Peavey Predator

BODY===============

*Cream colored, antique white, whatever you want to call it.
*Exact Stratocaster shape. Exact same deminsions (how did they not get sued?)
*3 peavey single coils, volume, neck tone, mid tone. 5 way switch.
*I installed a mini switch that activates the bridge pickup, regardless of what the 5 way selects, for all 3 pickups on, or just the neck and the bridge (tele combo).
*Neck-One Piece Maple with Maple fretboard, small fret wire (excellent for tapping) and it only has a light satin oil finish on the back of the neck. Soooooo smooth!!!! Hefty C shaped
*Fender style tremolo

Well, it has a sound all its own. Most people like the tone (read other reviews) few dont like it. It has nice cleans, but as soon as you put any overdrive on there, the pickups seem to "clip" and produces its own overdriven tone. Wonderfull.

They are single coils, and single coils will be single coils, and single coils will be noisy. No problem, I have a sheet of copper shielding foil, which I will install sometime. But it doesn't bother me enough right now. Maybe later.

Very unique tone.

I know this guitar is AT THE LEAST 10 years old (they stopped making the model in 94, and its 2004 as I write this review.)

And for those 10 years, the white finish knows no evil. It has held up extreemly well. There are two tiny chips on the back smaller than pencil eraser, but hey, they're beauty marks. Couple of scratches, but otherwise finish looks fresh.

The tuners are horrible no-name tuners. But they hold pretty well, because I havent tuned my guitar in about 2 months, and it is still in tune, so they must be okay. I am thinking about getting some locking tuners for my baby.

The neck is a dream, it plays so nicely. Thats my biggest feature when looking for guitars, is that if they have a great feeling and a maple fretboard.

*absolutely tough enough to be played live. 100% player.
*The wood is poplar, which has a very, very resonant sound. Unlike any of my other guitars.
*I replaced the standard strap buttons with Jim Dunlop Staplocks, so no worries here. I have dropped it on the ground before, cus the strap came off. Didn't harm it in the least. Tough little axe.
*I would confidently use it in a gig without a backup, but havent because I dont have a band right now, looking for one.
*I will admit that the tremolo is absolutely worthless, but I dont use it, havent had the tremolo bar on for about a year, I plan to stick some shims in there and get some more sustain, which this guitar already has a suprising bit of.

Well, I bought it used. It was my second electric guitar, after my Washburn developed some fret issues (ONLY HAD IT 4 MONTHS!! Washburn not a solid guitar, very dissapointing)

I never needed to deal with the company, but the website is always there, and they provide a user manual.

It was my second guitar, I traded my washburn for it. I started hating it, actually. I thought I had been ripped off. I was totally pissed. But as time went by, I started to love it, its feel is increadible. I hated it when I didn't know any better I was just starting out. I have a Customized Fender Strat, that I did customizations to, and it just doesnt have the spirit the peavey does. Its feel isn't very good.

My Fender is about to find itself a place on ebay, I am dead serious about that.

The typical strat-type body, neck and setup, 3 single coils, trem, contoured body, maple neck. 22 frets, late 80's/early 90's I'd guess. Stock Peavey pickups. Almost a complete strat clone all the way, except for the headstock and a couple of minor touches.

I play everything from classic rock to blues to modern crunch stuff to a litgtle country and jazz. I play in different bands, all of which are fairly broad-based, able to offer up most any genre given the occasion. It it also perfect for slide. Through my Mesa Boogie Mark IIc I occasionaly use a wah and/or Dunlop Roto-Vibe, but more often just straight in with a touch of reverb, and at times, an old Leslie cabinet. When I require a bunch of built-in effects I use a big Johnson Millennium or a little AC-112 Behringer. This guitar continues to amaze me. It's got a better (for me) strat trademark sound than my vintage strat (a real 1957 -- and I know, there are those who'll say I'm nuts, that it couldn't possibly be better in any respect). Something along the lines of a SRV or Hendrix fullness, with a surprisingly creamy and smooth natural overdrive when I want it, from the 3 stock (Peavey, no less) single coils. Covers the whole strat tone spectrum extremely well, very responsive to the electronics; backing off the volume cleans and brightens it up a bit without a significant loss of volume until below 6 or so, with a good taper as it's turned up, eventually achieving the aforementioned overdriven tone and great sustain (especially with slide work). At first, I couldn't quite reconcile how good this thing sounded, especially given some of the high-end stuff I was using for comparison. But I'm convinced at this point that I'm not going to find another strat or strat-type instrument that's going to surpass this one. Just astonishing. The only drawback sound-wise is the typical single coil hum around lights and such in the 1,3 and 5 positions of the pickup selector switch. Goes with the territory and not and issue when you're playing. I considered (briefly) changing them out for noiseless, but I'm afraid it might sacrifice the tones I'm getting.

This guitar continues to amaze me. I've owned it about 3 years now, and I literally bought it off the street from a junk shop for 35 bucks. I was looking for a beater to leave in my room in the media department of a high school and I figured for the price I wouldn't mind it getting beat up even more than it already was. And it deinitely was. It started out had black with a few additional coats of whatever spray paint happened to be around, apparently. I stripped all of it off down to bare wood and discovered very nice looking (ash, maybe?) one piece top and back laminates over poplar, so rather than refinish, I just left it natural and put on a few coats of bowling alley wax to keep from getting dirty (it's got a nice sheen as a result, but not glossy). The factory 8-hole pickguard (like a vintage strat) was a mess from sticker goop and other punishment, so I replaced it with a nice tortoise pickguard that suits the natural finish very nicely. The neck is a moderately beefy C shape and I'd say they "sampled" a 60's era strat from which to modedl it. I can't comment on factory set up or finish , but it can't have been as bad as it was when I picked it up. It didn't take much to get it into fine playing order -- some neck relief tweaking, saddle adjustment, pickup height adjustment, intonation, polishing off some rough fret ends, but it's all been minor. The tuning machines are on the cheap side, but other than that the hardware seems to be at least as good as the Fenders it emulates. Bottom line, everything works the way it should, or better.

I'd speculate that this guitar borders on indestructible under anything but the worse kind of abuse. I've accidentally dropped it, banged it around a bit unintentionally, and a bunch of kids have played it less than subtley. Very rugged. I don't play without a backup anywhere, but if I had to I'd put my complete confidence in this one.

As far as I can tell, they provide out-of-production instrument documentation better than anybody in the business. They have a downloadable manual for this guitar online, and they have an excellent board for hooking up with other users, and it also has regular input and answers from Peavey techs. A#1.

I've been playing since 1963 (yeah, so I'm an old bastard, but at least I'm told I don't look it) and in that time I've owned more than my share of guitars -- I keep the really good ones and let the others go. I currently have a respectable stable including two Gibson L5-s's (the 70's era solidbody); a 64 Gibson 330 (my first good guitar and the one they'll bury me with); the aforementioned old strat; a pair of PRS hollowbodies; a McInturff; a Godin; a resonator, etc. This guitar is almost always the FIRST one I take off its stand and consistently my #1 on stage. It is basic, simple and utilitarian, and while some of those above feature some truly lavish appointments, as a player this Predator compares very favorably to all of the above-named brands and models, and even surpasses a few of the more "exclusive" instruments for pure worry-free enjoyment. I'm sure this will be doubted by some nay-sayers, but if it's any indication, this is the first time I've been so impressed with an instrument that I'ved been moved to submit a review. Also, as a result of my experience with this guitar, I thought I should explore some other, underrated Peavey instruments and have since acquired their old Tele clone and a pair of T-60s. They are all incredible bargains, great players, and not one has cost me more than $200.00. So much for headstock envy. Theft? I have big, hungry, antisocial dogs so anybody trying to steal it wouldn't get it out of the house. This will likely never be a collectible guitar and there are probably a million of them out there, but for a basic, well constructed, USA-made instrument, you can't beat the value on these. I'll be looking to acquire more of them, just to satisfy my hoarding impulses.

I believe it's an early 1990's model, my friend had bought it from a pawn shop, and hadn't played it for a really long time. (her dog had chewed through the power cord on her amp and she didn't bother getting a new one or fixing it, she just played her acoustic), It's been banged around a lot by her, and after my guitar got stolen out of her truck one night, she gave this to me. A friend was telling me that these specific ones were hard to find, with some kind of laminate on the fretboard. 5-way selector, volume, 2 tones, I'm not sure abou the pickups, or the wood, white/white finish, strat style, not sure what the bridge style is, tuners are non-locking, 22 frets, didn't come with anything else

I don't have an amp right now, my amp got stolen along with my guitar, but I rigged it up to my mixer preamp and a Sony Xplod 12.. No effects processors.. but for some reason, it gets a mean fucking distortion like I've never gotten before.. Almost like a Type O Negative distortion, just with a lot more crunch. Harmonics are fucking amazing, I hit a harmonic and it keeps ringing forever. I'm not really sure about all the variations on the sound, I've only had it a couple days, but so far, so good.

The action, pickups, everything.. is fucking perfect. I didn't even know I could play this fast. This guitar just has the perfect feel, thin neck, smooth fretboard, The only thing I've even played that was close to this was a BC Rich Mockingbird that had a few modifications done to it.

I know my friend beat the shit out of this guitar when she had it, as much as she moved, had it sitting in the attic, banged around, etc. I think this fucker will last forever, and the finish is great. Strap buttons are rock solid, and like i said, if it's been untouched for four years, and the only string I even had to fuck with to get it in tune was the top string, I think I could rely on this one easily.

I've never dealt with Peavey customer support.

I have been playing for eight years, currently don't have any other guitar equipment, as I said, it was all stolen, I'm trying to get new shit for that, I own a Shure mic, some cheap ass mixer I got from a garage sale, but I think it might have been modified because when the guitar is plugged into it, it has such an amazing distortion.. If I could find another one like this, I would definitely like it. The only thing I dislike about this guitar is the single coils. But even then, they sound great for single coils. I would definitely recommend this guitar to anybody, beginner or experienced player, it is just so comfortable and has such a great sound, it surprised the hell out of me.. I thought it was going to be a piece of shit before I started playing it.

This is a 92 model i think. Black, laminated neck, some trem sytem (fender type, not floyd type) 22 frets, strat style headstock with old peavey logo. 3 single coils. no idea about the rest of it. Get's the job done

Well, this is the guitar i get out to beat the crap out of. this is the guitar that like that treatment, and i'd like to keep my Wolfgang in good shape.
The tone, first of all, slap some 11 guage strings on it. the action is a little high, but what ever, that's how it needs to be played. i like the tone on it, and i like it a little more than a fenders. (oh, and i can play too. we all just need something to harm)
mine has an odd neck, seems there are 2 sepereate peices of wood, and they are joined between the d and g strings.
otherwise keep it in the 2nd pick up position (the neck and middle ones) and just leave the bridge out at all times.

I've had it for 10 years. it's beat up. still sounds and feels like the day i first got my hands on it.

it is in one peice, ater continued dropping, moving, drunkennes, gerneral inebriation, rain, cold, heat, continued abuse,
and it never goes out of tune. ok much. (i don't use the trm, lost the bar years ago, and it has a really odd size hole for it anyway.)
the finish is very thick on it. and coated in a thick plastic or something coating. (i checked. nice big scratch on the top of it, couged it to make sure it was wood) i see no problems with this thing.

don't know.

I've been playing for about 12 years. i love peavey guitars. i use fender tube amps. i play through a lot of effects. if stolen, people will die. Otherwise this is a great guitar to learn on, and later, to beat up on. Although the new predators, with the EVH deadstock, stay clear. might as well go ahead and buy a korean wolfgang. or a squire. But, if you are looking to find a good guitar, with good tone, and something to use for a nice MBV/Dinosaur JR, lo-fi sound. The older ealy 90's predators are a good start. heck they are cheap. get 3.
And no you can't have mine.

'92 Predator, black, 3 single coils, bilaminate maple neck, 12" radius, 25.5 scale, wide frets, graphite nut. It has virtually the same features as a Strat. The only significant difference being that the bridge pickup has no tone control. The two tone controls are for the middle and neck pickups only. The neck tilt feature is identical to the neck tilt mechanism I had once on a Deluxe Strat Plus.

Given this it seems that people who rate the features much below an 8 are unfairly picking on this guitar. That is unless they would also rate the features of a Strat as a 5.

I bought this guitar for my nephew who his learning to play. I've been playing for over 20 years. I own several guitars and have built several guitars. I say this to demonstrate that I know something even if I don't know everything.

I think it's a nice Strat style single coil tone. It isn't the holy grail of tone but it is really good. My favorite tone came from the #2 notch postition which gave forth a nice dry quack. I've never been a fan of any Strat's middle pickup all by itself and this guitar is no exception. The neck and #4 notch postions have a bit less character than the bridge and #2 notch but what it lacked in character it made up for in nice, round, smooth, usable tones.

I scrolled through some of the previous reviews and actually saw people comparing this guitar to $1,000+ Strats and Les Pauls. I will respectfully say, "Give me a break". IMO too many times people pick up a guitar and compare it to the very best guitar they've ever played. If that guitar was a 58 reissue Les Paul then that qualifies as a 10. By exact comparison then, this guitar would be about a 4. But that's silly. When I pick up a $100 used guitar I look for the following: Is it comfortable to play? Decent action? Is the neck aligned correctly? Is the tone usable with at least a trace of character? Could I play this for a while without getting board by the tone? Is it solid wood or a laminate?

The answers to all of these questions with regard to the Predator were positive. It's a good guitar with solid construction and a very usable tone. If I handed you this Predator and you couldn't get good usable tones out of it, you just don't know how to play. Sorry to be so hostile but if some of you can be that way, so can I.

I will agree that if you wanted to improve the tone noticeably you could put some new pickups in it and would see improvement. But that is not to imply that the stock pickups are crap. They are not. Suitable for the highest of gain on your 5150, Mesa or Plexi? Without a doubt, no. But how many tradtional single coils would be?

In the store I played this guitar along with 3 Fender Squire Strats that were in better shape and were the same price. This Predator's tone was significantly better. By comparrison each of the Squires were thin, bright and harsh sounding. There is nothing thin or harsh inherant in these pickups.

My inclination is to rate this a 9 just to try and offset some of what I think are rediculously low ratings by some of the previous reviewers but I won't. It qualifies as a good solid 8.

Excellent. It has better action than most new Fender Strats I've picked up. I hate picking up new guitars in stores and thinking, "This would be a good guitar if it were set up right." I didn't do that with this guitar.

Once I got it home I cleaned it out. Whoever owned it befoer me must have stored it in a garage. It was fairly heavily encrusted with dirt and cat hair. Even then, it sounded better than anything in it's price range.

Once I got it home and cleaned it up I was impressed with it's unplugged resonance and sustain. This translated well to the amplified tone.

Since it had been been beat pretty hard the body paint and neck lacquer were a little scratched and dented. Niether was the thick luxurious clear coats you see on more expensive guitars. The neck just needs someone to play it extensively to smooth it out a little. It had no fretwear what so ever so whoever owned it abused it but didn't use it.

It was in perfect playing condition once I gave it a little TLC. Like them or not, Peavey guitars are very durable.

All electronics were rock solid and so was the neck.

Peavey has a good web page with very attentive moderators. They answered my questions about this guitar quickly and I was able to download a manual for it even though this model is no longer in production.

I'm rating this as a beginner guitar that has the ability to morph into something beyond. An advanced player would never pick this up and ask someone to pinch them. It just wouldn't be their perfect guitar. But it shouldn't offend them either. It's a good player with decent tone, a solid poplar body and the potential to be upgraded to the point of being something relatively special within the context of a weekend warrior.

In the mean time I've gotten my nephew a very solid guitar that he will be able to grow into. It's value far exceeds the price I paid. It is a great value!

I picked this axe up for 1 dollar at a school garage sale (i'm not kidding either i don't really care if you believe me or not)

Its got the basic features its laid out just like a strat it is made in the good ole us of a it has 1 vol 2 tone knobs. The tuners are non locking the fretboard is maple it has 24 frets the neck is wide sort of like a 70's strat, it has 3 pickups i'm a punk rocker so this axe suited my needs.

Since i play punk rock it suits my music style just fine. I currently have a 150 watt peavey pacer amp, i use no effects i believe that pickups and your amp overdrive make good effects, it has a really good sound its sounds really bright and clear without an amp.
I'm more of a les paul type person but for 1 dollar it made a good guitar especially for punk.

When i recieved it the neck was warped so i had to get that fixed my local music store did that for free. The pickups i had no problems with the only flaws i found after inspecting it was it had some dents and scratches in it but it wasn't any big deal. The jack for the cord was rusted when i got it i had to get that fixed. Everything else was perfect.

I have played this guitar live with out a backup so it holds up. The hardware seems very sturdy. The finish is pretty thin it scratches really easy but it don't bother me because i put stickers on it and i play punk so it is going to get the shit beat out of it. i am going to give this a 6 because of the finish and you will have to buy straplocks or tape it like i did in true punk fashion, plus i can't afford straplocks.

I have never had to deal with the company, and i have no clue how long the warranty lasts and who cares a payed a fucking dollar for it

I have been playing for about five years now, if it were stolen or lost i would probabally just say fuck it and buy a new Les Paul. My favorite feature would have to be the neck. I didn't think twice about buying it i just grabbed it before anyone else did,

This is 91 peavey predator. Poplar body, maple nech, three sigle coils ect ect. Anyone who has played a strat will know the features.

This guitar is the most incredible bargain ever. You can get them on ebay for under $100. I paid $81 plus shipping for mine. No one wants to give 2 cents for anything with Peavey writen on it. Take advantage of this deal. This guitar sounds better to me than any strat I have heard. The only thing that comes close is an 86 jap strat I played in a store. I play it through a Marshall tsl 122. The tone on this guitar is so sweet. I have other guitars I paid alot more for. For clean tone this guitar beats them all. The neck pickup has a great blues tone. The bridge/middle has a great funky, shimmery tone. The bridge sounds pretty good distorted for that Blackmore kind of groove.
The body was pretty beat up but the neck and playability of this guitar is very good. I just need to clean the pots and refinish the body and this will be my main axe. I have not been able to play this guitar at really high volumes so I can't tell you how microphonic it is.

I covered thia already.

Seems to be built solidly. I'm shure it is durable. 11 years old and still plays nice.

I like it alot.

US-made in 95-96 sometime. 21 frets maple neck with adjustment and torsion rod. Maple (not plastic) body. Mine's pitch black, glossy finish with black pick guard. Three single coils. No name tremolo. No name tuners.

Quote from the manual: "The high-output single-coil pickups are frequency tuned..." - to the mains frequency apparently - "...for maximum tonal response..." - of howling microphonic feedback.
The mics are worthless - for anything but mains hum pickup and acoustic feedback (which is the exact opposite of what you want if you really want feedback). On low volumes they do sound quite bright and gritty. I actually kept one of them which I used in conjunction with one of the EMG mics I substituted. With the phase of the original mike reversed this sounded quite nice with the main character coming from the EMG mike but with some dirt from the original mike thrown in. In the end, however, I had to replace the last mike also as it could not be used live on stage.
Read my lips: Rip them out and replace them, you hear me?

Pretty standard except for the neck which I think is outstanding. Some tweaking necessary to get proper intonation from it. Hardware has not given me any problems. If you replace strings when they get worn (as you should on any guitar) you'll have no problems tuning it or keeping it in tune. I've had it since it was new and gigged extensively with it and it still looks new. 'Ceptin of course my own dirty phingerphrints. (Anybody has a tip for not getting your cables disgustingly dirty?) I've played much more expensive guitars with action very inferior to this.

'Ceptin' those buzzmonsters of stock (schtick) pickups I'd say this is a pretty damn good guitar. I've used it almost exclusively for live playing and it's never let me down. Replace those mikes and adjust intonation and you'll have no troubles.
Try a Steve Vai tremolo stunt and it will go out of tune as any guitar will without locking bridge and/or tuners.
At first I always brought a backup but these days I never bother. I've had it fall on it's head on stage, turned one tuner back to it's position and be ready to rock and roll.

No experience

For it's price (at the time approx. 250 USD - substantially under retail price in Sweden) it's a very good guitar. You should seriously calculate an additional 50-100 bucks for decent mikes tho'. There are certainly better guitars out there - but those will set you back very much more.

Apparently this is made in the USA. This was my second ever electric guitar and I pretty much grew up with this guitar. I don't know which year it was made in but it was bought in '95.
It has 22 frets, solid body with a bolt on maple neck.Strat style.Came with free case and peavey rage practise amp.

Being modelled after a strat it's going to be quite a versatile guitar. A clean sound to die for with a jazzy or jangly, just plain tasty!! Never felt inadequate jamming on my practise amp, but it sounds perfect through my marshall jmp1 - mesa boogie 50/50 - marshall 1960B cabinet. The pickups are single coil and noisy at distortion and high volume with lots of hum. I have thought about changing the pickups to noiseless ones but I actually like the tone. I have other guitars far more expensive than this one, but I still always go back to it.

I don't know how well it was set up when I bought it because I didn't know anything back then. It is very easy to tweak the action though.
The neck on this is so comfortable and the best feature of this guitar.Again I'm not sure if it has been played in or if it was always this good. The finish was quite good when I got it, kind of an Eric Clapton 'Blackie' copy. I have since removed all of the finish off the body(beautiful wood)and it seems to sound even better. The only thing I dislike is the large bolt-on heel and cutaway which seems quite bulky after playing on all access shred guitars.

It really depends on what style of music you play. If you're playing pop music where everything needs to be perfect it could be a bit too noisey with the hum factor. If however you are playing rock or alternative and don't worry about the hum it will be fine. The strap buttons are very sturdy. With new pickups it would please most strat players. I still prefer the originals but that's just me. Very reliable.

Never needed any help

To anyone out there looking for a faithfull dependable guitar , this is it.

Made in USA in 1995, mine is a white strat copy, the only visible difference in relation to the Fender Strat is in the bridge, with only four screws, and in the headstock shape. Poplar body and maple neck (22frets). Three single coil pickups and five way selector.

This is my first guitar, and I wanted a strat type guitar. My effects setup is a Boss power supply , Boss compressor sustainer, Boss turbo distortion, Boss super chorus, Boss Flanger, and Boss digital delay. My amps are a Peavey Rage 158 and a Fender Blues Junior. I can get a wide variety of playing styles with this guitar, from blues to hard rock ex: Jimi Hendrix to Deep Purple. The bridge pickup have a bright sound also because of the poplar body and have hum, so I replaced the bridge pickup with a Dimarzio Fast track 2, that is a humbucker with the size of the single coil. After the replacement the sound get better, with a more rich full sound, lot of midrange and no hum, good for soloing, that's what I like.

This is a good quality beginner guitar, everything was properly adjusted. I have it for six years playing only at home and all is the same,no scratch at all. I own other guitars, but this is my prefered in terms of quality constrution.

I never played live with this guitar, only at home, so I cannot say that this guitar can withstand live playing. But I think for the quality of construction of this guitar it is reliable.

N/A

This is my first guitar, I play for six years and this is my prefered guitar because is a strat type, you can play a wide variety of styles.
The only problem was in the pickups, that have a bright sound and hums, this is a problem with single coil pickups, so I replaced with a Dimarzio Fast Track 2, and now is lot better, good for soloing in the likes of Vinnie Moore, David Chastain, Tony Macalpine etc. I own other guitars: Epiphone Les Paul, Fender Telecaster, Slammer flying V, and a ESP/LTD Viper 300.If this guitar was stolen or lost I would get simply mad.