Schecter C-1 FR S SLS Elite

26
Guitarist december 2018
SCHECTER C-6 PRO & C-1 FR S SLS ELITE
coil-split modes. The neck pickup has bags
of clarity and wails beautifully when you
offer up some overdrive and your best blues
rock licks.
Now, the star of the C-1’s line-up is the
Sustainiac. There are two switches you
need to know about. The first toggle simply
turns the Sustainiac circuitry on and off.
The second switch offers three modes:
Fundamental, Mix and Harmonic. The
first simply sustains the note or chord
that you’re playing. Harmonic generates a
feedback-style high-pitch note. The aptly-
named Mix is a mash-up of both. Some
might view the Sustainiac as a gimmick,
but you’d be wrong as it’s a great technique
booster. Imagine you’re playing a solo.
When you come to the end and want to
emphasise the last note you can flick on
the sustain circuitry. The note will keep on
truckin’. Now, consider how cool it would
be to sustain that last note then flick the
mode switch to Harmonic. Suddenly, you
have what sounds like sweet feedback, in
the pitch of your original note. You can
also sustain clean chords flavoured with
delay, chorus, whatever, for synth-like pads.
Reverb-drenched pedal steel licks sound
awesome, too, even if a floating Floyd makes
them a bit more of a challenge.
If Schecter hadn’t twigged us to the fact
that the bridge Fishman Fluence Modern
had ceramic magnets, we’d have assumed
they were Alnico jobs. The deal with these
a Fishmans is that they aren’t packed with
conventional wiring, and they’re properly
noiseless. We like the crystal clear sparkle
on tap here, and the fact that you don’t lose
that presence when you start piling on the
filth. Thanks to the ceramic mags, there’s
plenty of output, but you can always hear
the tone of the guitar under the thing.
That clarity we hear is likely down to the
combination of the scale length, stiffened
neck, direct-mount pups, and the Swamp ash
and maple body woods. Yes, swamp ash is
unconventional on this style of guitar, but file
us under ‘converts’. We also like the balance
between the Fluence and the non-sustaining
mode of the neck unit. As a tonal tag team
there’s nothing these things can’t handle.
5
first play
If Schecter hadn’t twigged us to the fact
that the bridge Fishman Fluence Modern
had ceramic magnets, we’d have assumed
they were Alnico jobs. The deal with these
a Fishmans is that they aren’t packed with
conventional wiring, and they’re properly
noiseless. We like the crystal clear sparkle
on tap here, and the fact that you don’t lose
that presence when you start piling on the
filth. Thanks to the ceramic mags, there’s
plenty of output, but you can always hear
the tone of the guitar under the thing.
That clarity we hear is likely down to the
combination of the scale length, stiffened
neck, direct-mount pups, and the Swamp ash
and maple body woods. Yes, swamp ash is
unconventional on this style of guitar, but file
us under ‘converts’. We also like the balance
between the Fluence and the non-sustaining
mode of the neck unit. As a tonal tag team
there’s nothing these things can’t handle.
Both of these Schecters
feature what the brand
describes as its “Ultra Thin
C” neck profi le. Such a
slender cut could result in
an unstable neck with tuning
issues, but here you get
carbon fi bre strengthening
rods for a stiffer feel
The fl ame maple
and burl tops add
a touch of class to
the wolf in sheep’s
clothing vibe
GIT440.rev_schecterx2.indd 26 01/11/2018 11:53