I never buy new guitars. There just isn’t very much out there these days that appeals to me, and there are so many really fantastic guitars on the used market. So I was quite surprised to see this guitar come out under the radar last week. In fact, I only found out it existed because I saw a couple of new Pacer Deluxes in my reverb feed and looked those up. I’m not chronically online but they didn’t post about it on Instagram or anywhere else I could find for that matter.
Presenting only the second brand new guitar I’ve ever bought:
I’ve said multiple times in the past that if the current Kramer company, owned by Gibson, ever came out with a true 80s style model, especially a Pacer Deluxe (my favorite model), I’d buy one. The caveat to that was that I expected it to be made in the USA, in the same way that Gibson made reissues in the past. The 2005-2008 Baretta 85 RI wasn’t quite the model I wanted, but it clearly had a lot of attention paid in its production, they borrowed/bought real 1985 Barettas for sampling, and meticulously measured and built those as close to spec as possible with only very minor changes. Same goes for the 2008 Pacer Imperials. This isn’t exactly how I imagined a Pacer Deluxe Reissue but I want to support building this type of guitar and I want to see more, so I felt a little bit obligated to buy one. I ordered mine the day it came out, and it was sold out in less than 3 days. I guess there’s a lot more Reb Beach fans out there than I realized.
It really pains me to put the gallery page for this guitar into the “Kramer Other” section of my site instead of the “Kramer American” page. It’s not just where it is made though - I have no problem with guitars made in China like this one. I’m well aware that even the American series from the 80s were mostly parts made in Japan by ESP. There’s no avoiding this discussion and it’s such a shame that any review is going to be colored by the most notable part of the guitar: the price. It’s $1499 and available exclusively from the official Kramer website. Adjusted for inflation, that’s nearly the same as the USA-made 2008 Reissue (which was $1099 at the time).
That’s a lot of money for a MIC instrument, but I could deal with that if that price premium meant it was a top quality piece made to an exacting standard. It’s not a bad guitar by any means, but there are a lot of misses compared to a real 1987 Pacer, and many of them are relatively easy to fix. If Fender can make Stratocasters in the USA for $1300 (current Sweetwater price at time of writing), and Ibanez can make RG Genesis guitars at Fujigen in Japan, I’m not sure I understand why the price is so high. Yeah, I know with inflation my 80s Pacers (which were $1119 in 1987) would be $3000 new today, but there are USA made Charvels for $2500 and I’d happily buy a USA Kramer at that price too.
You could argue that it’s not a true reissue. I get that, it’s clearly a tribute to Reb Beach’s Pacer Deluxe from the Winger days. I’ll call it “reissue adjacent,” because it’s not like they put “87” in the model name because it was someone’s favorite number. The thing is, they got a lot wrong either way when it comes to the small details. And even if I ignore the reissue/Winger connection, and just treat it as a any regular new guitar, why would I pay $1500+ for a guitar that is not built as nicely as a Mexican Charvel, USA Strat, or MIJ Ibanez which cost the same or less?
I have a lot of minor complaints but they all add to something more when factoring in the price. It’s not a terrible guitar, the finish while not even close to real 80s flip flop blue is still a great looking chromashift color. Honestly, it looks like the guitar from the Seventeen music video so they nailed that - Reb Beach’s guitar wasn’t ff blue anyway. It had an awful setup out of the box with super high action, but after lowering the Floyd it feels a lot better. The Floyd recess is so shallow that you can hardly pull up on the bar which is such an odd design decision for an 80s shred guitar. The EMG’s… sound like EMG’s, you either love or hate them. They are USA made EMG’s, and the body has a “swimming pool” pickup route so you could do whatever combo of pickups you please if you wanted to modify it. From a purely functional perspective it’s a nice, average quality guitar.
I have a lot more thoughts about it, so I made a video. As an added bonus, I do a deep dive on Reb Beach’s Pacer Deluxe which this is clearly inspired by.