Blade Guitars Durango Deluxe

My durango deluxe (DD-2) was made in china, checked and set-up in zwitserland (june-2008). price = 850 euro. (that's about 1250 dollar) I've got the black cherry finish that is really beautifull. 2x humbucker, vsc system. (boost mid's or high+low's) mahogany body and set-neck. A nice thing is that the upper fret's are really well playable. Flamed top, looks really good. body is PRS shaped, I think this guitar is overall quit a bitt PRS-like, but smaller and light-weight. wrap-around bridge/stoptail (B and G string are adjustable, seperated from the other strings). Non locking tuners, they stay very well in tune. Thin neck, that has almost no change in playabilaty and feel, even if you play at the higher fret region's. guitar comes whitout a gigbag or case.
Oh yes: the nut is selp lubricating material.

Guitar fit's allmost every style, sounds like a PRS, but the VSC does make ik more versatile. It does metal, but not as good as some ibanez guitars... The humbuckers are very clear, but they just are'nt single coils. I love humbuckers, so I'm very happy with the sound. I play all sorts of music styles and this guitar fit's most of them.
I use the guitar with a brunetti maranello (full tube) amp, boss TU-2 tuner, blackstar HT-dual and a visual sound H2O.
The guitar is not noisy at all!
The guitar has a very bright sound, but has quit a lot of bass too. It amazes me how full the sound is, I did nog expect that from a guitar that is so light-weight!! This really is proof to me that this is a very well built guitar.
The guitar can really make al kinds of sounds and suits many styles.
I like the fact that is has no tremolo a 3-way pickup selecter, that is really light-weigt, has a pretty small neck and plays like a dream!

Factory set-up was very good, top is beautifull and very well matched. This is al very good looking guitar, it looks better than some much more expensive guitars I know.
Wood is of exeptional quality and everything on the guitar works perfectly and was very well set-up.
I could only find one finish-flaw: the nut had some dark staines and some little scratches, just below both E-strings. (-1 point makes a 9)

I have this guitar a couple of month's now.. I really believe that it will last for a very long time. Hardware seems very solid, finish is great and won't wear off easily, straps are surprisingly solid!!! I use it whitout a back-up, never had an will have any problems with this little guy.

Don't know, but the feeling that I really believe that I will never need them is very strong.

This is my first 'expensive' and 'real' guitar. I thougt about getting a gibson les paul studio (cost 800 euro/1200 dollar in holland), but at one-on-one comparing this guitar just easily proved to be the best sounding and best built guitar. I really like the looks and sound of a les paul, but for the money i just know i bought the best guitar. (850,- euro = 1250 dollar)

I have a Blade Durango Deluxe DD2 since one year, bought in early 2006 for 740 Euro. It is in dark red, all mahagoni with a very fine shaped neck and a nicely shaped body.

It has two humbuckers, called LHN-5B and LHN-5N. Rest is quite normal (one vlumne, one treble), but there is a little three way switch for the VSC, an active electronic device to make some nice tone changes.

When the switch is in the up position, it has a bass and treble boost, in the middle position it's said to be on bypass, in the lower postion there is a mid boost.

All boosts can be set differently with three little screws on the back - so I set mine to no bass boost, but medium to high treble boost for the upper switch position, and a a very high mid boost when in the lower postion.

This VSC is one of the best things of the Blade.

I have replaced the original three way pickup switch with an Eyb Multiswitch (I had to carve some wood on the inside) - and my god, the was one of the best modifications I had made on all my guitars.

I was hooked from the first tone when I played it in the shop, but then later at home after the initial joy had given way to routine, I wasn't at first impressed by the tone. It was harder to get a good tone out of it - until I realized, it was my own fingers. The Blade is more dependent on what you play then my Fender American Strat and the Duesenberg Starplayer TV I own as well. Don't know why that is, and I don't know if this is everyones feeling about the Blade.

I play mostly rock stuff through the Boss GT-8 into the Roland KC-350, sometimes I get the blues and rarely I try some jazz stuff.

Originally I made the error to use the Strat presets on the GT-8 for the Blade as well - that may eyplain, why it was so difficult for me to get a satisfying tone originally out of the Blade.

But since I put the Eyb Switch into it, I rediscovered the Blade and am now fully happy with it.

First of all the versatility of the guitar is great. Only a single coil can produce single coil sounds - but when you set the VSC to treble boost you can have something very similar to the Bryan Adams tone in e.g. "It's only love".

The mid boost is really a very fine thing - when you put it into action, you can get from clean to crunch or from crunch to high gain. You can use it as well as a solo switch if you like.

Depending on your gain settings, the mid boost can give you a VOX like muffled tone, or a santana sound. Or you can just use it to just hold back the bass from the amp, so that the distortion is much nicer.

I liked the jangly sound of the two pickups together, but for me it wasn't originally bright enough. But with the Eyb switch, I have three possiblities for this jangled sound (although two are pretty much the same), and I am totally happy with that as well.

Again, this is not a "I own this guitar now for three hours and it is huge", but I play this guitar now for one year. But since I am a dumb guy, it took me one year to actually find out what a superb guitar that is.

When you set the treble boost to maximum, it can be a bit noisy, but in the more moderate settings like I use, it is ok.

What I really like is, without changing anything on the amp, you can go from jangly clean sounds to rocky distortion in 15 different steps. And since you have an active electronic, you can use the volume control without loosing the highs.

When the guitar came new, the saddle was a bit low for my taste, but that is easy fixed. Other than that, it looks, feels and sounds perfect.

The only thing that is a minus is the jack. When I pull the cable into one special direction, the tone drops out. I will replace this in the near future. I don't particularly like how the jack is fixed within the guitar. If it turns loose (which it does quite often), you have to open the compartment on the back and tighten the screw again. I would prefer something like e.g on a tele, which you can fix from the outside. As well the dirction how the plug is inserted is not the best on this planet - if you sit e.g. on the sofa (yes I do that sometimes, when i tweak settings on my GT-8) the plug hits the sofa.

With the only exception of this jack, the blade is reliable and durable. Even the 9V battery I have not changed in this year. The strap buttons I had immediately replaced with Schaller locks, so I can't say anything good or bad about them.

I would take always two guitars to a gig (everything can go wrong, this is probably german secure thinking), but I trust the blade.

I only dealt once with the with a little question, and the answer was quick and precise. Yesterday I asked them about this jack problem, and there is no answer yet - but hey, it's a weekend.

Overall rating in two words: Damn good.

I started playing 28 years ago, then there was a long pause until 1,5 years ago I started again. I own now a Fender American Strat, a Duesenberg Starplayer TV, a Ibanez RD 500 bass, a Takamine EAN10 acoustic guitar, an Ibanez classical guitar and a 80 Euro Telecaster (bought as a toy from ebay).

If it was stolen - yes, I would buy it again immediately. Of my guitars, it is the most versatile, so if I had only one guitar to take to the empty island (with electrical power, of course), it would be the blade.

My Durango is made in England, so thats puts it 1994-ish, when Gary Levinson shared factory space with Patrick Eggle. It's got a 22 fret neck, rosewood on maple, bolted to an ash body. Two humbuckers, Levinson Design in the Bridge and a Duncan mini '59 in the neck, with a five-way switch. Single volume and tone, with a push-push switch on the tone pot for active volume boost. The bridge is a Levinson FT-4 floating trem. Schaller locking tuners, adjustable height string tree, and truss rod access is through a removable plate at the body end of the fingerboard. The body looks a little like a Musicman Silhouette, finished in transparent deep red/cherry, the neck heel is shaped in a similar manner to the Silhouette too. White pearl scratchplate would look perfectly at home on a thin-line tele (kinda 'Florida' shaped). Neck is a nice 'C' shape, not too wide a 'C', instanly comfortable, though a little sharp edged. Yeah, it's got features!

The Levinson humbucker at the bridge fails to impress if run completely clean. That said, add a little overdrive and it starts to sing. The mini '59 at the neck is a thing of beauty. Smooth and warm, plenty of definition when clean or driven. Great for jazz or blues, or anything for that matter. Through any amp with a decent overdrive the guitar just sings, with either pickup. The active volume boost can make this guitar so powerful it's scary! The down side are the in-between positions. Both coils full-on is really nice and exactly what you'd expect. The other two positions with one coil from each pickup are O.K. but I found the volume drop just too much to handle. Still, that's life with twin humbuckers. You take it or leave it. (I left it as it turns out.)

When I got it, the previous owner made a complete mess of it. Rusted, neck bowed backwards, pickups were badly re-wired. But when I fixed it up, no problems! It holds it tuning fine, even under the most extreme trem abuse (and you've never met my friend Darren!). Frets are finished beautifully but, as I said above, the neck is a little sharp edged. This is more due to the shape of the neck than the fret ends though. It's not a problem, in fact it's a fantastic neck to play.

This guitar should last as long as most others would. It's very well put together with good hardware. I'm not sure how the finish would stand up to knocking around, but I've always had a feeling, right or wrong, that transparent finishes don't take bangs quite as well. Use it at a gig without a backup? Indeed I have.

As I said before, when I got the guitar the pickup wiring was a mess! I made a few phone calls, got onto the factory (now in Switzerland) and I had the wiring schematic by fax in less than an hour. That's what I call service! (And I had no warranty!)

I've been playing for eight years and this is without a doubt a fine guitar. Would I replace it? Well, actually, I did. The drop in volume from the in-between pickup positions just got up my nose. So I replaced it with a strat.
That said, I doo miss her soooooo much! (Oh! Whatta neck!)