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Hatsubai « Awesome pickups in this »
Published on 10/01/11 at 13:24Steve Vai has always been fairly revolutionary when it came to designing guitars. This one has an almost industrial kind of feel to it, and it happens to have one of my favorite pickup combinations as well. The guitar features a basswood body, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 24 jumbo frets, unique screwhead inlays, a LoPro Edge tremolo, unique handle cutout, HSH configuration, one volume, one tone and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
The first thing you notice about this guitar is the finish. It has this rough, textured kind of finish that feels kinda bizarre. Most guitars have a perfectly smooth and flat finish, and this one kinda threw me off when I started playing it. The guitar had some good quality Ibanez fretwork. The frets were nice and level, and the ends were rounded off a bit so they didn't gouge your hands every time you moved up and down the neck. The neck on this is very flat and thin, so if you're not used to that, you might want to look elsewhere. I also thought the screwhead inlay kinda things were really cool. The LoPro Edge on this is probably the best floyd in the world, so no issues there.
SOUNDS
The guitar has Breeds in it, along with a custom single coil pickup. The Breeds are some of the best pickups ever made, in my opinion. The Breed Bridge is like an overdriven, thick PAF Pro. It has these strong mids and really thickens up a basswood bodied guitar. You can play anything from blues to death metal with these things, I'm not kidding. They're really that versatile. The middle custom single coil pickup worked great for those funky and clean lines. I loved the in between positions as I could get this great, spanky clean tone going on. The Breed Neck was total tone heaven. It was like the perfect combination between an Air Norton and a PAF Pro. You had the thickness of the AIr Norton, but you also had the dynamics and clarity of the PAF Pro. It's definitely one crazy pickup.
OVERALL OPINION
The main reason to get this guitar is the Breed pickups. They're some of the best pickups out there, I think. They definitely stand out above the rest when compared to some of DiMarzio's other pickups. The guitar is built solid, it was resonant, had some good fretwork and was an overall pleasure to play. Be careful if you buy on ebay, however, as they have lots of fakes out there.
UTILIZATION
The first thing you notice about this guitar is the finish. It has this rough, textured kind of finish that feels kinda bizarre. Most guitars have a perfectly smooth and flat finish, and this one kinda threw me off when I started playing it. The guitar had some good quality Ibanez fretwork. The frets were nice and level, and the ends were rounded off a bit so they didn't gouge your hands every time you moved up and down the neck. The neck on this is very flat and thin, so if you're not used to that, you might want to look elsewhere. I also thought the screwhead inlay kinda things were really cool. The LoPro Edge on this is probably the best floyd in the world, so no issues there.
SOUNDS
The guitar has Breeds in it, along with a custom single coil pickup. The Breeds are some of the best pickups ever made, in my opinion. The Breed Bridge is like an overdriven, thick PAF Pro. It has these strong mids and really thickens up a basswood bodied guitar. You can play anything from blues to death metal with these things, I'm not kidding. They're really that versatile. The middle custom single coil pickup worked great for those funky and clean lines. I loved the in between positions as I could get this great, spanky clean tone going on. The Breed Neck was total tone heaven. It was like the perfect combination between an Air Norton and a PAF Pro. You had the thickness of the AIr Norton, but you also had the dynamics and clarity of the PAF Pro. It's definitely one crazy pickup.
OVERALL OPINION
The main reason to get this guitar is the Breed pickups. They're some of the best pickups out there, I think. They definitely stand out above the rest when compared to some of DiMarzio's other pickups. The guitar is built solid, it was resonant, had some good fretwork and was an overall pleasure to play. Be careful if you buy on ebay, however, as they have lots of fakes out there.