Schecter C-1 Exotic Spalted Maple SNVB

I have to say first that all guitars I've had before are on the cheaper side. Ibanez, squire, harley benton, Epiphone. All are good in their own way, the HB shockingly good for the money. CST24BK - I highly recommend!

This is for sure another level though. Firstly it's beautiful. Flawless. The neck is super thin and feels great. The reenforced neck gives the guitar such a solid and responsive feel. All the hardware is sold and feels good.

Frets are beautifully set and string bending is a sonorous joy. The tone in bridge position of the full humbucker is gorgeous. The satin neck is lovely, preventing your hand from sticking.

This guitar is just clearer and fuller in a mix for recording. The intonation was amazing out of the box. Best intonated guitar I've ever owned by a mile. You can slide a capo to almost any position without a relative retune.

Just playing basic chords is super satisfying on this guitar.

Some cons (or preferences)

The position of the volume is quite close to the strings making it easy to knock.

The middle and neck positions don't do much for me in high or medium gain/distortion. Too muddy. Likewise the split coil is not great in that context either to my ear. However both are nice to use for low gain/clean.

I'm not a tremolo bridge fan at all. This is not an FR, so I don't have that temperamentality to deal with, but the dive only tremolo seems to sit a little high. Leading me to the fact that the action seems to be at it's lowest without an adjustment to the whole bridge. So overall it's a little high for me. I would have preferred a version of this guitar with a hardtail. It's odd, as this C1 exotic (spalted maple or ebony) seems to be the only schecter that has this tremolo system in the current range. Curious choice.

So overall it's a wonderful guitar, but I'm now gathering resources to acquire probably a C1 SLS Elite with a hardtail. I will also see if the fishman active pickups give me more usable tones/positions in higher gain ranges.