Hamer STC-Shaped Guitars

I was lucky enough to own this guitar for a few weeks ; not long after, I sol dit ! Specs: asymatric mahogany body, black painting with golden effects as if it had been painted carelessly (a custom painting typical of the late 80s!!), three Seymour Duncan pickups (Trembucker humbucker & Tremstack humbucker in single coil format), Floyd Rose-style “Hamer” tremolo bridge made in Germany by Schaller, a 24-fret maple neck with ebony fretboard and boomerang-shaped moter of pearl inlays (I’d been looking for one like this for ages!), head reminiscent of that of a Gibson Explorer, 1 volume, 1 tone, 1 5-position selector. The guitar is very well-made, from the screws to the neck and from the head to the boomerang inlays!! Since it has no maple top to compensate for the heavy, dense sound of mahogany, this guitar offers a very typical sound, heavy and dense. In clean sound on the main pickup positions, is sounds very midrangy (even a little too much to my taste!!), on the intermediate positions you get the typical sound of a Strat!! This guitar sounds good for studio takes, but I didn’t like its sound, either too midrangy and heavy with a lack of highs, or too dry and Strat-like. To me, this guitar didn’t sound balanced enough. I prefer guitars with a mahogany body and maple top, a construction which provides more balanced sounds in the attacks and a more defined sound. But to say the truth, I prefer alder which is sonicwise much better balanced than mahogany: no neef to add a maple top, alder sounds naturally balanced!! To get back to this test, the neck is very easy to play – rather thin, and with a very good fretwork. The electronics’ wiring was well executed. Just look at the picture, I didn’t change a thing!! This guitar dates back from the 90s and you can see how carefully it was crafted. The wiring and quality of the onboard components (with even “hamer”-stampes pots!!), the carving to rest the neck within the body (even on the Korean-made Slammer model it is very well done!), the boomerang-shaped fretboard inlays, the back protection plates are made of aluminium, the 3-part neck typical of U.S.-made Hamer guitars (2 of the parts go in the same direction with the middle-part going the other way to ensure a perfect stability!!). After clean sounds, let’s see the distorted ones: fat and rocky. The Trembuckers spread saturated sounds very well, it sounds really fat!! Even too much!! All in all, it’s a good guitar, well made with a quality you can’t find nowadays, except on guitars twice that price. But if I sold it, it’s because it didn’t match my needs!! I found it lacking sound balance, and for me, that was already too much!! Otherwise, it remains a legend to me – and one I was lucky enough to own !! :-D

My guitar is a Californian Elite from 1991. Ebony board with boomerang inlays, optional solid two-piece curly maple body, and factory EMG's with push/pull knob for coil split. It also came factory with a tone knob. The previous owner had Dimarzio cliplocks installed, I switched to Schaller straplocks, other than that it is still original. The old USA Hamer are quality craftmanship, they offered lots of custom options then, but with those options, these guitars did cost some dollars back then. Though it is made of maple, and maple is known as a heavy wood, it doesn't weigh more than a regular Strat. Well balanced, not neck heavy at all. The neck feels ultra thin, this is the standard thin neck profile Hamer used from 1990 on, they had a meatier neck profile before. With that deep cutaway it is easy to reach upper frets, but don't expect lots of sustain in the highest fretted notes, these are for short precise notes. Well, I am not a "shredder", so I don't use those high notes a lot, I did record some classical pieces at home and there I could make use of the higher frets. The hardware is Hamer-branded Schaller FR II and M6 mini, the locking nut is drilled from above. Now to the electronics, the Californian comes with single coil in the neck/humbucker in the bridge position. In the 90's Seymour Duncan were standard by Hamer,EMG's were offered as a custom option then, and EMG's are what have been used on my guitar. In the neck position is an EMG SA pickup. Well, it is in the neck position, but compared to a Strat it is actually positioned between the neck and the middle pickup of a Strat, and it is slanted. The EMG is actually not a single coil pickup, but a stacked humbucker. It uses an alnico magnet bar. The sound is clean and clear, not unlike a real single coil, but it sounds different than a true Fender Strat single coil. They don't hum and are noise-free. EMG's have many critics say that they sound sterile with lack of character and while I know what they mean, they still sound good. Give a listen to Steve Lukather's guitar tone in "Talk to ya Later" to hear EMG SA in clean mode and decide for yourself if they sound sterile. The humbucker in bridge position is an EMG 89, which is actually a 81 and a SA in one housing. The 81 is EMG's high output pickup, and so is the 89. In "humbucker" mode with volume on full there is no clean signal, the pickup will definitely distort. It is by far not a vintage sounding humbucker, it is quite fat sounding with strong high mids. This pickup in "H" mode sounds best with gain sounds. I liked it in clean mode combined with a wah pedal (Dunlop GCB95). Of course, with the push/pull pot you're able to "tame" the 89 and switch it to SA mode. In SA mode? But the SA is also a stacked humbucker. Yes, in fact the 89 is 3 coils, so you switch from humbucker mode to stacked humbucker mode. And this is also hum-free, nifty, huh? With it's strong upper midrange the guitar fits well into the band mix. It never sounds too thin. The amps I used it with are a Fender Prosonic combo, a Marshall 6100 (EL34) with JCM900 1960 cab (G12-75), a Marshall 6101 (5881) with Celestion Gold S-303 speaker and a Mesa Boogie Mark V:35 head with 1x12" Thiele cab (Celestion C90).

bought it for 800$ in a nearby guitarshop because it looked good First of all it looks cool... and it feels fantastic... It's equipped with two (2) Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups and a Floyd-Rose tremolo-system. It has a small maple body, with a honeyburst paint-job..And best of all: It sounds great! those two humbuckers sound gorgeously fat and warm.... The Floyd-Rose is hell to string but all Floyd-Rose equipped guitars are like that and the upside down strat-style jack-socket is placed badly on the side of the guitar (right underneath the strap-button) which makes it hard to have a strap that's too long, but this is easily fixed by twirling the strap around the jack... the guitar is very solid and has a bolt-on neck. I have bumped it into multiple tables, chairs, doors and so on with nothing more than a scratch being visible.... This guitar is great...a little expensive maybe, but it was worth the 800$ i payed for it.... I would have given it 4.46, but since you can only give complete scores, I'm giving it 4 of the 5 possible because of the price.... This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com