Hellraiser, safe buy?

O

Osse

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Sep 15, 2009
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Hi, Would you consider this a safe buy, If I like the hellraiser style guitars? is the build quality of these guitars good in general or do I have to play the guitar before to know?

http://www.thomann.de/se/schecter_hellraiser_v_1_bk.htm

I mean, for a hellraiser with 81TW and 89 it's a great price

What's your experienced studio guys view on using V's in studio? I'm doin studio business and wish this guitar to work for that too.

Thanks!
 
They are good guitars, but with any guitar you need to play it before buying it. Every guitar feels different and only you know if it fits you or not. Both Schecter HellRaiser C7's I have owned have been awesome and I have no complaints whatsoever, in fact I look forward to maybe getting a HellRaiser C1 in the future.
 
i always noticed when recording Di´s that the hellraiser of my own guitarplayer sounded much better and more brilliant then his other guitars!
 
I own two Schecters, a C1 and C7 Hellraiser. The C1 has the coil tap 81/89 combo, the C7 has the darker 707s, again coil tap variants. I've found the Hellraiser V's to be less pleasing than the C-series, mainly in playability but somewhat in general tonal characteristics.

Interestingly enough, the difference in sound of the two guitars is almost absurdly different given their near identical specifications. The C1 is clearly the brighter of the two, thanks mostly to the pickups of course - the C7 is one of the darkest sounding EMG loaded guitars I've ever played. The thing I find particularly odd is that my C7 weighs a hell of a lot more than any other identical spec C7 HR I've ever played. It weighs an absolute tonne, and it has an obvious effect on the sound compared to others.

That said, I absolutely love my Schecters - treat them well and they can easily hold a candle to a Caparison or Blackmachine. They are, however, a breed of guitar that HAS to be played before you commit to buying one. When I bought my C1, I had three identical models to choose from in the store - the only difference being the colour. Luckily, the one with the awesome black finish turned out to be noticeably better than the others!
 
Empathy said:
I own two Schecters, a C1 and C7 Hellraiser. The C1 has the coil tap 81/89 combo, the C7 has the darker 707s, again coil tap variants. I've found the Hellraiser V's to be less pleasing than the C-series, mainly in playability but somewhat in general tonal characteristics.

Interestingly enough, the difference in sound of the two guitars is almost absurdly different given their near identical specifications. The C1 is clearly the brighter of the two, thanks mostly to the pickups of course - the C7 is one of the darkest sounding EMG loaded guitars I've ever played. The thing I find particularly odd is that my C7 weighs a hell of a lot more than any other identical spec C7 HR I've ever played. It weighs an absolute tonne, and it has an obvious effect on the sound compared to others.

That said, I absolutely love my Schecters - treat them well and they can easily hold a candle to a Caparison or Blackmachine. They are, however, a breed of guitar that HAS to be played before you commit to buying one. When I bought my C1, I had three identical models to choose from in the store - the only difference being the colour. Luckily, the one with the awesome black finish turned out to be noticeably better than the others!
Click to expand...

Thank you for a great answer.

Gonna go to a store close who has them approx 200$ higher price, if I like it there, maybe I will haggle a bit with the price :loco:
 
Play one first for sure. I made that mistake and now own a schecter blackjack that i absolutely hate
 
Empathy said:
Hey now, come on, everything's subjective. Probably not as good as any Blackmachine, but hey, I've played two Dellingers that made me appreciate my C1.
Click to expand...


Blackmachines are custom guitars.Although they have amazing reputation, there is a 0.1% that you wont like them.

I've heard of a Blackmachine that plays and looks a bit shit, and changes owners every once and a while.

But either way you cannot compare a custom 3000$ guitar with a Korean mass production axe.

As far as Caparisons... i might have some empathy here cause i love them... but we are talking about a similar case. Semi-custom guitars, end of story.

What i felt when i tried a C1, was like i was playing on a piece of plastic while my Capa felt like a piece of wood in comparison.

I'm not saying Shecters are shit. I like them, because for the money they DELIVER both in sound and looks. So they are great guitars, but no comparison to custom/semi-custom/hand crafted instruments.

Anyway thats my opinion and opinions are like assholes.Everybody has one \m/


To the OP: go and play and inspect the guitar you want to buy. When i was trying C1's there were 2 in the store. One had a flaw on the binding while the other was perfect. It was a mistake from the factory for sure. You wont want surprises like that and have additional expenses to send it back to Thomann or wherever.
 
Schecter, for some reason, always seem to be really bassy in my opinion.
I much prefer my ESP, but whatever suits you is what you need to get.
Everyone is different
 
I was away playing it (v1) just right now, compared to a ESP eclipse and Gibson les paul and stratocaster.

Didn't feel much love for the axes with EMG's, felt like toys soundwise, but I've played a budget ESP axe with 81 which I liked much more, strange isn't it?

The Gibson were much better, more dynamic(love hate relationship) but the sound were so much more real, this were a guitar, neither of the other ones were... strange for a

I guess you can never buy a guitar out of the specs and reputation, try before buy!

I actually as we speak play a Cort M520 which I like more than the les pauls I've tried... Guess I stick with it so long...

I really like the lack of dynamics of the active EMG's for some things, what would you recommend me if I want less dynamics(more punch) but something that actually sounds and feels like a guitar?

Thanks guys
 
I played one of these at a guitar center a while back and it was amazing. I couldn't believe i sat in guitar center and played through a line6 practice amp for 3hrs, but i did and fucking made the world's most annoying shit come out of that thing before i pissed off employees with the vocoders.
 
NEVER EVER buy instruments online.
I work at a music store, and i just bought a cheap 200$ guitar that is _GREAT_.. that one out of about 100 we have sold over the past 2 years, the other ones wasn't even close.
And as far as Schecter goes: They're always good.. never seen a bad one, but i still wouldn't buy a guitar online.. you don't know how the neck feels, you don't know how it responds to your playing etc.
 
Ensi said:
I did a real risk by ordering my J2SP this way (since it's japan-import only), but luckily turned out good!

Sorry for off-topic :)
Click to expand...

Did the same with my Explorer, risky as fuck thinking about Gibsons bad rep on QC...
But it plays awesome and the cherry finish looks awesome too :) (hadn't seen a cherry one before buying)
 
I hated the 707s in the Hellraisers, but then again, other people love them. So go figure...

I ended up selling my Hellraiser, and haven't regretted doing so. Not that it was a bad guitar per se, although it did have some intonation issues and a buzzing fret that no amount of truss rod wrangling could ever seem to fix, but the rest of guitar (bridge, tuning pegs, volume/tone pots) felt pretty solid.

One thing that really started to annoy me about the Hellraiser was the fairly sharp end on the body where the underside of you forearm rest while picking. I didn't really notice it at first, but after playing it for a couple of hours, that sharp edge really became noticeable.

As for buying guitars online, well it's a crap shoot. Sure, you could get a winner, but you could also, just as easily, get a dud. Caveat emptor.
 
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