Hamer Californian Deluxe USA

Built in `91, this is a USA-made Hamer Californian Deluxe in "Gold Granite" finish. The bolt-on neck is maple, and the fretboard is ebony, angled for 27 frets on the treble side. Inlays are offset pearl dots and two of Hamer's trademark boomerangs. The body is alder super-strat, with gold Hamer-branded Schaller tuners and Floyd Rose. The pickups are active EMGS, an 89 at the bridge and slanted SA at the neck, with tone and volume knobs and push-pull coil split, and a three-way blade pickup switch.

Features were standard for "shredder" guitars at the time. I can't really think of anything that it's missing.

I play lead guitar in a melodic death/thrash metal band, so I need to be able to play palm muted chords with no mud, and solos that can be heard above the rest of the band. From all the comments I've heard about EMG pickups, I had high hopes, but I'm a bit disappointed. I have other alder guitars with passive Seymour Duncans, and they have clarity that the EMGs can't touch. My usual studio setup is an ART Xtreme distortion/effects pedal into a Peavey Classic tube combo, with the pedal gain usually set to around 6 -- heavy distortion but not what would probably qualify as "brutal". The EMGs were fine for riffing, but magnified any and all hum and feedback. Maybe it's because I'm used to passive pickups, but I felt that the 89 humbucker over-distorted my signal, especially apparent on leads. Individual notes seemed to need less effort to hit, but the tone I was aiming for just wasn't there. Even the SA single seemed too hot, overdriving my clean channel easily. With the volume knob at zero, the guitar was still sending a relatively strong signal to the pedal and amp, including noise. I could hit an AC/DC tone without any sort of overdrive, with the volume down...but that's not what I want.

This isn't to imply that the guitar sounds bad. It is a little bright (typical alder/maple/ebony characteristic in my experience), yet overall fairly balanced and very capable for playing metal. Sustain is good, one of the redeeming qualities of active pickups. Unfortunately, the guitar's tone seems to get buried under the added gain, even clean.

The feel and playability of this guitar are outstanding, which is why the shortcomings of the sound are so disappointing. This is my second Californian, and I love the added playing surface that the 27-fret board offers, even if it doesn't look like a lot. This is a 12 year-old guitar that I just purchased three months ago, and it's seen a lot of playing from the look of it, but the fretboard feels brand new. The inlays and fretwork are superior to anything else that was in the store that day (sorry Gibson fans, the $2000 LPs weren't even close), and the neck joint and hardware feel as secure as you're going to find. Aside from minimal dings, scarcely visible after over a decade of use, the only signs of playing are some fretwear and slight tarnishing of the gold trem. The finish is obnoxious, but it definitely has that shredder flare to it.

Hamer workmanship is fantastic from what I've seen over the years, and this is one more flawless example.

It's lasted this long, and since I take good care of my guitars, I expect a long life with my Cali Deluxe. Schaller trems are real workhorses, and the rest of the hardware seems equally sturdy. I have no doubts about the reliability, but since this guitar is still new to me, I'll leave this rating blank for now.

I've never contacted Hamer directly, so no score here.

I've been playing for twelve years or so. My favorite guitars are the Jacksons and Hamers that aren't considered cool in today's rap-rock and nu-metal environment, but how else do you find a perfectly playable American-made guitar like this for the ridiculously low price I paid? The playability of this guitar is fantastic, exactly what I would expect from Hamer USA. I only wish that the EMG pickups were more to my liking; I know that some people consider them to be the ultimate metal pickups, but I'm not one of those people. I'm sure that this guitar has a better tone than the pickups let through, but I'll continue to play it as it is, leaving it in stock condition until the urge to swap the EMGs out strikes me.

I didn't compare this to anything in particular. The Hamer Californian is a unique guitar, and I didn't even give this purchase a second thought. It's too bad that the USA Cali is discontinued, but there are bargains to be found, and this was one of the best I've seen.