Hamer V/XPL/FB Shaped Guitars

The Hamer Vector XT was designed to be a mid line Flying V shaped guitar in their arsenal. This guitar is made in Korea. It features a mahogany body and neck, a veneer flamed maple top, a rosewood fretboard with 22 frets and really cool "V" inlays. It features sealed chrome tuners, string through body construction and a pair of Seymour Duncan designed humbuckers. Here's the full list of specs: Specifications: TOP Material: Flame Maple Configuration: Flat Thickness: N/A Body: Material: Alder L, W, T: N/A Binding: Ivoroid NECK Material: Maple Shape: N/A Thickness: N/A Binding: Ivoroid FINGERBOARD Material: Radius: 14 1/2 Inlays: Boomerang Fret Dimenions: N/A Nut Type/Width: N/A Scale Length: PICKUPS Neck Pickup: Duncan Designed Humbucker Bridge Pickup: Duncan Designed Humbucker ELECTRONICS Controls: 2-Volumes,1-Tone Switch: 3-Way Toggle HARDWARE Bridge: TON, V Plate Tuners: Chrome Finish Options: Cherry Sunburst (CS), Honey Burst (HB) UTILIZATION The design of this guitar is fairly ergonomic. It combines the Les Paul and Flying V designs quite well overall. You've got the ergonomics and lighter weight of the Flying V combined with the classic and elegant cosmetics and the thick mahogany based tone of the Les Paul. It's a fairly light guitar, though not featherweight by any means. The upper fret access on V's is really quite cool and this guitar is no exception. I prefer this Gibson style to the style of the Jackson models (RR and KV) just because it's less pointy and sits on the body much better. Getting a good tone out of this guitar really isn't difficult. It's set up very simply and usually that is a recipe for great tones. Though the stock Duncan Designed humbuckers aren't the greatest in the world, they have a nice thick tone that reminds me a lot of early Judas Priest (not a surprise since KK and Glenn both used Hamers quite a bit and still do.) It's not the most versatile guitar in the world, but a Flying V is more about the image anyway... ;) SOUNDS I've tried this guitar mainly through my rig at the time which was an Orange Rockeverb 50 Mark I head and a Haggerty Enclosures 2x12 with Eminence speakers. It's a decidedly British sounding rig and this guitar was a great match for it. I liked it a lot for hard rock and classic metal tones mostly. The clean tones had a decent shimmer and sparkle, but they lacked a lot of that harmonic content that say a PAF would have. This isn't surprising given the price of the guitar and the general price of the pickups, but it would've been nice to have a little more of a pure and real clean sound. The overdrive tones were cool as well. The Duncan Designed pickups do a decent job of providing a honky Gibson bite through and through. They tend to get a bit muffled and lost at some higher gain settings, but that can be rectified by redialing in the EQ on the amp. When dialed in right, the neck pickup offered some nice smooth lead tones that were great for legato type playing and the bridge pickup was just right for classic metal tones. OVERALL OPINION All in all I think the Hamer Vector XT is a great example of a mid priced yet high quality V. Hamer has long been known for producing great guitars for not a lot of change. These can be had for about $500 new and are well worth the price. The pickups may not be to everyone's tastes, but for about $50 more you can pop in some from GFS or find some used DiMarzios or something and you're ready to rock.