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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 1, 2004 15:55:48 GMT -5
I got a new guitar this afternoon, took it to the rehearsal room immediately, gave it a quick set up and doodled on it for about two hours. Sweet, so far. It sounds very powerful, the about 15 year old stock pickups are really brutal and have enormous output, almost too much... and they have become a bit microphonic through the years. I guess I will change the bridge pickup for a Bill Lawrence L500. But the guitar is amazing, almost each single note on almost any position on the fretboard is able to burst into artificial harmonics using that certain picking technique... of course I use lots of gain, hehe. I point this out because this not possible with every guitar. The neck-thru design provides lots of sustain also. You can see under the laquer finish that the neck is a three piece, from head stock thru the body. The guitar has some scratches, the color has come off on some outer parts of the neck, but no big things... but as far as I can tell from the color of the wood the two outer stripes of the neck are made of mahogany. The wood is of the typical color. Same with the body, also here this slightly red colored wood can be found. The guitar is not too heavy, but it hangs on the strap properly. No neck heading downwards. It has two mini switches. One 3 way toggle, like the ones on Les Pauls, just a mini version. The other switch is able to split the humbuckers into single coils. Nice! Two volume pots and one tone control... everything works properly without scratchy noise. I think I made a good deal! The Kahler vibrato is in good condition, but I don´t think I will use it much. Though promised I never came across a vibrato that works really without tuning problems. By the way... the neck is amazing thin and fast. Quite a difference to all Epiphone necks I know. In any case I must say this guitar is superior to all the Epiphone Flying V´s and Explorers I played. Take a look.   P.S.: The cabinet stands on two empty beer boxes, lol! ;D |
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Post by ZacAttack on Sept 2, 2004 17:07:25 GMT -5
Sweet. It looks alot Like an Aira Pro I used to own.
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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 2, 2004 23:12:12 GMT -5
D'oh! I forgot to mention... it is not an Aria Pro II, it is one of the meanwhile hard to find Hohner Professional series. These guitars were built in Korea in the late 80´s for this german manufacturer. There were basically two lines. A very affordable one and a higher priced one. The higher priced ones were in the Ibanez (Destroyer, Rocket Roll) price range and for a few bucks more you could already buy a Gibson Flying V or Explorer at this time. And the guitars had Kahler vibratos which lots of people did not like, Floyd Rose was what most of them were looking for. So Hohner discontinued this series which also had a real Explorer with a cool spider´s web design in black and white immediately. They continued some variations of "Power Strats" like the ST-Victory, ST-Scorpion, ST-Viper, etc. and then had Steinberger vibratos on them. But they forgot obviously one, if not the most important thing. It was the name "Hohner"! It is so associated with harmonicas, flutes and blues harps, at least here in Germany, that lots of people did not buy these guitars, simply because they were scared. This guitar here is a Hohner SR-Heavy, it did cost about 1300 DM back in the day (today 650 - 700 Euro / 750 - 800 US $) and remember that was a lot of cash in the late 80´s. The guitar had a cheaper relative in the low price series, the SR-Devil which was black with red body binding, a bolt-on neck and a fender-style standard vibrato. It did not cost half the price of the SR-Heavy. If you ask me, Hohner had everything to make it big with their guitar line, but due to wrong marketing strategies they didn´t get far. The whole guitar line was discontinued somewhen in the early 90´s. It´s most likely that those guitars were manufactured in the same plants in Korea like our Epiphones. If they had chosen another brandname they might have had the chance to establish it, but really... who wanted to have a guitar of a blues harp producer?  If someone of you might come across such a guitar on Ebay or in a pawn shop, give it a try. They were awesome and especially now worth every dollar you spend on a second hand instrument. 
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Post by sandman on Sept 3, 2004 14:55:13 GMT -5
nice...got that Ted Nugent zebra thing going. Have you played with it much yet ?
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Post by sandman on Sept 3, 2004 14:59:06 GMT -5
doh...didn't read your whole first thread....lol. guess you have. like the axe though.
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Post by ZacAttack on Sept 4, 2004 7:33:33 GMT -5
I remember those. You nailed it right on the head , about the name running people off. Its almost like a guitar with Tama or Pearl on the headstock, it may be a fine instrament but most people don't go to a chicken shack and order a taco.
BTW don't be dissin my old Aria Pro II. For the late 80s that axe was pretty nice. It had an explorer body style, simular paint scheme as your Hohner, Floyd Rose full floater term, a SD full shred at the bridge and stock at the neck, jumbo frets and heavy in every since of the word. I played it when we would do glam rock or hair metal covers. Named it the panty magnet for obvious reasons. I bought it from a friend for $300 US when he was down on his luck. And sold it back to him 2 years later for the same price.
p.s.
He was a good friend or I would still have that axe. ;D
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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 4, 2004 9:56:49 GMT -5
No way I´d be dissing your Aria... I know this particular guitar you are speaking of. There was an Explorer model and a Flying V. They had exactly the same finish like my guitar. If I remember right they belonged to the XX and ZZ series.  |
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Post by ZacAttack on Sept 4, 2004 16:27:52 GMT -5
No way I´d be dissing your Aria... I know this particular guitar you are speaking of. There was an Explorer model and a Flying V. They had exactly the same finish like my guitar. If I remember right they belonged to the XX and ZZ series. Wow. Sounds like you remember more about it than I do. ;D lol Like I said it was a pretty nice axe as I am sure your Hohner is. It would be a little bit flash for what I play these days, but I still wish I had it.  Rock on!! Zac |
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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 4, 2004 21:19:44 GMT -5
Zac, when you google for Aria ZZ and Aria XX you can find alot of information and photographs concerning this guitars. It seems they have been available in lots of variations of "hair-rock" designs, hehe... ;D Well, the guitar I bought turns out to be the best deal I ever made on Ebay. ;D When I saw it on Ebay I thought I gotta have it, but I was not sure if I would have the money for it if I win the auction. So I contacted the seller and asked if this item won´t sell if he would keep it for me for a couple of days. Well, it did not sell and after some days I drove over to this guy which lives fortunately near to me and checked it out. I am totally happy... I considered not to use the vibrato system and guess what... the guitar stays so properly in tune I did not have to tune it during the last days. This is what I was looking for. A guitar for excessive bendings that doesn´t lose it´s tuning. It´s annoying to swap guitars during a gig so often. Well, if I only could find some more of those... ;D P.S.: I came across an Aria ZZ on Ebay a couple of days ago, I am not a "Mr.Know-All", otherwise I would not have remembered the detailed Aria model series names. |
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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 8, 2004 6:50:45 GMT -5
Can anyone of you tell me what this body shape is called? Is there a special name for it or can it still be considered as an Explorer? I came across a name like "starshape" somewhere on the web or on Ebay, a pal of mine thought this body was popular as a Charvel San Dimas, but I found out that this series had a great variety of body shapes, most of them were strat-like... Any ideas? So far I consider it to be an Explorer... but what the heck, I am just interested. |
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Post by JoMan on Sept 8, 2004 11:03:49 GMT -5
i'd call it an explorer, but since I'm not exactly a fan of odd-shaped guitars I can hardly be called an expert....
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Post by ZacAttack on Sept 8, 2004 11:26:58 GMT -5
Can anyone of you tell me what this body shape is called? Is there a special name for it or can it still be considered as an Explorer? I came across a name like "starshape" somewhere on the web or on Ebay, a pal of mine thought this body was popular as a Charvel San Dimas, but I found out that this series had a great variety of body shapes, most of them were strat-like... Any ideas? So far I consider it to be an Explorer... but what the heck, I am just interested. The closest thing I can find that is kind of recent is a Jackson Warrior or a Washburn 333 but I know there is another name for it. |
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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 9, 2004 16:10:50 GMT -5
Lo and behold! I praised this guitar for it´s playability... Today I wondered about the unsual pickup positions, and a question came to my mind. Is this really a Gibson type scale (24.75")? I thought so because of the low string tension and the quite flabby feel of the strings... Well I measured it, and guess what I found? It is in fact a 25.5" scale! D'oh! How can this be? The strings are from what I can judge with my eyes 042 - 009... I never played a Strat that felt so flabby... can it be it is because of the vibrato system? I took my Strat that is equipped with the same gauge of strings and it felt totally different. I am surprised alot!  |
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Post by Ol Geezer on Sept 10, 2004 17:52:35 GMT -5
The strings are from what I can judge with my eyes 042 - 009... I never played a Strat that felt so flabby... can it be it is because of the vibrato system? I took my Strat that is equipped with the same gauge of strings and it felt totally different. I am surprised alot! I'd think a Strat's neck would be much beefier.... |
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Post by Steelpriest on Sept 10, 2004 20:40:30 GMT -5
Well, of course... what surprises me is the overall feel of the neck and string tension... what the heck, it plays nice. And Zac, ... I really found it again.... the description or model name "Charvel Star", and if I remember right (I have to take out an old W.A.S.P. live video) Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. played these Charvel guitars back in the day. EDIT: Yes, this body shape is known as a "Star". I went to the Charvel website, that meanwhile belongs to the Fender company. When you visit www.fender.com you can find the current Charvel Star, as well as the EVH guitars. |
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