What Are Schecter Guitars Good For? (Complete Guide)

Although the company Schecter Guitars opened up back in the mid-1970s, it wasn’t until the 1990s that they saw a massive breakthrough in the market.

Schecter’s popularity surged during the 2000s, mainly due to Schecter’s production of desirable guitars appealing to the masses of metal and rock guitar players.

This is unsurprising since many of their models are specialized for metal music. Mainly due to a long line of guitars with outstanding tone, performance, and overall aesthetics.

What are Schecter Guitars Good for?

Schecter guitars are undoubted are most famous for producing and marketing guitars focused on metal and rock players. Although the company has released a variety of guitars aimed for a mixture of musical genres and playing styles.

Schecter guitars are best-known for

• Creating guitars aimed at the metal genres and rock genres
• Producing high-quality guitars
• Offering value for money with their models
• Building unique guitars inspired by iconic body shapes (Telecaster, Stratocaster, Les Paul)
• Creating high-end custom shop designs

Identifiable features on Schecters include…

• High output pickups (active and passive)
• Coil tapping features
• String-through bodies
• Locking Tuners
• Comfortable neck design
• Floyd Rose Tremolo
• Great Inlay designs
• Good quality hardware
• High build quality and construction
• Metal inspired body finishes and aesthetics

Why Schecters are Good for Metal and Rock

Going over their line of humbucker pickups, most of these are designed for modern rock and metal tones.

Some great examples here would be humbucker pickup series like the Apocalypse, Brimstone, or the San Andreas, with the last one providing a significant mid-range boost to the tone.

You will find some EMG pickups on some guitars like the popular Hellraiser series, which are high-output and designed for saturated metal distortion.

No matter the type of distortion – whether you’re using pedals specifically designed for metal or overdrives in pair with tube amps – Schecter pickups will always show their distinct tonal characteristics.

What About Clean Tones?

As for the cleans, these high-output pickups get those rough but crystal clear sounds, usually comparable to some of the higher-output DiMarzio products.

You’ll still be able to recognize their unique tonal structure, but they’re designed to work the best with distorted tones.

In some cases, these pickups will provide enough of a boost to the signal and to push tube amps over the edge to create those “organic” overdriven tones.

Playability

A vast majority of Schecter guitar series is designed with ergonomics in mind, something that gives enough room for faster lead playing.

This is one of the reasons behind some of the series’ popularity among the “shredder” type of players. Their classic Hellraiser series can be seen in the hands of even the more skilled metal musicians, like the C-1 model or its 7-string version C-7.

Overall, the described features above are what made these guitars so popular among rock, hard rock, and metal musicians, both in professional and amateur circuits and spanning most of the subgenre categories.

Also, the company has built its reputation for building dependable and quality instruments.

There have hardly been any complaints about Schecter, even within the users of cheaper models.

Of course, this made them stand out in the mid-range price range guitar market, and they’re still keeping the standards high for all of their instrument series.

Are Schecter Guitars Only Suitable for Metal?

One of the biggest misconceptions about Schecter is that they’re a company dedicated to building metal guitars only.

This could be because some of the famous modern metal guitarists popularized them for the last 10 to 15 years, combined with the metal-like aesthetics of the company’s logo.

But the thing is, Schecter has such a wide variety of guitars for everyone’s musical preferences.

There’s even a whole retro-styled series with a fair amount of models, all designed for mellow, crunchy, or twangy tones and genres like blues, jazz, and even country.

There are some lower-output pickups made by Schecter, which are voiced in a specific way to bring unique tones for the said genres.

Schecter combines the vintage tones with the feel, playability, and the overall quality of some of the more modern instruments.

Ultra III would be a great example, featuring three vintage-style humbuckers, Bigsby B50 tremolo bridge, complete rockabilly look, along with a thin “C” profile neck, flatter fretboard radius, and low string action.

There are numerous jazz and blues models that we can mention here, including Corsair, Hellcat-VI, Spitfire, Coupe, Solo-II Special, and others. As for those vintage-inspired pickups, there are single-coils like the Pasadena VT1 or humbuckers like the Route 57.

What Guitarists Play Schecter

While we’re mostly used to seeing famous guitar heroes holding Gibson and Fender models, some of them have used Schecter guitars over the years.

Arguably the most famous one is Avenged Sevenfold’s lead guitarist Synyster Gates with his exclusive signature series. These guitars are available in a few different variations and are some of the company’s best-selling products.

The Custom-S version also includes the Sustainiac pickup in the neck position known for giving that “infinite” sustain (at least until the battery dies). The bridge pickup on this model is the Synyster Gates Custom humbucker.

Aside from Gates, The Who’s Pete Townsend is also another famous Schecter user. He even had his signature models in the 1980s, the famous PT, which was also used by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder.

Many other guitar heroes have played different Schecter guitars, with some of them even having their signature models. The list includes:

• Yngwie Malmsteen
• Ritchie Blackmore – Deep Purple, Rainbow, Blackmore’s Night
• Zacky Vengeance – Avenged Sevenfold
• Mark Knopfler – Dire Straits
• Prince (RIP)
• Jeff Loomis – Arch Enemy
• Zakk Wylde – Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society
• Travis Johnson – In This Moment
• Al Jourgensen – Ministry
• Lou Reed
• Ashok – Cradle of Filth
• Charlie Scene – Hollywood Undead
• Chris Howorth – In This Moment
• Robert Smith – The Cure
• Jinxx – Black Veil Brides

Are Schecter Guitars Suitable for Beginners?

When it comes to beginner players, they should consider putting Shecter on the list of their potential new instruments.

Although they don’t have any ultra-cheap models in their line of products, there are enough of medium-range guitars that would come in handy for novice players.

What’s more, there’s a high chance they’ll keep using these guitars in their intermediate or even advanced phases.

Also, you’ll rarely stumble upon someone dissatisfied with a Schecter guitar. Even the cheaper models are known for being easy to play and appropriately set up out of the factory.

Should you Grab a Schecter?

So the moment you buy a Schecter guitar, you don’t need to worry about whether the truss rod was adjusted or whether the bridge requires some additional tweaking. You can get excellent tone quality and performance straight out of the box.

Speaking of young enthusiastic metal players, they could never go wrong with a Schecter. After all, it’s not that easy to find a solid guitar for the metal genre in the medium price range.

But Schecter covers all that, and a beginner would undoubtedly be more than satisfied with an Omen-6, Damien Platinum, E-1, or even a Sun Valley model.

Why you Get Value for Money

At the end of the day, Schecter is not one of those companies that put higher price tags on their guitars just because of their name and their logo. It’s definitely worth paying even more for the Schecter guitar.

As it would be in a higher quality tier compared to most of the other brands within the same price range. Whatever your preferences are, there’s almost no chance you’ll be disappointed with a Schecter.

Sometimes it might be a bit of a difficult task to go out there and just pick the best guitar for you. Right when you thought you’ve found that perfect instrument for your taste, you realize that it’s not exactly cheap.

However, certain brands maintain the quality even in lower- to mid-range territories. One of the best examples is the Schecter guitars, with the brand steadily holding their reputation on the market despite not being one of the “mainstream” guitar makers out there.

Schecter guitars are locked in a guitar battle with competitors: Ibanez, Jackson, ESP, and many more for a big slice of the pie in the metal guitar industry.

Yet, many of these guitar companies surprisingly manufacturer many of their guitars within the same factory located in Indonesia.

Are Schecter Acoustics Good?

Of course, Schecter also has a line of acoustic guitars that shouldn’t be overlooked here. There are many different quality-built models, most of which are signature artist models.

The former Guns N’ Roses guitarist DJ Ashba has his signature acoustic with Schecter. And it’s a special one, due to its strange looks and the inclusion of three sound holes on the body.

The overall quirky design is rounded up with black stripes and black binding on the body, the so-called “Birds on a Wire” inlays on the fretboard, and an unusual “4 + 2” headstock.

The body is made of Mahogany sides and Spruce top, while the neck is made of Maple with an Ebony fretboard on top.

Signature Acoustic Range

Synyster Gates also has his signature acoustic models, like the classic Syn J or the single-cutaway Syn AC-GA-SC featuring the recognizable headstock design, stripes on the body, and the well-known inlays, all borrowed from his electric signature guitar.

There’s also a signature model they did for The Cure’s Robert Smith with the spruce top, mahogany sides, mahogany neck, and rosewood fingerboard.

Aside from these, the company also makes the Orleans acoustic series, featuring 6-strings, 7-strings, and 12-strings, as well as the Deluxe acoustic series.

All of these retain some of the qualities and specific features that could be found on the electric guitars. Thanks to the thin “C” profile necks, flatter fretboard radiuses, and lower string action, these guitars are also pretty useful for faster solo playing.

Although the company is better known for its electric guitars, Schecter makes some solid-quality acoustics.

However, these might get a bit expensive for average acoustic guitars, although the price is most certainly justified with the design, build quality, playability, and outstanding tone.

The classic configuration of the spruce top and mahogany sides gives enough tonal attributes on both the lower and the higher-end spectrum.

My Experience with Schecter

Here’s a “Schecter Solo-6 Classic” I had this guitar for many years! It’s a ‘hot-rodded’ version of a Gibson Les Paul with a classic sound with the luxury of modern features. (Not me playing FYI)!

This model is discontinued, and unfortunately, I had to sell this guitar to make way for life’s commitments.

But believe me, this guitar was a classic rock machine and handles modern metal no problem. It had a comfortable neck, excellent build quality, and, ultimately, a fantastic classic sound from both Seymore Duncan Pickups.

The modern features included ‘coil-tapping,’ locking tuners, and a contoured body and neck joint for comfortable and easy access when playing the higher frets.

When it came to aesthetics, the guitar had a sweet sunburst finish on the body and headstock, coupled with pearl fret inlay markers. The Schecter Solo-6 Classic was a fantastic modern twist based on a Gibson Les Paul.

So in my experience, I would recommend Schecter to any player for a high-quality and overall outstanding guitar.

Thanks For Reading

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