too. 3 way selector and three knob config.
UTILIZATION
I tour with a hard rock band that is endorsed by schecter and due to our nature as a band we go through a lot of these. I normally play lead and use the floyd equipped ones but after getting a little mad with some of the floyds breaking on me last tour I ordered something simpler for a change of pace. This was about the simplest model I could find. It's really comfortable and I was surprised by how good the fret access was. Kind of a plus since I'm used to having super strats with good access.
SOUNDS
I was really worried about the duncan designed pickups on this guitar because I remember having a Schecter like this years ago and thinking they weren't very good. But after about 4 months of touring with this one I think I like them okay. This is a beater guitar and probably won't last but another couple months, so I'm not hung up about the sound. They sound like JB clones to me which is good because I like the JB pickups okay for what we do. My rhythm player actually liked the Duncan Designed better than the JB/59 set in his other guitar for cleans. But to my ears it's not close.
OVERALL OPINION
I will admit I'm most impressed with how well it held up to a whole summer of touring and right now it's still going strong with me on a winter tour I'm in the middle of. Some Schecters break on us pretty early and we have to get new ones or repair them. This one did have a wiring issue where my volume knob stopped working. But me and my tech soldered it back with no problems. I am pleasantly surprised by how good this "mid range" model has done. I think I'll try another tempest soon.
UTILIZATION
I tour with a hard rock band that is endorsed by schecter and due to our nature as a band we go through a lot of these. I normally play lead and use the floyd equipped ones but after getting a little mad with some of the floyds breaking on me last tour I ordered something simpler for a change of pace. This was about the simplest model I could find. It's really comfortable and I was surprised by how good the fret access was. Kind of a plus since I'm used to having super strats with good access.
SOUNDS
I was really worried about the duncan designed pickups on this guitar because I remember having a Schecter like this years ago and thinking they weren't very good. But after about 4 months of touring with this one I think I like them okay. This is a beater guitar and probably won't last but another couple months, so I'm not hung up about the sound. They sound like JB clones to me which is good because I like the JB pickups okay for what we do. My rhythm player actually liked the Duncan Designed better than the JB/59 set in his other guitar for cleans. But to my ears it's not close.
OVERALL OPINION
I will admit I'm most impressed with how well it held up to a whole summer of touring and right now it's still going strong with me on a winter tour I'm in the middle of. Some Schecters break on us pretty early and we have to get new ones or repair them. This one did have a wiring issue where my volume knob stopped working. But me and my tech soldered it back with no problems. I am pleasantly surprised by how good this "mid range" model has done. I think I'll try another tempest soon.