Keith Merrow – metal master extraordinnaire, he who has launched a thousand riffs and currently collaborator with Jeff Loomis in Conquering Dystopia – is working with Schecter on a new signature guitar. And if you’re following Keith on his Facebook Page you will have seen over the weekend that his first prototype KM-7 7-string has arrived, and it’s awesome. You can see a full gallery of this monster here. This isn’t the finished version of the guitar though: Keith will ask for the bridge pickup and the controls to be shifted back a little bit. And he’s already popped a covered Seymour Duncan Nazgul and Sentient pickup set in there to compare them to the open-coil look. Here’s more info from the Facebook page:
“I spent all of yesterday playing my prototype Schecter signature guitar, and really fell in love with it. It doesn’t just look nice, but it’s a great playing guitar. It’s always hard to describe, but this guitar feels very “sporty”. The slim neck and body make it so comfortable. Having the Hipshot instead of the traditional TonePros gets the strings down closer to the body, which really feels way better to me when it comes to picking (sounds better, too). The massive frets and compound radius fretboard are a HUGE plus. The guitar is not clumsy or cumbersome in any way. To be totally real with you, it plays better than a few custom shop guitars I own. I think the main reason for that is the fact that they let me spec this thing out like a custom shop. I designed it based on what I would want if I were to order another custom guitar. The difference is… this will not be a one-off guitar. Anyone will be able to get one like it for a whole lot less than any custom shop.
I couldn’t be more stoked about it. I think this guitar will make a lot of people very happy (including me).
There’s a couple small tweaks I’m requesting (bridge pickup placement, and control location), but aside from that, they nailed it for me right out of the gate. I picked it up, and instantly felt comfortable on it. Colin at Schecter gave it the most amazing setup I’ve seen.
The guitar sounds great as it is. For chords and chugs, it sounds big and warm. But I want to move the bridge pickup closer to the bridge so I can get a bit more “spank” and articulation for the twangy riffing I like to play. I also just want to move the volume and selector back, and down a couple inches. Nothing wrong with where they’re at now, it’s just a personal preference.
I’m very stoked about the trans white satin on flame maple. I think it looks awesome, and I’m glad they can do it. I heard it was one of the most difficult finishes to get right, but they nailed it. I might see if they can make the white just a little more transparent, to let a bit more of the flame show through. What do you guys think? Good how it is, or more figuring?
Thank you guys for all the interest and support. This has easily been one of the funnest adventures I’ve been on with my little “career”.
Also, I installed a set of covered Sentient/Nazgul pickups in it just to see how it looks. I think it looks killer. Would you guys like to see this on the final product, as opposed to the open coil pickups?”
