Steinberger Spirit GU7R Custom

The GU7R custom is the flame maple top version on the Strat shaped GU Deluxe, mine is the trans blue flame top with cream binding (very nice!), The guitar is a HSH pickup configuration (EMG passive selects) with R-trem, 24 frets with maple neck/rosewood fingerboard.
A deluxe gig bag is included but is not what I call deluxe, Its good for taking the guitar in the car or walking down the road with, but for gigging and public transport journeys its not sturdy enough, so a pro level gig bag or case is needed. Other accessories include the whammy bar, adjustment tools and an instruction sheet for setting up the guitar and tremolo. Its an excellent guitar as I will explain in detail in a minute. WARNING!!!: I paid $349.99 + $183 for UPS Express shipping to the UK and also (Get this!) $130 for tax duty. A total of $622.99 approx. Not exactly the bargain I was expecting, but a bargain none the less. So if you are shipping international from Music Yo, beware of the tax fee which you have to paid for at your front door when it arrives!!.One of this is the double ball headless system of the Steinberger, The is one of the best features of the Steinbergers, The double ball strings are just so easy to fit, a whole set installed and tuned up in a couple of minutes. No string slipage, more stability when bending strings. The string adapter is available to use normal strings but in my opinion this defeats the object of having a headless steinberger and takes away its tuning stability, easy string installation etc.Double ball strings will always be around...

My GU7R is so versatile, I play Rock, Metal, Blues, Funk & Jazz styles of music and can get all the sounds I need, from very clean to very dirty. My main axe was a steinberger GT-Pro but the volume pot kept on getting in the way of my picking hand so I sold it to my brother who was foaming at the mouth for it. This is now my main axe, the volume / tone pots are completely out of the way so its so comfortable to play for me. I plug into a Korg Pandora II and a small Rack system based around a Rocktron Voodoo Valve, The EMG's are very quiet and produce rich sounds. I would like a little more power in the humbuckers though so I am going to upgrade my guitar to active EMG's very soon (EMG 85 in the neck, SA in the middle, 81 in the bridge) this will give me such awesome sounds and versatility. Without modification this axe still rocks.

Out of the box, the guitar was not setup very well, but bearing in mind that it went through a trans-atlantic delivery, it was'nt too bad, the neck needs a trus-rod adjustment to fix a fret-out at the first fret and thats about it!, it played quite well straight from the box. The attention to detail and the finish of this guitar is superb, I was expecting a graphic flame top for the money I spend but its the real deal, and looks gorgeous, I went from top to bottom inspecting it for digs and mistakes but its absolutely perfect, I would have paid double the price for this axe with this type of workmanship.I'm giving it a 10 despite the setup problem (which was'nt major). As for the R-Trem, I've said it before and I'll say it again, this unit is the best out there, fixed or floating, strumming or dive bombing, it stays in tune no matter what.Overall construction is rock solid and is beautifully put together, there's even a sticker on the back saying the name of the person who checked it at the factory, Some little Korea Guy or Gal.The strings which are installed on the Spirit range are completely crap, I have not been bending the high E as I am afraid that if I bend up a tone a couple of times, it will snap like an elastic band, my advice is take your steinberger straight to your local guitar shop and get it fully setup with good quality double ball strings of normal strings if you have an adapter.

I've had this guitar now for a couple of days and have put it through its paces, I would have no hesitation gigging with this guitar, gigs are so unpredictable so a backup axe is always good to have at hand even though you could easily to a show with this one guitar, I am saving for an H&K Zentera amp so with that, the stageboard and this guitar, it would be my dream rig. The build is so good, it would definately be durable. I am planning to get a graphite neck from moses-graphite, a replacement which they now make especially for the spirit range so modifications are not needed. With this neck, active EMG's and a pro level gig bag or case, My Steinie will be just like the USA models.

Well, I was shafted on the delivery costs, I paid the extra for UPS Express and got Expedited 2nd class instead which was not on. It arrived very promptly though, so not sure if it was UPS fault or Music Yo. Also I paid over the odds for the tax duty when it arrived at my house, music yo have not replied back after I emailed them for an explaination...Music Yo should try and give some indication of international shipping costs including tax duty, as $130 dollars is too much, I could have got something nice with that!!!.I'll try to deal with the Euro Music Yo in future.

With my shipping & Tax grief aside, I am totally happy with my new axe, its looks stunning, sounds stunning and is every part a pro guitar, with the modifications I am planning, it will be killer.
I shall buy a GU deluxe for a 2nd guitar as its always good to have a backup and will modify that as well. With all the features and workmanship this Steinberger offers, its very hard to beat and I cannot recommend it enough.

2000? Korean made, 24 fret, 5 pos. switch, vol, tone. H/S/H Emg Select passive pickups. Maple body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard. Flame maple top with tranlucent amber finish. Strat style body. Stienberger R-Trem tremelo with direct-pull 40:1 tuners.

The guitar is brighter than I expected, (I guess due to the maple body & neck.) Not quite what I'm used to, (I like a more mellow "hollow" sound like my Strat gives),but the chords do come through very clear, even with distortion. No quite what I expected from a guitar with humbuckers, since most are "muddy" sounding to me.

The guitar is not noisy at all in the stock configuration. I had a coil-tap push/pull switch put on the two humbuckers, and there IS the normal single-coil buzz when activated, although none from the stock single-coil in the mid position.

I play through a Fender Super-210 and a Crate VC-508 for practice. The humbuckers drive my amps into distortion easier than even the EMG SV's on my Strat, so I don't know WHY everyone complains about them being "weak".

I DO wish that it came with the active EMG pickups, since I have them in my Strat,(You get very spoiled by them!) I will probably add a set of active EMG's at a later date, most likely a 85/SA/89 combo with a push/pull pot on the tone for the 89. I like to have a single-coil in the neck for blues playing, so the 89 is the way to go.

The set-up was dead-on right from the dealer, (musicyo.com)! It was even in perfect tune! Even so, it is rather easy to do a set-up on this guitar, and once it's in tune and correctly intonated, it STAYS THAT WAY! Just remember, once the locking screw is loose, the ONLY thing holding the saddles in is the strings, so don't try to loosen the screw without the strings on, or you'll be picking the saddles up off of the floor. ;-)

The flamed maple top and binding was a little less dramatic than what I expected, but hey, what do you expect for $350? I'm not sure that it's worth the $1000 that they CLAIM is MSRP, but it certainly FEELS like more than a $350 guitar.

This guitar is SOLID! It is heavier than my Strat, and seems to be better built too. I would have no problems using this as a main guitar for stage use. (If I played on stage that is.)

The one thing that I would do, (and have done), is replace that strap buttons with Schaller strap-locks! I had to use epoxy to fill in the screw holes, since the originals are larger than the ones supplied by Schaller.

Well... I paid for 2-day shipping, and it took 5 days to arrive. To musicyo's credit, they DID refund the shipping charges! I just with there was a phone number to call, instead of e-mail only!

I've been playing for about 12 years, and have owned only Fender guitars so far. (Two Strats and a Tele) I play mainly rock & blues, and this guitar would work well for a rock guitar, but it doesn't quite have the tone I like for blues playing. Hopefully that avtive EMG's will remedy that.

Overall, this is a good, solid guitar for not much money. It is DEFINITELY worth the $350 price tag If it were lost or stolen, I would get another in a second!

One thing that would be nice is if they offered a Single/Single/Single pickup configuration, like a Strat. Some of us just prefer that single-coil sound. (I could also use the spare set of EMG SA's that I have lying idle in it.)

Passive EMG pickups in a H/S/H configuration. Flame maple top that you would expect on a Gibson product, even if it's made in Korea. Gloss finish on the body, satin on the neck. Came with gigbag, two hex wrnches (one for the neck, one for the trem arm), trem arm, 6' cord and a skimpy instruction sheet. Additional details (scale length, etc.) can be found at www.musicyo.com. Don't bother with the Gibson website- they just refer you to MusicYo.
I'm not a whammy bar kinda guy but I appreciate that the bar can be installed on either side of the bridge.

I dabble in several styles. I tend to view a guitar setup the same as I do a synth setup: a signal source followed by filters, oscillators and whatever. The fact that EMG pickups tend to be colorless suits me just fine since I shape the tone downstream anyway.
The gear used for check-out were a Hot Wat, Fender Harvard Reverb, and a silverface Bassman that has a couple of Dan Torres' mod kits installed (www.torresengineering.com). I deliberately kept the effects simple: a Zoom 9002, a DOD Classic Fuzz and a Boss AD-3 acoustic guitar processor.
I feel I could cover just about anything from the 1950's thru the early 70's with just the Harvard alone. Adding the effects pushes the style range well into the 80's.
Each of the pickup combinations produces a unique sound.
The tone control is very effective until you get to the low end, then it turns into a very narrow band-pass filter. Can you spell mud? It might have value for some folks but I hate that sound so I'll be diddling the tone circuit.

It buzzed like a ripsaw until I tuned it to concert pitch, after that it played like a dream.
I tried the whammy just because it's there. One of the useful bits of info on that skimpy instruction sheet is how to unlock the trem so it works (blush). On the other hand if you prefer hardtail guitars this locking feature is VERY nice.
One of the bits of info NOT on the skimpy instruction sheet is that there is a friction bearing in the trem arm hole that keeps the arm from falling out. That's what the smaller of the two hex wrenches tightens for you.
Also missing from the instruction sheet is any advice on adjusting the action. It seems to me that most of the adjustments you'd need to make could be done with the big master trem adjust knob.
As far as negatives go it was absolutely dead on arrival and there was some black goo in the pickup selector switch slot. More about the goo later.
The beauty of the top kept me from returning the guitar to the dealer. I did not want to risk getting a replacement rather than a repair. I flipped 'er over and opened 'er up. The wire from the hot lead of the output jack was just hanging in mid air- it had never been soldered. It took about three jiffies to figure out it went to the center lug of the volume pot. It took longer to warm up the soldering iron than to make the "repair".
The control cavity is thoroughly shielded. The cover plate has metal on it and the cavity in the giutar is painted with black conductive goo, some of which slopped through the slot for the switch. Between the EMG's and the shielding this guitar is QUIET! In fact, I didn't realize some of my effects were generating noise until I put them in this guitar's path.
I noticed that not all the wires from the humbuckers are being used. Later on I might get an E-series Megaswitch from www.stewmac.com and see what else the pickups have to offer.
The cosmetic detail is trivial. The instrument takes a big hit in this category because I had to repair the thing right out of the box. This is Not Good.
The closeness of the tuning knobs takes some getting used to but once you get the hang of it tuning is quick and precise.

I don't play live. If I did I'd have no reservation about using this axe. One of the oddest sensations about the guitar is the fact that you don't have to fight the torque of the headstock. What little weight there is is centered in the body. After playing a Strat (long torsion bar) and a Les Paul (M1 battle tank) this is a refreshing change.
FWIW- I can't imagine playing without a backup.

This was my first contact with MusicYo. They gave the routine confirmation-of-order email then did something different: they had UPS send an email detailing when they picked my guitar up and when they expected to deliver it. That was a first and I like it.

I've only been playing for a few years. When I start paring the collection down this will be one one of the ones that stays. In fact if it were stolen I would use that as an excuse to buy two more (one for backup). They are relatively inexpensive, compact and well made.
The only thing I "hate" about it is that I'm going to buy the clunky adapter so I can use regular (non double-ball) strings on it.
Upside:
> it "pays for itself" in about ten string changes
> I can use any brand I want
Downside:
> String changes require the use of a hex wrench

One of the comparison guitars was a Strat with active EMG's (the David Gilmour set). Picking up a guitar with active pickups is like picking up a 12-string. It's still a guitar but it's also a different animal.
Active pickups and a wrenchless string adapter would be the only two other factory-standard options I'd wish for.