Post
by Embenny » Tue May 22, 2018 5:19 pm
Ok, so it arrived, and I got to unbox it and put it through its paces.
Initial observations: it feels amazing and plays great. The frets are low and wide, as earl yG&L's are known for. It feels way more natural than I was expecting. I still like my low and narrow vintage fret wire on my mustangs, but I can see myself getting used to this.
The DFV reminded me that I really don't like floating trems. Tuning it up was such an unnecessary hassle, but that's easy enough to lock down to dive-only, which has always been my preference on strats.
The finish feels how a 31 year-old nitro finish should. The solid red on the neck throws me for a bit of a loop, because it looks like it "shouldn't" feel natural, but it just feels like old nitro, which is fantastic.
And now for the pickups. Man oh man. My only strat to compare it to is the '86 MIJ '62 RI i impulse-bought when I turned 30. Same year, same price on Reverb. No effing contest. The SC-3 has more highs, more lows, more output, more snap, more bite, more balls. Clean, it's like a hi-fi strat. All the frequencies come across clearer. And with gain, it gets bigger sounding on the bridge pickup instead of shrinking away to nothing like the strat.
The middle pickup is the most usable of any strat-like guitar I've ever tried. I could live on that position and get everything I need out of a guitar.
Oh yeah. It's a keeper.
The *only* thing I can say is that I wish it had PTB, as that neck pickup's bass response is overwhelming on amp settings that my Fenders would use. But the nice thing about having gone digital is that I can just set up patches specific to this guitar on my Kemper or AX8, and once the bass is reigned in, every manner of classic Fender tone can be copped as well. If I didn't have access to digital EQ options, I'd probably buy an EQ pedal set up for high-pass so that it could play nice with the same amp and pedal settings as my Fenders. Cut the bass and you've got classic Strat tones. Roll the treble back and you're basically in humbucker/P90 territory in terms of bass and mid content. The bridge pickup with the tone wide open is just so full, either clean or with dirt.
The body feels like a heavier version of my Mustangs, and although I like 24" scales on my offsets, the body shape moves the neck much farther to the right than a Jag or JM, so it "feels" smaller. It's tough to put down! Unbelievable that these guitars are the prices they are.
The artist formerly known as mbene085.