New Guitar: White 82 Pacer Custom + Finally finished a project

I watched this on Reverb for a little while and finally decided to make an offer. Lately, I’ve really been gathering up the earlier Kramers and I have a soft spot for these non-Floyd models. They have a certain appeal, not too different from some of the recent Charvels like the DK24 or the just released Kramer Pacer Deluxe GT. Of course, I still love a Floyd Rose (feels like home to me), but it’s nice to have something I can pick up easily and change tunings on the fly when I’m just messing around.

The white finish is original and looks quite clean from a distance, but up close you can tell this is a 43+ year old guitar with some small dings and scratches. Still, it’s impressive how bright it is, with not much yellowing of the clear coat. Even the brass traditional tremolo is still relatively bright and not too tarnished like some of my more played examples get.

It arrived with the original Schaller pickups installed, but sadly the bridge humbucker had a short between the coils. I’m fairly technical but I’ve never attempted a pickup repair, and my understanding is that many times they need to be rewound on a machine to properly repair shorts like this. I see some services online that offer this, now that I have two vintage Schallers with shorts, it may be worth getting them repaired. In the past, I’ve just bought replacements, as 80s Schaller pickups used to be 40 bucks each but a quick skim of other Reverb listings and it’s hard to find one under $100 now.

For the time being, I looked through my spare parts drawer and decided to install a Seymour Duncan SH-12 Screamin’ Demon. I originally got this pickup in a black Pacer Imperial and hardly got to enjoy it, so it’s nice to hear it again. It’s probably a hair higher output than the stock Schaller would be but not as intense as a JB (and I have so many other Kramers with JB’s in them). I also like the wiring on these earlier ones, with two volume controls and a master tone control, which lets me set my neck pickup to a quieter volume (or off) for some unique mixing or easy crunch-to-clean at the flick of a switch.

The maple neck is glossy and clean, with vintage sized frets and a fairly curved fretboard radius that makes it very comfortable to play. I just love these necks, made by ESP (yes, even this early). The original case rounds out the package, with the original manual and warranty form, although the serial number written on the tag is not the same as this guitar (seller mistake maybe?). Either way, a great addition.

More pictures here

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I also finally got around to completing an old project. When I realized the bridge pickup was shorted on this guitar, I started looking through my stuff to see if I had any spare Schaller humbuckers, or Schallers installed in a guitar that doesn’t normally have them. I got out a handful of guitars including this well worn Red Pacer Deluxe. The Schaller I had in it was wrong for the white Pacer Custom (it was a 2-in-1 and dated ‘84, too new for ~‘82), but realized I never finished this project.

Originally, I had gotten it with a mirrored red pickguard, with a pair of 80s era Seymour Duncan Customs installed, a single volume, and tone "switches.” The previous owner had routed the body under the pickguard to fit the humbucker at the neck, and the entire cavity is completely coated in copper film - a very nice job. Here is that configuration below:

It was definitely a unique look, and I did keep this pickguard intact exactly as it was installed if I ever want to restore this. However, I really like the stock black pickguard look so I bought two pickguards from Warmoth, both single ply matte black, without any controls routed. One of these was HSS and the other HH. I can’t remember exactly why, but somehow I ended up installing a Schaller 2-in-1 in the bridge position and a 90s PATB-3 in the neck, with a 5-way blade switch with two dead spots, and no pots. It was technically “playable” but not ideal, although I do like the super clean look - it’d be even cooler with black covered pickups (like EMG’s or similar). I will say the PATB-3 made a fantastic neck pickup though, it sounds great in that position. This is what that looked like:

Ultimately though, I wanted to add a traditional volume knob and replace the unnecessary 5-way blade switch with a 3-way switch. I could’ve gone with an enhanced 5-way to add coil splitting options but I really just wanted something more simple… and I didn’t want to buy more parts, just use what I already have on hand. A while back I also picked up a set of Dimarzio D-Activator X’s, which I tested out briefly but didn’t really get to enjoy. I’d prefer this Schaller 2-in-1 be saved for later (or installed in the HSS pickguard, as it would’ve been stock in a Pacer Deluxe), and I also have a spare PATB-1 so I wanted the PATB-3 to be freed up for some other guitar later. So I drilled a hole for a volume pot and wired up the D-Activator X’s and sent the others to the parts bin for later use. Here’s what that looks like:

Still pretty clean, a little flair with the cream coils, and I had a nice orphaned chrome volume knob to complete the look. I’m really impressed with these pickups too, obviously super high output but the neck position is still bright and cutting. I’ve had an X2N before, which on paper should be similar to the DA-X, but I didn’t quite get along with it. The slightly mismatched coils on the DA-X (“Dual Resonance”) make a noticeable difference in the high end and there’s a lot more air in the highs while still being super high output.

Both the X2N and the DA-X have a bit of a “boosted” feel, compared to a lower output pickup (like the SH-12 on the white Pacer above, which I played through the same amp on the same day). The difference is that the X2N’s boost is broader, therefore lower frequencies a little muddier, but in its defense maybe a bit more “natural” sounding. The DA-X is still very saturated but it feels like the focus is shifted higher up into the mids. It's sort of like the difference between boosting an amp with a Klon/Klone or a Tubescreamer. The Tubescreamer has a hump in the mid frequencies that adds a lot of bite and makes palm mutes really stand out, while the Klone style circuit is flatter and just feels like the amp itself with the gain turned up a bit more. Same thing here with these pickups. In short, I no longer own an X2N (and while I have a Klone, I rarely use it).

The cooper shielding in the cavity also means that this guitar is incredibly quiet, even plugged into a high-gain amp. In fact, it’s opened my eyes to this a little bit, I don’t think I live somewhere with particularly difficult electrical or radio interference but I have to wonder if copper tape could help some of my other guitars that are a little less protected. I don’t plan on doing any drastic mods, and as a collector I do intentionally appreciate things “as they were” including flaws/noise, but still something I’ll be keeping in mind for future projects.

I’ll get to work on wiring up the HSS version of the pickguard for this guitar, but I’m quite pleased with how this turned out. This guitar is tuned to Drop C by default so now it has the pickups to match for the heavier stuff. I’m getting out of building “projects” in general, slowly selling off my spare necks/bodies/parts, so it especially feels good to have this complete instead of in limbo.

More pictures here

New Guitar: 2025 Kramer Pacer Deluxe 87 EMG Flip Flop Blue

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.

New Guitar: Early Kramer Pacer Custom

Lately, believe it or not, I have been trying to downsize my collection. It’s hard to turn off my “jump on a good deal” impulse, but I’ve really been trying to really think about what guitars I want to keep. I don’t own everything on this site anymore, but I do still have a lot of guitars and sometimes I feel like I spend more time shopping, researching, and writing about guitars than I do actually playing them and I’m a worse musician for it.

Part of that soul-searching process has led me to identify that I have a real soft spot for the earliest wood necked Kramer guitars. There’s something about them that is just special, a sense of occasion to getting one out to play it and being immersed in it. The smell of the old leather in the case reminds me of my Members Only jacket, the weight of the substantial maple body pulling on my shoulder, the feel of the old brass fittings and small frets (what we’d describe as “vintage” frets today). It’s just endlessly fascinating to me to play an instrument that was groundbreaking and modern for the time, nearly 45 years after it was built.

That brings me to today’s guitar, which is a 1982 (or perhaps late ‘81) Kramer Pacer Custom in a gorgeous “blue burst” finish.

There are a few noteworthy features of this very early serial number (B0392). For context, wood necked Kramers started around A7000 and rolled over into “B” after A9999. Within that rough range, many were still aluminum necks like the “Duke,” and quite a few were basses, so this is definitely one of the earliest guitars with the “beak” headstock shape.

The first thing I want to point out is the bridge, which ties in to the name of this model. This is a Pacer “Custom,” which at this time in Kramer history means it has two humbucker pickups and a brass 6-screw standard tremolo. The better known Pacer “Imperial” in these early days had the same HH configuration but with the ESP Flicker tremolo. By 1982, the Imperial was upgraded to the “Edward Van Halen Tremolo” which was the Rockinger bridge, but the Pacer Custom kept the standard tremolo. Then of course by 1983 you’d start to see Floyd Rose bridges replacing the Rockingers on Imperial models and the Custom model with its standard bridge was dropped entirely by then. Technically you could still order the Flicker bridge throughout this time but it was no longer on the standard catalog models.

The “Custom” moniker did return in mid-1986 but this was an entirely different guitar, using a different body shape, floyd rose bridge, and HSS pickup configuration. This model quickly became the “Pacer Custom I” because a similar model “Pacer Custom II” came out not long after with the same basic features but a different control scheme. These have their own history to dive into but I’ll save that for a future article.

Back to this guitar, it sports an interesting brass trem with a much thicker plate where the saddle screws are located and larger base plate. I have seen this bridge on a handful of other examples and it is on the 1981 catalog page, but I’ve had guitars with lower and higher serial numbers than this with a more normal looking bridge (similar to early Charvel San Dimas brass trems), so I’m not sure what these bridges are exactly. The sharp eyed amongst you may have already noticed that the trem arm screw slot has the broken off end of a trem arm inside… blame that one on Guitar Center, who stupidly shipped this guitar to me with the trem arm installed inside the case. It arrived with the case partially open and the trem arm bent beyond use, and as I carefully tried to unscrew it, it snapped off. Really a shame as 1981 brass trem arms aren’t exactly common, but the good news is that after taking these photos I was able to carefully unscrew the broken piece.

It appears at some point that the neck humbucker was replaced as well. Most likely this guitar had two standard Schaller humbuckers like the one in the bridge position (which is now called “Golden 50,” but back then was called the “Ultra Spec”), but the neck pickup is another 80s-era Schaller called the “2-in-1” with hex poles. I like both of these pickups so I can’t really complain, but if I happen across another standard Schaller I may swap that in so the pickups match stock, and the 2-in-1 would be stock on early 80s Pacer Deluxes so it’s always nice to have an extra for the spare parts bin.

It’s also worth mentioning that rosewood fretboards were uncommon at this time, with the rule of thumb being that for every 10 necks Kramer made, 9 of them were maple fretboards during the “strat head” era, and more rosewood being available during the “beak” era. This rule can be reversed for the pointy era, where rosewood became the much more common fretboard material. This makes my 6th Rosewood beak neck out of 18 total that I’ve owned, so my anecdotal evidence suggests roughly 1/3 of beak necks might be Rosewood. None of my Rosewood necks have a skunk stripe, but supposedly some do - I’d be really interested to see one if someone reading this has one like that.

Bringing things back around to where we started, this is the perfect example of a guitar I find myself wanting to hang on to even as I cull the rest of my collection. I know it seems a little disingenuous to say that as I’ve only had it for a few days, but it’s such a great snapshot into history. It’s not the original Kramer case, but you can tell the previous owner really cared about this guitar and was clearly a very big fan of The Who. The case is covered in concert and radio stickers dating from 1982 and it’s such a cool piece that calls back a strange sense of nostalgia for a time that I wasn’t even alive for.

Since I started this site, people occasionally reach out to me via email and share stories of a parent, relative, or friend, and their connection to an instrument I now own. I really appreciate those and it’s nice to draw a connection between people’s experiences and a physical object like a guitar.

More pictures here

New Guitar: Black Kramer Baretta

I’m not the biggest Baretta guy, even though it’s probably Kramer’s most famous model with its ties to Eddie Van Halen. However I am a fan of a good deal so I scooped this one up from - surprise - the Guitar Center used listings.

It’s not the most exciting guitar at first glance, but its simplicity does have a certain appeal. The black finished body is in good condition although it has a lot of polishing swirls and the color really shows any finger prints, scratches, or dirt even after a cleaning. I can tell this was a very well taken care of guitar though, even the case looks nearly brand new with barely a scratch on it, the neck is spotless, and the fretboard very healthy looking (clearly was cleaned/oiled regularly).

The previous owner swapped the hardware over to chrome, but it’s all period correct parts. Personally I’d prefer the black, and I do have a spare black Floyd Rose but I used my last set of black Schaller tuners on that flip flop blue Pacer Deluxe I wrote about a few weeks ago - I’ll see what I can find later but most likely I’ll be converting this back to black hardware. They also swapped the volume knob for an odd gold top hat knob with “tone” on it, so I swapped that for a spare strat-style Volume knob which would’ve been the factory correct knob type. I think I have a pair of black schaller strap buttons too.

Luckily the owner didn’t swap out the important parts, primarily the original Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB pickup, wound by Marcela Juarez, in reverse zebra color. I’m not one to believe some certain pickup or winder is “magic” as far as tone, but it’s just the truth that these pickups sound great and are worth a pretty penny if you can even find one. Out of the six 80s Barettas I’ve owned, half of them had this pickup removed which is a bit of a shame. I do really appreciate originality when it comes to collecting guitars, but with prices on vintage 80s Zebra JBJ’s running $250+, I just can’t possibly justify that kind of cost for what is essentially a $70 pickup with one cream coil. Even all black JBJ’s are running into the $200 range these days according to Reverb which kind of blows my mind. I know, with my attention to detail on collecting, you’d think I’d be into that sort of thing but I’m a bit too pragmatic for that.

I’ll take new photos once I get it moved over to black hardware, but I’m no hurry and the guitar plays great as-is so I’ll enjoy it for a while. I’ve had multiple black on black guitars, even including another Baretta with black/black so the chrome is a nice change of pace to add some pop to an otherwise plain instrument.

More photos here

New Guitar: Kramer "The Pacer" Cream/Tortoiseshell

I don’t often visit the listings on MusicGoRound, but I do check occasionally and happened to spot this one - I’m guessing before anyone else did because it was very fairly priced. It arrived without a case but very safely packed (Guitar Center could use a lesson from these guys) and really great condition. This came from the Kenosha WI location, so top marks to them.

This is a fairly unique and uncommon model that only existed in the early wood-neck Kramer era, only made from 1982-1983. Most of the ones I have seen are similar to this example, although they were technically available in other color combinations almost all of them are cream colored bodies with red tortoise pickguards, and this is the second one like that I’ve had. My first one (an earlier serial number) has a maple fretboard and oil finished neck, but this one has a rosewood board and glossy lacquer - just enough of an excuse to keep both!

The key feature of “The Pacer” models is the pickguard and triple single coil pickup arrangement, and all of these models came with gold/brass hardware and the Rockinger bridge. Very early examples have the Strat style “P” headstock shape, but most of these will have the beak shape as they came out later than the more common Pacer models like the Imperial or Special. There is a late “The Pacer” in the 1983 catalog which sports chrome hardware and an Original Floyd Rose, and by this time the Pacer Deluxe also existed with its black pickguard, many more color options, and H-S-S pickup layout. I have never seen another “The Pacer” equipped with a Floyd besides the one in the catalog. Interestingly, these models also used 11-hole pickguards, while the later Pacer Deluxes used the “vintage” 8-hole guards (which Fender only used from 1954-1959, excepting reissue/signature models).

There are a few changes from stock on this one. First, all of the fine tuners on the Rockinger have been replaced, which is too bad - those screws are impossible to find, though it is pretty minor. Next is the removal of the Rockinger locking nut, replaced with a standard string tree. If I happen across a Rockinger string lock I’ll restore it, but they are nearly impossible to find and objectively a downgrade so I’m not too fussed about it. Last, the knobs would’ve been gold or brass metal dome knobs, but this one has more standard strat-style knobs, and it’s been rewired to be volume/tone/tone (it originally would’ve been vol/vol/tone, though with 3 pickups I can see why a master volume makes more sense).

Speaking of wiring, the pickups have also been swapped out for a full set of Adder Plus Corporation single coils, which was a small boutique pickup maker based in Illinois that operated from roughly 1988 until 2009. Here is the archive of the Adder Plus website for some more information on these pickups. The ones in this guitar are called APC “Slicker Blues,” have 1993 date codes, and patent pending text (later ones I’ve seen for sale have patent numbers listed). I will say these are fantastic sounding pickups and I really like them, a little hotter than a standard single but not overly raspy or thin, and the middle is reverse wired for hum cancelling in positions 2 and 4. These were apparently designed by Mel Lace after his brother “half stole” the design for the Lace Sensor pickups which Fender used in the late 80s Strat Plus (first year 1987). Later, Lace separated from Fender and became a whole operation still in business today offering much more than just single coils. I’m sure there is an interesting story to dig up there but I’m just happy with the way they sound and I’ll leave it at that.

Great guitar and very pleased with it - time to find it a nice hard case to live in when it’s not being played.

More pictures here

New Guitar: Kramer Pacer Deluxe Flip Flop Blue

I spotted this one for a fair price, and I’m a sucker for a maple fretboard especially attached to the very cool “flip flop blue” body. Pacer Deluxes are my favorite Kramer model, and I’ve owned more Pacer Deluxes than any other type of 80s Kramer (this is my 18th at the time of writing). There’s something special to me about the more innocuous look of a Stratocaster-type guitar, with a pickguard, but ramped up a notch with the pointy headstock and floyd rose. The black single-ply pickguard seals the look for me, a lot cooler looking than a white guard.

Of course, by modern standards it’s not a “metal” guitar, but it certainly was for the time - 1986 in this case. The finish is very bright, almost sky blue, in most direct light (such as my pictures with camera flash), but has a nice purple sheen at angles and the occasional bit of pink or maybe a pale green depending on how you hold it. This lighter color is accentuated by the maple fretboard, even though this one has aged into a nice deep yellow, and contrasts nicely with the black hardware.

You’re seeing it pictured here after cleaning - every guitar I receive goes through a meticulous disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly. The previous owner of this one must’ve been a heavy cigarette smoker, or spent a lot of time in smoky bars .I just barely made the cutoff for growing up when you could smoke inside restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, so I do have some first hand experience there. I even have some hazy digital point-and-shoot camera photos where you can just make out my face through the smoke to prove it. Anyway, the case had a very strong smell of cigarettes, and the guitar itself was coated completely in a thin translucent brown film. It’s too bad I didn’t take a picture, a before and after comparison would’ve been cool. It really dulled the sparkle and charm of this finish.

I left the case open for over a week to air out, and while it still smells like smoke right up close it’s mostly dissipated. The body on the other hand had to be scrubbed with a wet cloth, and the brown film came off in clumps (gross…). The neck was a bit cleaner from being played, but it does have a more yellow color than I’d expect. That’s likely a combination of the smoke as well as years of sunlight or gigging exposure. Still, after cleaning, it’s in pretty great condition, with some impressions mainly on the rear of the body but otherwise quite nice. The flip flop finishes seem to be “softer” to me, I’m not sure if it is the clear coat they used or whatever the top coat is, but my flip flop pink Pacer Deluxe has a very similar pattern where if viewed from a shallow angle, it has more “bumpiness” especially on the back where belt buckles or shirt buttons make contact.

As for the technical bits, it did arrive with some minor modifications. The first one is that the Floyd Rose wood screws are gone and replaced with more modern studs, as well as a collar type trem arm instead of the screw-in style which would’ve been correct for this year. I’m fine with this change because one of the major flaws of Pacer Deluxes is that the wood between the treble side floyd post and the electronics cavity routed into the body is quite thin, so heavy whammy users have a tendency to crack or elongate the wood there. The fatter studs pressed into the body spread the load out a bit more and resolve this problem nicely, and it’s a good reliability change to make even on a guitar like this one which has no evidence of cracking in that area. In fact, the only reason I don’t do this mod to every Deluxe I own is because I’m still a bit of an originality stickler, and I am not a heavy whammy user anyway so I can maintain them fine with the stock wood screws. I did double check to make sure it was a real German OFR while I was cleaning though.

The next change though I did reverse - it arrived with black Gotoh 135° tuners instead of the correct West German Schaller tuners. The neck is truly an American one, not a relogoed Focus neck, so I’m not sure why this was done - and they aren’t the 90° Gotoh tuners used on some other American series Kramers in various serial number ranges (which this one is very close to, E5xxx). I’m nitpicking a bit here of course but this should’ve had black Schallers, which I conveniently had a spare set of, so I simply swapped those on. Since this required taking the strings off, it let me do a deep cleaning of the neck and headstock as well as get under the bridge area too.

One last note, inevitably FF Blue Deluxes draw some parallels to Reb Beach of Winger fame’s Pacer Deluxe. I want to cover that but as I’m writing this I realize that’s going to be a pretty big can of worms that really deserves its own post. So for now, just know that this guitar is NOT all that similar to his, other than it being a blue Kramer.

More pictures here

New Guitar: GKG Custom 2

This is a lesser known Kramer “Kousin,” coming out of the Gary Kramer Guitars operation around 2009. Let me set the background a little here - around this time there was a renewed interest in Kramer, at the tail end of the MusicYo era (owned by Gibson) which was kind of an experiment with buying “factory direct” guitars online from overseas - a relatively new concept for 1999. They weren’t the best guitars but the price to quality ratio was pretty good and they must’ve sold decently well because it led to the USA made Baretta 85 reissues and Jersey Star’s around 2004 and culminating in the excellent 2008 Pacer Imperial reissues, also made in the USA.

In 2006, Gary Kramer, who was one of the original founders of Kramer guitars proper, started his own line of guitars. It’s worth mentioning that Gary Kramer was instrumental for the late 70s aluminum necked guitars, but left Kramer fairly early on to move back to California - kind of funny but all of those black and gold pointy headstock Kramers of the 80s hair metal days had his name on them but he wasn’t part of Kramer at that time. Anyway, after a nearly 30 year break, he returned to guitar manufacturing starting with some very unique designs like the Turbulence. If you’re interested in more of this, I’d highly recommend reading either this article from his website or this interview. Side note, the title of that interview (“Don’t call it a come back”) is the opening line for LL Cool J’s hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” - you could say I’m a bit of a hip hop fan too so I thought that was kind of funny.

Ok, preamble out of the way, let’s get to the guitar itself:

What we’re looking at here is a “Custom 2,” which is one of the later models before GKG stopped making guitars. It predates the Russian Roulette and RR2, which I wrote about a few months ago. The original GKG Custom came out sometime in 2007 and featured a HH pickup configuration, block inlays like a Les Paul, and had a very interesting body shape with some neat carving in the top along with a painted neck.

This Custom 2 is much more straightforward, with a flat front of the body (no carving) and a more standard unpainted bolt-on neck. A single direct mount humbucker, volume knob, and OFR are the only things on the face of the body so it has a really great clean look, but the back of the body still has some very interesting contouring and is very comfortable to hold. It reminds me a little bit of an Ovation in a way, where the back is rounded off but the front flat.

The highlight though has to be the neck, which very closely emulates a 1980s era Kramer claw neck - called “Sabertooth” by GKG. It’s very glossy, with aged white binding that matches the body color almost perfectly. Interestingly, the body has black binding (but these were also available in black with white binding, same neck). The neck isn’t a 3-piece maple like an ESP-made claw neck though, it’s actually a one piece with a scarf joint. Banana headstock Kramer necks from 83-85ish also came with this style so it’s kind of a cool hybrid of those two eras.

I feel I need to mention that part of the reason I find this guitar cool is unlike some of the more recent Gibson/Kramer guitars, it’s not trying to pretend to be something earlier. Ok - GKG Custom 2, the name evokes some similarities with 80s models (Pacer Custom 2), the neck inlays, pointy headstock, and floyd all call back to that time but it’s really doing its own thing. Maybe I’m a little “old man yells at clouds” here but I really dislike this trend with modern Kramers being named after a year or model from the 80s but then diverging from it so much. If you call a guitar “1984 Baretta” I want it to be as close as reasonably possible to a real 1984 Baretta. If you make a guitar with 2 humbuckers and a beak headstock, don’t call it a Baretta because it isn’t one, ya know? I guess I could say the same for MusicYo era stuff though.

Phew, well tangents aside, this is a really fantastic guitar. I’d have a hard time believing this is an aughts Korean made guitar because the quality is top notch - great fretwork, finishing is great, binding is meticulously well done, and it sounds great. According to the GKG site, this has a real OFR on it but I suspect it’s a Floyd 1000 before that model distinction existed. I have to search my memory a bit but I recall when the Korean made Floyd’s first started showing up people were a little upset that they were called them OFR but manufactured outside of Germany, even if the quality and metal used is theoretically the same. Next time I change strings, I’ll take a peak and update this post.

Anyway, I’d certainly buy another and I’d love to get my hands on a regular Custom one of these days. Prices for these things are all over the place, they were not that expensive to begin with but it seems they sold so few they aren’t exactly easy to find, and the Custom 2 is even less common. A great addition to my collection.

New Guitar: Ibanez RG752LWFX

I’ve been sort of looking for a 7-string guitar to add to the collection, but it hasn’t been a huge rush for me. For a little while, I had a couple of 6-strings tuned down as if they were 7’s just without the top string and that was good enough, but I knew I’d eventually want the real deal in some form.

I spent a lot of time narrowing down my search and I originally wanted an early 90s Ibanez 540S7 or S540-7, since I’m such a big fan of the S series guitars. The idea of a 540S with an extra string sounded just perfect, but these guitars were very difficult to find and I really just didn’t want a plain black guitar (the only stock color these were available in for the US market). Later S-series 7-strings lacked some other feature I considered important so I had to expand my search a bit.

I settled on a few RG’s, specifically the RG752AHM in Plum Burst was my most wanted (and still is). I love maple fretboards and that purple is such a great color. By extension though, I also looked at RG1527’s, RG7620’s, and the other RG752 models. I spotted this RG752LWFX for a steal and figured this was my chance.

As my first, and currently my only, 7-string instrument, it really checks a lot of boxes. The fixed “Gibraltar” bridge routes the strings through the body and allows me to change tunings easily - a nice plus compared to a floating bridge especially since I’m still not sure exactly what songs I want to play with this yet. It has locking tuners as well so it should be absolutely stable.

Pickups are Dimarzio PAF-7’s which is the lowest output Dimarzio 7-string humbucker available. It’s a quality pickup and sounds great on my first play test. It’s bright and punchy, and helps keep things crystal clear in the lower register even with a lot of gain (I used an ENGL Savage for my first tests). I will admit that I will have to experiment at some point with a higher output pickup, so maybe I’ll try something like a Crunch Lab 7 or Tone Zone 7. I can always swap back if I find it too muddy for what I’m playing. (Update: Got a deal on a DP708 Crunch Lab, massive improvement for my playing style, not muddy at all and I like the extra saturation on the attack).

The switch is also a 5-way, what I call a “super switch” (Jackson/Charvel terminology there). It gives a few extra tonal options and honestly if I ignored that extra string this would be a great sounding guitar for all of the other stuff I play… I think that’s a good sign.

Both the neck and body are fully bound, and so is the headstock (unlike my old RG550DX, still not sure why they did that). This is a Prestige model Ibanez after all, the top of the line production models made in the famous Fujigen Japan factory. The top wood is a limba with a black burst, while it’s not the most exciting color to my sensibilities it’s a lot more interesting than solid black to me. The rest of the body is basswood like most RG’s, and the neck is a 5-piece maple with two wenge stripes. The fretboard is apparently something called “Marbled Rosewood,” which I’ve never heard of before, and was only available 2016-217 (mine is a 2017 model). Standard Rosewood was used 2014-2016 and 2018, and this model was discontinued in 2018.

My only gripe so far is that it did not arrive with the standard red plush prestige case - or any case at all for that matter. For the price I suppose that’s fair but first order of business will be to put it in a case, and based on the near mint condition of the guitar, I’d be really surprised if it wasn’t kept in the case before I got my hands on it.

For those who aren’t aware, there is an excellent Ibanez Wiki page with tons of details about every model going back for years. It makes buying and collecting Ibanezes a lot more straightforward than some other makers, or especially Kramer and ESP which didn’t seem to document almost anything. Here is a link to the RG752LWFX page on that wiki.

More pictures available here.

New Guitar: Another... yes ANOTHER '82 Kramer Pacer Bent Pipes graphic

Well, I’ve done it again. This is now my third “Bent Pipes” graphic Kramer Pacer. This time, a friend and fellow Kramer Forumz member Dave sent me a message because he had tabs on another Bent Pipes (a really sweet custom order with black hardware and a Floyd) and he didn’t need two. I found that funny as I already have two and here comes a third but I really love these guitars and this is a very cool graphic.

And maybe I’m just looking for reasons to justify it, but this is technically different from the other two. This is a two humbucker Imperial model with a Rockinger bridge (the “EVH” tremolo). My other Rockinger-equipped Bent Pipes is a Special (single humbucker). The first Bent Pipes I got is also an Imperial, but with a brass fulcrum trem. Ok, I’m stretching a little bit here.

It originally arrived with a double cream Dimarzio bridge humbucker, probably a Super Distortion, but for some reason one coil seemed to stop working. So in the spirit of all the early 80s “EVH” stuff, I decided to put in a Seymour Duncan SH-5 Custom, wired by Lidia Daniel. For those that aren’t aware, the Duncan Custom was originally called the Van Halen pickup and was used in advertising material circa 1979.

As expected, the guitar is fantastic. Nicely built, great feeling neck. It’s a vintage feel, glossy lacquered and with small frets by modern standards, but plays great especially for classic rock stuff. I’m very partial to these guitars and this is a great example.

One noteworthy detail, later Rockinger systems like this one only have 5 allen screws on the locking mechanism just after the brass nut. The highest two strings share one lock, while earlier Rockingers would have a separate screw for each string which resulted in the high E/B strings breaking more often. Later Rockingers also had saddle height adjustment directly on the saddle, as opposed to earlier models where you had to remove the saddle to adjust the height.

More pictures here

New Guitar: Kramer Stagemaster Transparent Blue

I’ll spare you all the usual “I should not be buying more guitars” talk here, even if it is true. I am at a point though where I’m starting to focus on only buying and keeping the really good ones - and any Stagemaster to me is one of those good ones. I spotted this one online at GC and missed it… it popped up again and I didn’t wait and bought it immediately. It was well priced but didn’t include the case, so I was very worried it would show up damaged or otherwise mistreated.

While awaiting delivery, a fellow Kramer collector posted about it on the kramerforumz, and he had returned it due to some shipping damage on the lower side of the body. I gave up hope at that point and figured I’d be taking it straight to return, but I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived - yes it has a sizable spot of damage through to the wood which is really regrettable, but this is still in excellent shape and at the price I decided I’d keep it.

The bridge humbucker has been replaced by a Dimarzio, I haven’t pulled it but there are only 3 possible options with this pole + bar arrangement: the D-Sonic, Crunch Lab, and now discontinued MegaDrive. I feel fairly certainly looking at the age and appearance that this is a MegaDrive, which I’ve actually had several of in the past and it is a great pickup. It has lower output but more mids than those more recent pickups… although I may end up swapping it and putting another Seymour Duncan in here just to make it all match up. We’ll see, I’m not in a rush.

It plays great, and has a very flat back of neck feel similar to my champagne colored Stagemaster (interestingly, my other 3 have much more rounded off necks). If the serial number decoder is correct, this guitar was very late, November of 1988, and the champagne one was July. All of the others are earlier in the year (April-June) so perhaps the neck shape was modified at a certain point, or maybe it’s just classic Kramer where the neck shape varied week to week depending on how they felt that day.

The finish is absolutely glorious of course - I love these transparent colors and the wood grain is especially cool on a neck-through instrument like this. All of my Stagemasters are firmly in my “keepers” list so I’m glad to have another.

More photos here