Here we have a kramer Gunstar Voyager star shaped guitar, the Tracii Guns signature model. This took my fancy as I was in the market for a floyd rose equipped guitar with an extreme body shape, on account of having a hauntological melancholy for my eighties hair metal salad days. Seeing as how I feel that Tracii Guns is a seriously underrated guitar player and songwriter - go listen to to ‘Speed’ by LA Guns NOW - I was keen on this. The only give away that this is a Tracii Guns signature is his logo on the truss rod cover by the way so all in all pretty subtle.
I've been living with this guitar for about two months now so I feel like I can give an informed assessment. There's plusses and there's minuses. Let's start with the good stuff.
The neck is thin and fast and very easy to play. The Star body sits well on your lap when you're playing sitting down and while it feels like a larger guitar it is never unwieldy, and the outer star point actually allows your arm to rest on it quite naturally, making this a very easy and comfortable to play guitar.
The guitar itself is gorgeous to behold: beautiful dark grey/black metallic finish and light grey ghost flames, expertly applied. The maple fretboard is beautiful and smooth and the 22 medium jumbo frets sit in it perfectly. The edges of the neck feel slightly rounded and there’s no fret sprout at all. And it has a volute, which is excellent. Nice job Kramer! The neck is set in the body with an elegant contour, almost like a neck through, granting very easy access to the highest frets. Kramer really outdid itself here. Big kudos.
The construction and finish of the guitar as a whole and the quality of the workmanship is flawless. The only thing I could find is a sloppy screw hole for one of the cavity covers. Only noticeable when you take said cover off, and doesn't impair functioning so a non-issue. The wiring underneath the covers is neatly done and the cavities are painted. Everything looks like care has been taken.
Hardware wise we have a floyd rose 1000 with locking nut, six in line mini unbranded grover tuners and we have two chrome volume pots with push pull knobs that split both humbuckers. No tone, so you have all the tone all the time.
Here we arrive at what is for me the main drawback of the guitar: the Epiphone Probuckers. They’re low output pickups that sound flat, dull and lifeless. They work okay for cleans and with the coil splitting you can get nice tonal variety, but they lack noticeable oomph when you take the guitar into the metal territory (hair- and other) it was designed for. This is a guitar that is begging for a good set of high output humbuckers. These probuckers are not that.
The second major drawback for me is the location of the output jack. It’s on the lower horn of the guitar, which means that when you’re playing sitting down and you’re holding the guitar like you would a V, meaning with the body resting on your left leg and your right upper leg between both extremities (if you’re from the upside down just reverse the polarities) you constantly feel the output jack poking into your right leg and there’s just no getting around that. Well, you can rest and center the guitar on your right leg seeing as this is a star body but the point stands. The input jack should have been placed in the top horn but that would probably mean higher cost as it would mean more routing. In any case, this is an annoyance that won’t go away.
Thirdly, and you probably guessed it: it neck dives. A lot. Like gravity is all the rage. If your plan is to gig this you’ll probably end up changing the position of both strap buttons. The forward one needs to go on the back of the guitar near the neck joint, and the back one needs to be a bit lower on the horn, for my tastes anyway. As it stands, with the current factory set up the headstock wants to plunge towards the earth at warp speed.
The fourth detractor is probably (hopefully!) specific to the guitar I received: out of the box the set up was atrocious. Absolutely dismal. In fact, there wasn't a set up to speak of at all. It was unplayable. The Floyd rose sat in the body crooked and at an angle. It was a mess. If you expect a guitar that’s playable right out of the box this is not it. It needs a proper and professional setup.
It does however come in a quality form fit padded gigbag which earns it extra marks, as nowadays guitar manufacturers generally cut cost by not including bags or cases at all. This bag is sturdy and looks good to boot.
All in all, there's a lot to love but also to beware of with this beautiful guitar. It's sturdiness is comforting, and it feels like it can withstand abuse. It feels great in the hands and it is nice to play. Provided you get it set up just so. But it's being let down by its output. I'll be holding on to it but I will swap out the pick ups. Even though I have a lot of experience with floyd rose bridges and I've been able to set it up reasonably well I will have to take it to a luthier to set it up properly as I'm unable to get it exactly right, that's how bad it was. This goes beyond a mere annoyance. Kramer's quality control should have caught this.
