NGD: Schecter Poltergeist

[jacksonplayer]

So, you're probably thinking to yourself, "it's been at least two weeks since Jacksonplayer bought a guitar. What's wrong with him?" I got ya covered.













For those who don't remember, this was Chris Poland's Schecter signature model for about a hot minute in 2015. This one came up at a good price, so I couldn't resist.

It's got:

• mahogany neck
• mahogany body w/maple cap (PRS thickness, basically). Flame appears not to be veneer
• 24.625" scale length -- halfway between Gibson scale and the short 24.5" PRS "245" scale.
• Schecter Pasadena/Pasadena Plus pickups.
• VTT w/ coil tap pull
• Floyd 1500 with insert bar rather than screw-on, and with titanium screws.
• Neck is basically a "chunky shredder" profile and radius is 12-16".
• I bought this on a lark, but I'm really glad I did. Quality is excellent and it is almost the perfect legato fusion shred guitar.

Things I like:

• Scale length. It's a bitch picker's dream and makes a set of 9's feel like a set of 8's but without the skinny tone. Not so short that it's hard to adjust from playing Gibson scale. Poland uses 10s with his, but I'm just bitchier than him, I guess.
• Pasadena Plus bridge pickup. Perfect for this guitar. It's like a throatier Suhr Aldrich, basically, but not as thick as a Timbre Wolf. The neck pickup might be slightly brighter than I like, but some of that is probably the placement The tone is fantastic overall. Versatile, but with a definitely low-mid "voice" that sounds, well, like Poland does in Ohm.
• Neck profile. Just about perfect for me where I'm at now.

Things I don't like:

• Slightly neck-heavy. This is a problem on many 24-fret singlecuts, and the ultra-short scale affects this guitar's balance by having the bridge be slightly further toward the middle of the body. It doesn't do full-on neck dive like a BC Rich, but just slightly. My fabric strap fixes most of it, and I've got a set of ebony tuner buttons on order to replace the really heavy Grover metal ones. Even just a few ounces less at the headstock makes a huge difference. I took the buttons off last night to feel the weight, and it instantly balanced just fine.
• Floyd string retainer. I've already removed it. It's unneeded on an angled headstock and prevents you from removing the truss rod cover on this guitar or even inserting the truss rod wrench if you leave the cover off.

[Budda]

Nice!

[Darren]

I only learned about these a couple of months ago, and would love to find one. Very cool.

[Iron1]

[beneharris]

That is a good looking guitar. Schecter has put out some real bangers in the past.

[jacksonplayer]

I only learned about these a couple of months ago, and would love to find one. Very cool.

They were everywhere on eBay and Reverb 3-4 years ago as seconds and close-outs, but they're hard to find now apart from a few stores still asking the full $1,049 MSRP for a new one. I paid half that for this one, though I didn't get a hard case or a trem bar with it.

They were only made in 2015. Poland must either have really bad endorser luck or be hard to work with, because he only had this endorser deal for a year and then went very briefly to Legator for a new sig model (similar but with 24.75" scale). He doesn't have a deal right now and is playing his Schecter at recent gigs with tape over the headstock logo.

I assume his is probably a USA-built prototype or some such, but the Korean production model is awesome and fully suitable for professional use. It doesn't feel cheap at all. Best of all, it really feels like a custom design, not just a regular production guitar with funny paint and inlays to make it a "sig" model.

[Chris]

What a great looking neck joint.

Holy wars at once.

[Lee]

Holy wars at once.

Screw that. Black Friday solo!

[jacksonplayer]

I might give you a couple minutes of random fusion soloing. If you're lucky.

[Mike]

Screw that. Black Friday solo!

Those do look nice. I thought about grabbing one for the cover band to give me a slightly different sonic space when using humbuckers with my "always playing fucking Les Pauls" bandmates, and they just don't come up used.

[Überschall]

Nice!

Also, DIBS. If () you decide to move on from it.

[mpexus]

Looks great!!!

[Mike]

Also, isn't that the BC Rich scale length?

[Darren]

Nice!

Also, DIBS. If () you decide to move on from it.

Wait, I thought my DIBS was implied?

[jacksonplayer]

Also, isn't that the BC Rich scale length?

Come to think of it, you're right. Poland played BC Riches in Megadeth (Bich and an STIII, I think), so maybe he wanted to go back to that scale.

For the longest time after Megadeth, he was playing a one-off chambered Yamaha SG that apparently had been made for Carlos Santana back in the day but was just sitting unplayed in some Yamaha exec's office for years--it was basically just a gift to Poland while he was doing some work for Yamaha. Poland modded it for a Floyd, and that was his main guitar in Ohm until the Schecter deal, I believe.

It's also very interesting sounding. Somewhat darker sounding than a Les Paul but probably more suitable for metal than your typical LP. Low end is not flubby at all. Quite versatile.

[jacksonplayer]

Holy wars at once.

Here you go.

https://soundcloud.com/councilofone/wholly-wars

[noodles]

[*]Slightly neck-heavy. This is a problem on many 24-fret singlecuts, and the ultra-short scale affects this guitar's balance by having the bridge be slightly further toward the middle of the body. It doesn't do full-on neck dive like a BC Rich, but just slightly. My fabric strap fixes most of it, and I've got a set of ebony tuner buttons on order to replace the really heavy Grover metal ones. Even just a few ounces less at the headstock makes a huge difference. I took the buttons off last night to feel the weight, and it instantly balanced just fine.

Hipshot's open gear tuners weigh practically nothing compared to Grovers.

[Shawn]

First I've ever heard of these....really nice! Love Chris Poland too.

[petereanima]

Never seen one of those before, super sexy!

[jacksonplayer]

Hipshot's open gear tuners weigh practically nothing compared to Grovers.

Changing out the tuner buttons for ebony ones fixed the problem well enough. It balances pretty close to a Les Paul, now. Those full-size 3x3 Grover metal buttons are really heavy.

I considered changing out the tuners to something lighter, but I don't think I'll need to now.