Peavey Destiny

I had a jet black one in 1992 that I bought used from a guy I worked with. Same features as mentioned with SSH config.

In 1992 is was mainly used for home recording. Using a Peavey Profex I got mainly 80's sounds out of this machine. Pretty steral actually. Don't get me wrong, if all you do is gain filled dittys...this machine might be for you. The coil splitting...as mentioned in another post..is still splitting into huge output..and clean character filled tones are difficult to obtain. It's a dark guitar sound with the rosewood and neck through...kinda sustained rich tones for the era or yeara. lol Then Nirvana closed the door on that.

The neck just wails...smooth and...prob. the best feature is the neck...The fantail headstock is the coolest body style feature. The electronics fell apart after about a years worth of serious playing. The overall look and setup was fine. A very nice piece of art, and kind of a decent guitar.

Electronics gave out. Pretty cheap in the guts from what I remember. If it has a once-through by a tech...it might be road ready...

Here's the most bogus aspect of this guitar or any floyd equipped guitar...

once you bust a string it might take you two weeks to get the guitar to sit in tune with whammy use....meaning...the whammy set up is not to my liking...I own no Floyed Bridge guitars at this time....oh wait, i still have one...i never use the whammy on it...

Peavey helped me before with the ProFex...it burnt a chip or something. Never tried to get the guitar fixed, and I didn't know how to do electronics at the time. Thanks to the web, I can fix shtuff now. But, I gave the guitar away to guitar center for $200 bucks. The guts were a mess...needed some solder work. If I knew how to repair back then and I wasn't broke, I would prob. still have the guitar. yeah right.

* How long have you been playing?
me play long time...

What other gear do you own?
mostly strats and strat types

* Is there something you wish you had asked before buying this guitar? Yes, why am I buying this?


* If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?
No, it's an 80's meathead guitar.

* What do you love about it?
the headstock was cool..

What do you hate?
the cheap electronics

What is your favorite feature? dive bombing on the floyd, of course

* Did you compare it to other guitars?
i just bought it like a fool because it had six strings..

Why did you choose this one? fool
* Anything you wish it had? the neck does rock...if you can get the rest of the machine to work with you...oh...and don't poke your eye out with the headstock..
* Anything else you'd like to share?
don't poke your bass players eye out with the headstock....

I don't know the year of manufacture for my guitar, but peavey can look it up with the serial number - i haven't bothered to check yet. The other reviews have all the details on the specs, so I'll just add my comments below.

the destiny worked great for my main style for quite a while, until I decided to try out other guitars. Then I realized that it's pretty much a heavy shred guitar, and doesn't really want to have anything to do with "clean" music. It's definitely a quiet guitar - very little noise on any of the pickups, but it's sort of lacking on the tone.

It came pretty well adjusted, though I've had it fine-tuned since (intonation, bridge adjusts, etc.)

Definitely holds up under abuse - the finish has taken little damage from all the bumps I've given to it. Never had any problems with the electronics failing, or hardware, or strap buttons. I did have to replace the locking nuts at the top of the neck, but that was due to my over-tightening. I have broken strings on it before, and since it's a floating trem setup, that will put the other strings out of tune, so it's not the best idea to play a gig without a backup guitar - I was glad for mine!

I've been playing for 12 years, I own a les paul custom and a peavey wolfgang standard - both better guitars than the destiny. I love the neck-thru design, but the spyder floyd-rose tremolo that comes with it seems to suck away all the sustain. It does ok in that respect, but of the three guitars that i own, it does the worst. There is too much of a volume difference between the humbucker pickup and the two single coils - the latter are too quiet, and that's a bit of a pain when switching back and forth. I love the action of the fretboard - rosewood is great, and the main reason I've kept it so long (7 years or so) is for the 24 frets. there need to be more guitars with 24 frets out there.

The humbucker pickup is loud and great for harmonics and heavy wub-jub palm muting, but when it comes to tone, I finally realized after some time that i had been missing out on a lot. My les paul and wolfgang both blow it away in that category. It would be tough to give up, but if I replaced it with some other kind of 24 fret neck-thru, I would get over the change quick enough.

I ordered this Peavey Destiny during the summer of 1991, custom made in Meridian, Mississippi. The normal pickup configuration is sing/sing/hum, but I had a humbucker put in the neck position. 24-frets, 24 3/4th scale, one piece construction (neck-thru design), dinky strat-style body, no pickguard. I'm not sure what pickups are in it, just whatever Peavey normally used for this model - passive design. It has a Kahler floyd-rose licensed trem, double-locking design. Arctic white finish, with rosewood fingerboard, very thin neck. Came with a hardshell case.

For straight-ahead rock & metal, it sounds and plays great. I've run it through a Peavey Ultra 60 head, and it is simple to get the Metalli-crunch sound.. very tasty. Awesome sustain, due to the neck-thru design. Very fat sound - rarely biting, but not too dark. Unfortunately, the other pickup settings are lacking - you're not going to get a good strat "funk" sound... The neck pickup sounds pretty good if you're running thru distortion, but forget about a good clean sound. But since I had a humbucker put in (rather than the standard S/S/H config) I'd suggest you try it yourself first.

This guitar has gone through seven years of hard playing and abuse. It has held up wonderfully. I have never had to have it adjusted, or have any maintenance work done on it. It was set up perfectly from the factory, and I haven't had to have the intonation adjusted once. Nice, low action - allows for some very fast playing. The guitar looks (looked?) good - before it hit the ground a few times, the paint job was beautiful - nothing fancy, but just a good looking instrument. It's physically small, and fairly light. It looks like an 80's guitar, but it did come in some finishes that were much more "sophisticated" looking....

Oh yeah. Great durability. I've had 5 other guitars, and this one has held up much longer than the rest. It's really taken a beating, and while it doesn't *look* that great anymore, it still plays very well, and sounds like it did on the first day. Only problem is that I had to drill new holes for the strap locks - they stripped out about four years after I got it. I would definitely use it on a gig without a backup (and have for several years)

Never needed a repair. The custom pickup configuration was easily attained, and I got it 2 months after ordering it from the factory.

I've been playing for 11 years, and this guitar has dominated most of that time. I just recently purchased a Fender Deluxe Srat Plus, because I needed a more versatile range of sounds... I don't play that much metal anymore. I do wish I hadn't gotten the humbucker in the neck position, but ultimately it hasn't made that much difference. If it were stolen, I don't know if I would try to find another - it's a great guitar for what I bought it for, but it's not very "contemporary" looking. I had played Kramer's prior to buying the Destiny, and I never looked back. The $900 Destiny blew away the $1400 Kramer Americans. I do wish it had a better out-of-phase pickup setting, so I could get some good compressed funk sounds, but otherwise, it's a great guitar. I'll never get rid of it.

This guitar has many desirable features. It's made in the USA. It is of rock maple neck through the body construction with poplar sides. It has a rosewood fretboard with 24 18% nickel-silver frets. 15" radius fingerboard, 24.75" scale. It has a distortion class humbucker with a coil splitter switch, and two hum-cancelling singles as well. 5 way selector switch. volume and tone contols. It has a Kahler Spyder double-locking tremelo which they stopped making after Floyd Rose sued them (or so I've been told). 5 degree angled peghead with scalloped edge design.

I mainly play hard rock to heavy metal and this guitar does this nicely. It also sounds great in the single coil positions for cleaner stuff, especially position #4. The split coil is nice for distorted playing for a different sound but is a little too hot to clean-up for nice pretty stuff. The pickups have resistance readings of hum=16.15khz. (8.27khz. in single coil mode) mid=9.66 khz. and neck=9.48khz. This gives SOME idea as to how hot the pickups are but of course is only one of the variables in pickup design. Compare these to a Dimarzio Super Distortion at 13.68khz or a Seynour Duncan JB pickup at 16.4khz. A little SD Screamin' Demon single neck is 9.72khz, A little '59 = 9.86khz. I play through an ART ECC multi-effect board into a Crate VC3112 class A tube amp. This runs into a Tascam 4 track where I can blend the stereo signal of the Shure-miced amp and the output from the ART. Nice variety of sounds.

Mine is finished in a pearlescent white with black hardware. There is one run in the finish but fairly minor as I just noticed it after seven years! One of the white dot markers on the side of the fingerboard was smeared with stain before it was clear coated. You can see where the neck goes through the body on the back side - looks like it could have been filled better before finishing. The finish near the pickup or trem. routing could have used more attention. I painted my pickup cavities black to finish them off better. The quality to the areas that affect playabilty was good but the cosmetic details could have been better.

I think the hardware used on this guitar is of high quality. Everything seems solid and dependable. Only areas of cosmetic details are where more attention could have been used. The finsh is just now starting to wear where my right forearm rests on the upper edge of the guitar - just a little. Everything else is fine.

Never had any problems with it. I did e-mail them some questions and they responded with answers in short order.

This guitar has all the features that I really need in a guitar. It plays well and sounds nice. So why am I still searching for that "right guitar"? When I look for other guitars I always tend to gravitate to guitars with nearly identical features/design. I think if I ever replaced this guitar it would be with an Ibanez "s540" or a Hamer Chapparel or California Elite. Email me if you have a similar guitar or questions about it.