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tjon901 « Nice simple shred guitar »
Published on 07/06/11 at 16:54Washburn is an American guitar company but more and more of their lineup is made overseas now. They were pretty popular about 10 year ago but nowadays you do not see many people playing them. They had some designs that I liked very much back in the day. They also had many big name signature models for big name artists for a period of time. This is my kind of shred guitar. The specs are a bit different than what you would get on most shred guitars. The guitar has a mahogany body and neck opposed to alder and maple like you would find on normal shred guitars. The neck construction is a set neck with a very smooth heel so playability is great all the way up and down the neck. There are no inlays apart from an X on the 12th fret so that gives the fretboard a very clean look. It has an EMG 81 in the bridge and an 85 in the neck a classic combination which I think is better than the 81 and 60 combination. The guitar is a hardtail bridge. A shred guitar with a hardtail bridge is pretty rare nowadays. It has a master volume and master tone with a 3 way pickup selector.
UTILIZATION
The neck on this guitar is not super thin. The neck has a nice size to it so it can really fit your hand. The fretboard has a nice and flat radius with the jumbo frets. This combination means you can really get a slammed action on the guitar. The neck joint is beveled very nicely and is close to what you would get with a neck through guitar. The controls are kind of in an odd place. They are very far out of the way so it may be difficult for you do to volume swells on this guitar. The hardtail bridge means you can have the ultimate in tuning stability and you can change tunings easily without having to break out every allen wrench in your tool box.
SOUNDS
This guitar has a real beefy sound with the EMG pickups mixed with the mahogany body. The EMG's sound great too. I like to put the 85 in the bridge. The 85 gives a bit thicker sound then the 81 so when it is in the bridge position on a guitar like this the tone is crushing. The 81 is not great in the neck position though. With the 81 in the bridge you get your traditional high end 81 sound. It gives nice clarity and bite although it does not sound as huge at the 85 in the bridge. If you want even more crushing tone you can do the 18v mod to the EMG's. With the 18v mod you run the EMG pickups on two 9v batteries instead of just one. This gives you more headroom over all and more clarity. It will make your clean tones sound better too by giving them a more natural organic quality. This guitar is also available with passive Seymour Duncan pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
This is a great mid level shred guitar. With the EMG pickups you get all the high end tone you would expect from a guitar twice as expensive. You can get these guitars for less than 300 dollars now a days and that is great bang for the buck. With EMG pickups thats 200 dollars of hardware right there from the factory. If you see one of these guitars for sale you should really check it out. These guitars play and sound great for the price.
UTILIZATION
The neck on this guitar is not super thin. The neck has a nice size to it so it can really fit your hand. The fretboard has a nice and flat radius with the jumbo frets. This combination means you can really get a slammed action on the guitar. The neck joint is beveled very nicely and is close to what you would get with a neck through guitar. The controls are kind of in an odd place. They are very far out of the way so it may be difficult for you do to volume swells on this guitar. The hardtail bridge means you can have the ultimate in tuning stability and you can change tunings easily without having to break out every allen wrench in your tool box.
SOUNDS
This guitar has a real beefy sound with the EMG pickups mixed with the mahogany body. The EMG's sound great too. I like to put the 85 in the bridge. The 85 gives a bit thicker sound then the 81 so when it is in the bridge position on a guitar like this the tone is crushing. The 81 is not great in the neck position though. With the 81 in the bridge you get your traditional high end 81 sound. It gives nice clarity and bite although it does not sound as huge at the 85 in the bridge. If you want even more crushing tone you can do the 18v mod to the EMG's. With the 18v mod you run the EMG pickups on two 9v batteries instead of just one. This gives you more headroom over all and more clarity. It will make your clean tones sound better too by giving them a more natural organic quality. This guitar is also available with passive Seymour Duncan pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
This is a great mid level shred guitar. With the EMG pickups you get all the high end tone you would expect from a guitar twice as expensive. You can get these guitars for less than 300 dollars now a days and that is great bang for the buck. With EMG pickups thats 200 dollars of hardware right there from the factory. If you see one of these guitars for sale you should really check it out. These guitars play and sound great for the price.