CTN
The Drama Dude
Ok, so here we go, Pics first:
And now, the specs:
Body:
Mahogany singlecut-type carved-top, with cream/black multi-ply binding
Floyd Rose Special trem (licensed version of the OFR, except this is actually made by Floyd Rose themselves)
Dean DMT "Baker Act" bridge pickup
Dean DMT "Time Capsule" neck pickup
1 vol
1 tone
3-way pickup switch
Neck:
Mahogany set neck w/ebony fretboard
24.75" scale
24 medium or medium jumbo frets
Fast/Thin "C" shaped neck profile
Grover tuners
Not sure what the radius of the fretboard is, but it's quite flat. I would guess around 14-16"
Fit & Finish:
Really an excellently put together axe. Made in Korea, by the UnSung factory. The whole guitar is finished in gloss black. Feels very solid, and wasn't nearly as heavy as I was expecting. My shoulder thanks me. All the hardware was assembled to a high quality standard, much better than my Ibanez. Fretwork is superb, no complaints there. Not a single rough edge or stray fret tang anywhere. It's all smooth sailing.
Factory setup was for Standard tuning, using D'addarios, and they made sure to loosen the string locking clamps at the nut before shipping, so when it got here, all I had to do was tune up in floating bridge style, and then I could see that the setup was pretty much flawless. Neck is straight with just a tiny bit of relief, string/spring tension is perfectly balanced, and all is good. Now I have to set it up for D Standard next time I change strings.
Playability:
Excellent! With a strap, it balances fairly well, not quite as well as a strat shape, but still quite well. I was afraid it might neck dive, with the headstock being as big as it is, but it levels out so that it's normal resting spot is such that the guitar is still quite comfortable to play. Standing up and playing is a joy with this thing. It sits just right for my playing style. Feels so comfortable, and it makes rocking out that much easier. With some guitars, they kinda get in the way of rocking out, My Ibanez definitely does that, despite how comfortable it is to play. This is comfy to play, and is conducive to rocking out!
The neck is fantastic. I base most of my judgement of what is and isn't fantastic according to the neck profile of my MIJ '62 reissue Fender Strat, which has a slightly fat C, but is exceedingly comfortable. Actually, the Strat is the guitar that me and my other guitarist both used for the double tracking on our album that we're recording at the moment (it has a super distortion in the bridge, and sounds beastly, for those of you who are all "OMG Strats can't do metal")... but I digress. In comparison to the Strat neck, this one is a bit thinner, and a bit wider, not quite as wide or thin as the PRS "Wide-thin" profile. Very comfortable for riffing, chording and soloing.
The ebony fretboard is silky smooth, it's a nice piece of wood. I prefer my frets on the lower side of things (not sure why, might go back to that Strat though), so this is really nice for me. Most metal guitars out there have those huge jumbo frets, and it irks me, because that's not what I feel comfortable with. The radius of the fretboard is a little odd...in a good way. I don't think I've ever had a guitar with such a flat radius. It feels great - fast and fluid - but I think I need to get used to it still. All my other guitars have either a vintage radius or a moderate curve (9.5" on my strat, 12" on my homebrew & Ibanez) so this newfound flatness is kinda new to me.
Upper fret access is absolutely not a problem. The cutaway is sculpted at the back to allow you to jam your hand right in there and reach all the way to the 24th fret with ease. Aside from that, they've also sculpted the neck heel completely away, it just blends smoothly into the body. Love it.
I am also particularly impressed by the Grover tuners. I know Grover makes good stuff, but these feel extremely smooth, and precise. I know those are cliche marketing buzzwords for tuners, but with these, you can really feel it. There aren't any jerky turns, or sudden increases in note pitch, it's just very linear and smooth.
One last thing, a major pet peeve for me. I HATE when guitars are designed with the volume knob jammed up right under the bridge pickup. I tend to have my picking hand fairly loose, so aside from my thumb and index finger, all my other fingers just kinda...hang around... and with Strats, Jacksons, Ibanezes, ESPs, Schecters, you name it...they all have the volume knob jammed up under the bridge pickup, and I keep brushing against it while playing. It's so profusely annoying. It's the reason I moved my Strat's volume knob to the 1st tone spot. Fortunately, on this Dean, the volume knob is near the bridge, not the pickup, so I can reach back to the bridge when I need to adjust my volume. It was one of the main reasons I wanted to buy this guitar in the first place. lol
Sound:
The acoustic sound of this is clear and loud, a little on the bright side. Sweet. The pickups are surprisingly good.
The Baker Act (bridge pickup) has a sort of JB thing going on, but without the annoying squashed sound of the JB with the loose bass and the spike in the upper mids. This is more full range, clear and punchy in the bass and low mids, open and crunchy in the upper mids, and a little smoothness in the highs. I could see this being a great pickup for 80's metal kinda stuff. Seems to be decently high output, but not INSANE or anything.
The Time Capsule on the other hand is a bit more pedestrian sounding. It's decently articulate, and seems to have a surprising amount of brightness for a neck pickup, but I'm not hearing much mojo. It's like a more tame/boring version of the Jazz Neck model. Decent, but not that great. It'll suit my purposes, I don't often use the neck pickup anyway.
The Floyd Rose, so far seems to be doing its job pretty well. The only thing I've noticed that I didn't like was that the threaded collar of the whammy arm itself, tends to loosen when playing around with the whammy a little bit, and then the arm gets wobbly. Eventually, I'll probably replace it with a Schaller FR or a Gotoh FR or an OFR.
Overall:
Glad I made this purchase. This is going to be my #1 for gigs, and the Ibanez, which was #1 for a couple of years now, has been moved to #2. But now I'll have two matching guitars (sorta - the ibanez has abalone binding). I have yet to take it to practice and let 'er rip through the half stack, but I'm sure it'll sound killer there too.
I think that about covers it.
And now, the specs:
Body:
Mahogany singlecut-type carved-top, with cream/black multi-ply binding
Floyd Rose Special trem (licensed version of the OFR, except this is actually made by Floyd Rose themselves)
Dean DMT "Baker Act" bridge pickup
Dean DMT "Time Capsule" neck pickup
1 vol
1 tone
3-way pickup switch
Neck:
Mahogany set neck w/ebony fretboard
24.75" scale
24 medium or medium jumbo frets
Fast/Thin "C" shaped neck profile
Grover tuners
Not sure what the radius of the fretboard is, but it's quite flat. I would guess around 14-16"
Fit & Finish:
Really an excellently put together axe. Made in Korea, by the UnSung factory. The whole guitar is finished in gloss black. Feels very solid, and wasn't nearly as heavy as I was expecting. My shoulder thanks me. All the hardware was assembled to a high quality standard, much better than my Ibanez. Fretwork is superb, no complaints there. Not a single rough edge or stray fret tang anywhere. It's all smooth sailing.
Factory setup was for Standard tuning, using D'addarios, and they made sure to loosen the string locking clamps at the nut before shipping, so when it got here, all I had to do was tune up in floating bridge style, and then I could see that the setup was pretty much flawless. Neck is straight with just a tiny bit of relief, string/spring tension is perfectly balanced, and all is good. Now I have to set it up for D Standard next time I change strings.
Playability:
Excellent! With a strap, it balances fairly well, not quite as well as a strat shape, but still quite well. I was afraid it might neck dive, with the headstock being as big as it is, but it levels out so that it's normal resting spot is such that the guitar is still quite comfortable to play. Standing up and playing is a joy with this thing. It sits just right for my playing style. Feels so comfortable, and it makes rocking out that much easier. With some guitars, they kinda get in the way of rocking out, My Ibanez definitely does that, despite how comfortable it is to play. This is comfy to play, and is conducive to rocking out!
The neck is fantastic. I base most of my judgement of what is and isn't fantastic according to the neck profile of my MIJ '62 reissue Fender Strat, which has a slightly fat C, but is exceedingly comfortable. Actually, the Strat is the guitar that me and my other guitarist both used for the double tracking on our album that we're recording at the moment (it has a super distortion in the bridge, and sounds beastly, for those of you who are all "OMG Strats can't do metal")... but I digress. In comparison to the Strat neck, this one is a bit thinner, and a bit wider, not quite as wide or thin as the PRS "Wide-thin" profile. Very comfortable for riffing, chording and soloing.
The ebony fretboard is silky smooth, it's a nice piece of wood. I prefer my frets on the lower side of things (not sure why, might go back to that Strat though), so this is really nice for me. Most metal guitars out there have those huge jumbo frets, and it irks me, because that's not what I feel comfortable with. The radius of the fretboard is a little odd...in a good way. I don't think I've ever had a guitar with such a flat radius. It feels great - fast and fluid - but I think I need to get used to it still. All my other guitars have either a vintage radius or a moderate curve (9.5" on my strat, 12" on my homebrew & Ibanez) so this newfound flatness is kinda new to me.
Upper fret access is absolutely not a problem. The cutaway is sculpted at the back to allow you to jam your hand right in there and reach all the way to the 24th fret with ease. Aside from that, they've also sculpted the neck heel completely away, it just blends smoothly into the body. Love it.
I am also particularly impressed by the Grover tuners. I know Grover makes good stuff, but these feel extremely smooth, and precise. I know those are cliche marketing buzzwords for tuners, but with these, you can really feel it. There aren't any jerky turns, or sudden increases in note pitch, it's just very linear and smooth.
One last thing, a major pet peeve for me. I HATE when guitars are designed with the volume knob jammed up right under the bridge pickup. I tend to have my picking hand fairly loose, so aside from my thumb and index finger, all my other fingers just kinda...hang around... and with Strats, Jacksons, Ibanezes, ESPs, Schecters, you name it...they all have the volume knob jammed up under the bridge pickup, and I keep brushing against it while playing. It's so profusely annoying. It's the reason I moved my Strat's volume knob to the 1st tone spot. Fortunately, on this Dean, the volume knob is near the bridge, not the pickup, so I can reach back to the bridge when I need to adjust my volume. It was one of the main reasons I wanted to buy this guitar in the first place. lol
Sound:
The acoustic sound of this is clear and loud, a little on the bright side. Sweet. The pickups are surprisingly good.
The Baker Act (bridge pickup) has a sort of JB thing going on, but without the annoying squashed sound of the JB with the loose bass and the spike in the upper mids. This is more full range, clear and punchy in the bass and low mids, open and crunchy in the upper mids, and a little smoothness in the highs. I could see this being a great pickup for 80's metal kinda stuff. Seems to be decently high output, but not INSANE or anything.
The Time Capsule on the other hand is a bit more pedestrian sounding. It's decently articulate, and seems to have a surprising amount of brightness for a neck pickup, but I'm not hearing much mojo. It's like a more tame/boring version of the Jazz Neck model. Decent, but not that great. It'll suit my purposes, I don't often use the neck pickup anyway.
The Floyd Rose, so far seems to be doing its job pretty well. The only thing I've noticed that I didn't like was that the threaded collar of the whammy arm itself, tends to loosen when playing around with the whammy a little bit, and then the arm gets wobbly. Eventually, I'll probably replace it with a Schaller FR or a Gotoh FR or an OFR.
Overall:
Glad I made this purchase. This is going to be my #1 for gigs, and the Ibanez, which was #1 for a couple of years now, has been moved to #2. But now I'll have two matching guitars (sorta - the ibanez has abalone binding). I have yet to take it to practice and let 'er rip through the half stack, but I'm sure it'll sound killer there too.
I think that about covers it.
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