Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

Jackson USA, G&L Invaders, and Musicman EVH's all have undeniable quality. The hard part is finding a store that has all three...or more, so you can try them side by side.

Man, I wish I would have had the dough to buy up a lot of early San Dimas Charvels in the early 90's. Living in LA, the cokkrock mecca, I was able to snatch those up for $300 at one point.....the good strathead ones with brass hardware!!
I see those fetching close to $2000 now.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

I'm having the same kinda dillemma right now, I'm saving up for a shred-ish type axe but I don't know what to get. I don't like the usual Ibanez/Jackson/etc etc guitars because while they may play fast and be right for the job, it's at the sacrifice of a good chunky rhythm tone! How can I get a Les Paul-like crushing rhythm sound with a good shred sound? I'd certainly use my Les Paul if the frets were bigger and the neck wasn't painted. And I'd certainly use my Strat if it didn't sound so thin (even with a Dimarzio Breed) compared to my Les Paul / 7 String Guitar.

Bah.

You need a mahogany body at the very least.

Perhaps the best compromise for you would be a PRS. Probably a custom 24. Much closer to a Les Paul in tone than any strat-derived shredder, but more articulate, lighter, and far more playable than an LP. Go for the wide-thin neck, and dump a JB or C5 in the bridge.

I know, expensive, but that's the best solution I can think of, and it's value will hold. You can save by getting a solid colour model with moons.

If that's way off your budget, perhaps a tremonti or santana se.

 

[The Don]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

I was thinking of going the Warmoth route personally - or maybe GMW Guitarworks - a bolt on neck guitar though for a thick, thick sound though? :-/

Edit: Lefty PRS's are probably about impossible to find too.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

Ah, lefty. That complicates matters.

in that case, go for mahogany back with maple top and mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard.

 

[The Don]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

That was my plan - except for the mahogany neck / rosewood fretboard ; I was going to go with birdseye maple.

Will bolt-on and neck thru make THAT big of a difference in tone - enough to shell out a good deal more for the latter?

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

I'm not a huge fan of neck-thrus, mainly because a lot of them use maple for the thru bit. The problem with using maple for neck thru is that it loads about a quarter of the body area of the guitar (and the most important part) with maple, which sounds very bright. Using maple for a neck-thru would move your project further away from the LP sound, rather than closer. To get the mahogany fatness, you need the centre of your guitar's body to be mahogany.

Mahogany neck thrus are rare, but sound good.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

Check out a Brian Moore C55 or C90, or Ernie Ball Steve Morse (or any of their guitars for that matter).

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Searching for a shred/lead guitar, wanna help?

I will defer to your expert knowledge on such matters, Zerb. So the original San Dimas charvels were a production guitar? -I've been under the impression they were custom orders.

In ´79 Charvel started serialization, and started bringing out a few "Standard" setups. Of course to a point you are right, because about 95% of Charvels were "Made to order", but for example the star and SuperStrat were also available sightly cheaper as a "standard" 1 hum/Vintage trem/no grafix axe.

Charvel started actual production even earlier, these are the so called "pre-pros", the "holy grails" of Charveldom. These were not serialized and were all 100% custom Order axes