Schecter Tempest Custom

2002 Korean-built; essentially this is Schecter's answer to a Les Paul Custom. Kind of a funny shape; looks like someone left a Les Paul custom out in the sun too long and it melted. Very attractive guitar, though. Mahogany body, carved maple top, maple 22-fret set neck with rosewood fretboard, 3+3 headstock, 2 volume, 1 tone control, H/H Duncan Designed black and cream pickups w/3-way switch. Black paint with 5-ply cream&black binding on the top, neck, and headstock. Gold hardware includes tune-o-matic, stoptail, and Grover tuners. Graphite nut. "Split" crown mother-of-pearlish inlays. The only functional difference between this and a LP Custom is that it has one less tone control.

Big surprise here, it sounds like a Les Paul. The Duncan-Designed pickups aren't bad; they actually seem punchier and more articulate than other D-D pickups I've had in other guitars. In my experience, these pickups tend to sound best in mahogany guitars anyway, and the fact that these aren't covered may help them somewhat. In any case, it sounds better than I'd expected, and I may keep these pickups for a while. Most of my other guitars have real Duncans or Gibson pickups, but this one seems to hold its own fairly well. I'd purchased this guitar primarily for mildly distorted blues and blues rock music, played through a Yamaha DG-Stomp into the power amp of a Peavey Transtube 3/4 stack (open back 2x12 coupled with a closed back 4x12). It sounds very good for this application, but I was also pleasantly surprised at how full and "open" it sounds under heavier, mid-driven hard rock settings as well (think "brown sound"). I typically prefer bolt-neck basswood guitars for hard rock, but this does quite well. As I mentioned before, the pickups are pretty good, but still not quite at the level as a good set of Duncans or Gibsons.

Mine is a fairly early production model; I bought it before they were widely available over the internet. Build quality on this guitar is excellent. The paint, hardware, binding, etc is outstanding. The fretwork is better than I've seen on most production Schecters (most of them seem to have generally good fretwork but poorly "crowned" frets). Factory setup was OK, but I'm pretty picky and set up my own guitars anyway. This one didn't require much tweaking to bring it in.
My rating is for the actual construction, fit, & finish quality.

Great, solid guitar. Like any decent LP derivative, it's pretty much a tank. I don't beat my guitars up, so I don't anticipate any problems whatsoever. Typical to most imported (and many domestic) guitars, the gold plating on the hardware is pretty thin and is beginning to wear off (particularly on the tuners). This doesn't really bother me, but I would've been just as happy with chrome hardware. Strap buttons are pretty big, and look like they should hold up. Early Korean Schecters were noted for having some flaky pickup selector switches, but this one's been trouble-free so far.

This is a crap shoot. I've had great luck in the past with Schecter, and have also had periods where they've been somewhat unresponsive. Your best bet is to try phone contact; the people I've spoken to there have told me that they receive so much email correspondence that it's pretty much impossible to keep up with it.

I've been playing for about 18 years now, and have owned dozens of guitars. Right now, I have about 11 guitars, including 4 Korean Schecters. I was looking for a Les Paul-ish guitar, but didn't really want to buy a typical clone. I was really intrigued by the unique shape of the Tempest Custom, and based on my experience with my other Schecters this seemed to be a real bargain. I haven't been disappointed yet; this guitar is far beyond most Epiphone-level guitars with respect to quality, at about the same price. If you're a real tone-freak (as I am), invest in some aftermarket pickups and you'll have yourself a world-class guitar at 1/4 the price of the U.S. made stuff.