I've been playing guitar for a about 20 years now, off and on for the first 3-4 before finally getting "serious". Being a big fan of late 80s/early 90s alternative rock, I thought I'd be an offset player, but it turned out I was more of a Les Paul guy. I have a 2005 Tokai Love Rock goldtop (Gibsons are out of my current budget and I dislike the standard Epiphone Les Paul headstock - and good luck trying to find an Elitist for a reasonable price these days) as my main guitar and a Paul Reed Smith SE Standard 24 as my backup and for songs that need 24 frets and/or a whammy bar. I play a fairly wide range of music on my own (OK mostly classic/alternative rock, punk/post-punk, and occasionally I try my hand at funk with varying results), but the band I'm in plays metal. Soundwise, I'd say we're a mix of groove metal with occasional proggy and stoner bits, though our frontman is a big fan of Lamb of God (I like them too, but as far as that kind of metal goes I'm more into Mastodon and Shadows Fall- remember them?) so there's definitely a touch of their sound in ours. We also throw in few deathcore and djent influences so that we're not totally a throwback band.
I feel like we've been getting into a rut as far as the tonality of our songs...we tune to drop Db pretty much all the time now (we had one song in Eb standard but we dropped it) and our songs reflect that. To mix things up a bit, I started writing a few songs in Bb standard and drop Ab, and looked for a baritone or 7-string to play them on. I found a great deal on a first year Schecter 007, and while it's a great instrument I haven't really been bonding with it the way I feel I should be. It's not so much the width of the neck - though that did take a little getting used to - it's more that it often feels like it has too many strings, and the lowest string is too high to chug comfortably (remember, we're talking metal here
). Plus, I recently decided to change its tuning from standard 7-string tuning (BEADGBE, down one half step) to something more akin to a baritone (BEADF#BE, again down one half step) and had an epiphany - it felt more natural and "right", if that means anything.So I'm probably going to trade it in. I don't want to go full baritone; I'm not a real big guy and a 27.5 inch scale neck might be too much of a reach for the first few frets. I like the idea Reverend have with their Descent models, but spending $800-$1000 with my income is way too much for a sometimes guitar. Yamaha had a nice concept with their Drop 6 models, but they don't make anything like that now and they seem to have disappeared from the used market (plus the one model has a Floyd Rose and I am NOT messing around with one of those again). Caparison have their HGS models, but they're even more expensive than the Reverends. But then I thought, "why not just get a regular 25.5 inch scale guitar and put on a set of heavy gauge strings? The Schecter has a 25.5 inch scale and it seems to hold tuning/intonation just fine." I'm not really a fan of strat/superstrat-style guitars, so I think I'm gonna go offset this time. I played a Blacktop Jazzmaster HS a while back when they were new and liked it a lot, but they seem to mostly be out there in the 3-tone sunburst finish; my PRS is sunburst, so I'd want the black finish. Another model I've been considering is the G&L Fallout (a Tribute model, customs are out of my price range). I could get one of those fairly cheap and in black (the other finishes just aren't metal enough
).Anyone have any thoughts on using one of these models for the above purpose? I have concerns about the floating tremolo on the Jazzmaster causing tuning stability issues when in a tuning it wasn't designed for; are they unfounded? The Fallout's hardtail design might be a safer bet, but one review I read of the guitar said it was neck heavy due to its relatively small body; is this true? Also, some of you might think of suggesting the Squier Contemporary Series Active Jazzmaster or even a Charvel Skatecaster if I want a more metal-focused offset. I'd prefer the Blacktop Jazzy/Fallout's HS configuration since I've found through the 007 that the middle position of HS guitars sounds heavenly for deep cleans. Plus, I've never played a Squier that didn't feel "cheap" to me, even a "higher end" model (I've had a Vista Jagmaster and a Master Series M80 in the past). As for the Skatecaster, in addition to having an HH pickup configuration (the Surfcaster, its original 90s relative has become very rare and expensive, plus Eastwood don't seem interested in adding a reissue of the HS model alongside their SS and 12-string reissues), it has a 16" radius fingerboard, and I'm not a fan of flat fingerboards...
PS I know the Fallout doesn't technically count as an offset by the rules of this board
