NGD: Strandberg, Chase Bliss, Meris, Demedash, etc

[works0fheart]

A closeup of the roasted birds eye maple.

Who doesn't like a good rear pic?

So recently I decided to start a pedal collection. I can safely thank/blame Knobs from youtube for this lol. The guitar is a Strandberg neck-thru fusion.

So a bit about the guitar. I think it plays awesome. The neck is a bit thicker than I'm used to, but it's not overly thick like some Gibson's I've played. I'm very used to the Jackson soloist style necks which are pretty thin so this is going to feel a bit more meaty, and it's not a bad thing. The endur-neck profile I thought would feel weird but I actually don't notice it much at all. It really does feel very natural as many other people have said about these guitars as well. The fretboard is a bit darker than I'd have liked it to be but I still think it looks pretty good. The first thing I noticed about this guitar upon pulling it out of the case is how much smaller it is compared to my other guitars. Anyways, I'll give a quick write up of each part of the guitar to keep things organized. I'll do a more detailed review later as it's much too soon to say anything too drastic in the 'new-gear-honeymoon-phase'

The neck - Feels super smooth. The finish on it feels much better than most of my painted neck guitars. Not to say any of those feel bad, but this is much smoother.

The frets are stainless steel so that's always a plus in my book.

The fanned fret I don't really notice much. I can't say I don't notice it at all, because sometimes it does feel a bit strange in the upper frets, but not strange in a bad way, just different.

The 0 fret I honestly could have done without and I don't see a point in it. I don't feel it makes the guitar sound any different when playing open notes, but maybe that's just me.

The fretboard feels great. There's no jagged fret ends, no weird areas where they stick up a bit too high, and the wood quality itself feels nice under my fingers.

The body - Feels about as smooth as the neck does, and I really like the contours on the upper horn and back. Being able to play in multiple positions while sitting is convenient as I normally play with my guitar upright (classical position) due to playing V-shaped guitars for so long. I think the flamed maple looks pretty good to my eyes and I haven't noticed any blemishes or build flaws anywhere on the guitar at all, and I've certainly looked for them.

One thing I can honestly say I don't care for is the input jack position. I almost wanted to say location but I can't really think of a better spot on the guitar for it, but I don't care for how the input jack points up towards you slightly. I guess it's too help prevent a cable from being accidentally unplugged.

Oh, and super light. The guitar itself is maybe 5 lbs.

Electronics - As a guy who's played single pickup guitars most of my life, and dual humbucker guitars sometimes, the tone options in this guitar pickup wise are actually pretty cool. I'd never thought I'd have a use for coil tapping, but I've found that it's pretty fun and more useful than I'd thought.

However... I will say I don't care for the pickups in high-gain settings. They don't sound bad or muddy, but they're almost too bright. They're a bit of a fight to pickup my pinch harmonics and whatnot even with the pickups raised higher to the strings. Not to say they're impossible, but certainly not as easy as the Nazgul in my LTD or the EMG's in my Soloist. Still, I can't knock the pickups. They're not bad pickups, they're just not my pickups. Ideally, I'd like to find some sort of combo to throw in it at some point down the line, but for now they're pretty decent.

The tone knob and volume knob. I feel like the volume knob could be moved forward a litttttle bit. When I was messing around with volume swells or even just trying to turn it up or down it feel weird to reach almost behind the bridge pickup, bumping my hand into the trem bar just to adjust it. The texture of them is also really smooth so my fingers sometimes just sort of slip past them when I go to adjust them. This may sound nitpicky, but it's just something small I've noticed that I'm sure someone else may say feels weird.

Speaking of the trem, it also feels weird to me the way the strings cross over. For example, I'm used to floyd rose guitars, and I'm used to fixed bridge style guitars. This somehow feels different than both. Weird right? What I mean is, the place I usually rest the meaty part of the bottom of my palm doesn't seem to sit right near that area. The bridge almost feels like a string through body system if I had to try to name something similar, although it certainly isn't. Again, this might be something nitpicky and I'll probably just have to take the time to get used to it. As I said, I'll do a more in-depth review of this guitar with a video when I have time.

All in all/Sound - At this moment, I think the guitar was a great purchase and I really love the way this thing feels and even the pickup selection options make it feel very versatile. This guitar does have very clear natural harmonics when playing clean and it's got an overall very bright sound. The picks I use I'm aware play a part in this, but even other ones I have still produce the same result. Really, the picks just sort of sharpen up the attack/bitey-ness of the string a bit more. If I had to recommend a guitar in this price range to get, I'd certainly tell people not to pass it up. Neck-thru and multiple sound options via the pickups make this a clear winner for most people, and the stainless steel frets were a big selling point for me as I tend to use larger string gauges. I haven't changed the stock strings out yet and downtuned it just because I've had a pretty busy work week, but at some point I'll throw some 10 - 52's on it and bring it down to C# standard and give it a thorough run thru. Great guitar, 9/10. 10/10 with different pickups. Oh, and it came with a gig bag. 9.2/10

 

[works0fheart]

Now, some of you may be wondering about the pedals.

Meris Enzo - I was messing around with this thing for hours last night and still didn't feel like I saw even a fraction of everything it could do. This might be my favorite of the four so far just because I'm a sucker for synthy sounds and anything that makes guitar sound not-like a guitar. This nails that and leaves a lot of room for creativity. I can't recommend it enough. I've been running these pedals into a pretty simplistic clean preset on my old Axe-FX II and getting some really wacky/cool sounds out of it. As with the guitar, and the rest of these pedals, once I've learned my way around them a little better I'll put up a more in-depth video on them for anyone curious.

Chase Bliss MOOD - This thing is weird as shit, but in the best way. Honestly, I don't even know how to describe what it does because between the 6 knobs and dozens of switches on it (there are dip switches on the top of it), it's a bit overwhelming. So far, I've been able to get some crazy delays out of it, some cool looping, swells, some obnoxious looping, and some downright strange noises. I wish I had a better description, but the best I can do is a looper and delay had a baby. A weird, space-noise ridden baby.

Chase Bliss Tonal Recall - Okay. This one is a little more straight forward. And by little I mean very little. It's still a super complex pedal, but not as much so as the MOOD. It's a delay pedal at it's heart, but it also features the tons of dip switches across the top of it as well as some looping ability. Really, for me so far it's been a nice multi-delay. Unfortunately since I've gotten most of these I've done the obvious first thing to do and wired them all up at the same time or at least in pairs to see what weird sort of nonsense I could come up with, and boy was some weird sort of nonsense had! As with the mood, this thing is capable of making some of the most beautiful, wet sounding space beeps and boops, but it's a lot to learn. I'd honestly say between the Enzo, the MOOD, and this, it could take someone at least a month to really learn what all they do, and that most likely isn't even scratching the surface.

Demedash Effects T120 Videotape Echo - So of these four pedals, this is the most easy to use. Again though, that's not meant to undersell it. This thing has a lot of different things you can do with it. And what exactly is that you might ask? Welp, for me it's channeling my inner Boards of Canada sound. It does exactly like the title describes. It makes what your playing sound like an old VHS tape type recording. Pretty neat. You can also mess with the various other knobs on it too bring in all sorts of fuzz and weird oscillating noises. It might be a pretty simple pedal, but this one is a favorite of mine so far. This and the Enzo. If you want a pedal that can give you a decent selection of Lo-Fi guitar sounds, this is probably for you.

And lastly, these bad boys. Being just guitar picks, you may not think of them as that big of a deal, but these are one of the best things I've picked up recently. I've used Jazz III's for years and tried multiple different ones, from the max grips, to various signature models and whatnot. None of them have ever felt bad by any stretch, but I'm always open to trying out new ones. Out here in Japan I go around and visit a lot of the music shops around Tokyo and if I don't see anything I like I'll usually pick up a few picks just to be courteous. I saw these and really wanted to try them. The two on the left are about the same size and thickness and as a regular red or black jazz III. The one on the right, is much thinner. Normally I'm very against thin picks because I don't like feeling them give way or 'flop' against the strings so I'd go with whatever is thin enough but also stiff enough to play with. This pick however, is super stiff and being a metal pick, they're noticeably louder to use. I'm pretty tough on my picking technique and these things make it really easy to hear the articulation in my playing which I like a lot. Honestly, after using this pick it's hard for me to pick up a jazz III and have it not feel clunky. It may seem like such a small difference, but try them for yourself and you'll see I guess. I don't think I can go back.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Nice.

What pickups do the nt fusion come with? The Suhrs.
Eh. I know people like them. I've never been a fan of any suhr pickups I've tried. The good thing is that you'll get at least 200 or so for that set. Makes upgrading pretty easy.