Reviewed by:
Spreedmaster, on february 16, 2009
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Price paid: € 600
Purchased from: Thomann
Features: From the serial I'm guessing it was made in '06 in Korea. I bought in in August '07 so I've had it almost a year and a half which is how long I've been playing. I bought this to replace a Yamaha erg121 which I since '03(and never played), and thought it's epic metal coolness would inspire me to start playing properly, which worked, as I still play it today! It has 24 XJ frets on a REALLY nice ebony fretboard. it's 25 1/2" scale with apretty thick but comfortable neck. It is neck-thru with a maple neck and nato wings. It has a gloss black finish with red pinstripe detail on the bevels of the body. The body is a slightly smaller version of the classic beast shape, which makes it suprisingly light, with bevelling around the edges and a matching beast headstock. The lower cutaway and nect through design gives great acess to the upper frets and is damn comfortable to play. The bridge is a tune-O-matic, I'm guessing made by BC rich(couldnt be arsed taking the strings off to inspect it further XD! ) and string-thru body. The electronics are passive and it comes with a rockfield fatass humbucker in the bridge position and a rockfield mafia humbucker in the neck position, a three way toggle and 1 tone and one volume pot. The tuners are grover rotomatics which stay in tune really well. It came with d'addario 9-42's on it I think( which I promptly removed). No included acessories. // 8
Sound: I play it through a POD XT and an *ahemcoughcoughmarshallmg15dfxcoughcough* and the stock pickups were surprisingly good but after half a year I replaced them with a set of EMGs(81 and 85), the original pickups were great but I wanted this to be a metal riffing monster. The rockfields were fairly good, they worked beast for heavy rock and metal, but with pretty decent cleans form the mafia in the neck. The fatass as implied by it's name has a good fat tone that sounds great dirty, especially for hard rock, definitely a large improvment over the BDSM humbuckers in their older or cheaper models. But in the end they didn't have the power and chug I like so out they came. They were pretty good pickups so I slapped them in my acrylic mockingbird. As I said I play through a wall of Mesa dual recto stacks and it sounds great! // 9
Action, Fit & Finish: The factory set up of the guitar was OK, with pretty low action, the pickups were positioned well and the intonation was great. I have since lowered the action as far as possible, but the low e buzzes if hit fairly hard when fretted around are the 12th fret, but I can Live with that. The fretboard is perfect, but I prefer bound fretboards, and nice invisable black binding would be nice. It came with 09's on it which to me seems stupid so I took them off and replaced them with.11 DR red devils to complement the black and red finish, which looked pretty cool and they sound nice and thick through distortion. The finish was when I got it perfect with no flaws, but the body is very prone to denting around the front of the body(and I really take care of this thing), I'm guessing it's the nato wood which seems to be really soft. All the hardware is of very good quality and I expect it to last, but I switched the strap buttons for Dunlop straplocks. The guitar is very neck heavy, which is a real pain in the ass, and makes playing standing up annoying, which is definitely the guitars worst point. The nut on the original input jack constantly came loose and needed to be constantly tightened. This eventually caused the wires to loosen and detach from the jack. But I replaced this with a better quality jack when I switched the pickups. // 7
Reliability & Durability: This guitar is built solid, even if it's more prone to dents than any othe guitar I have. I don't play Live but being fixed bridged and shit solid, I'd say it would stand up to it. The hardware is of really good quality as mentioned before, and hasn't shown any ware so far. The strap buttons are Standard at best but do the job, but I'd recommend straplocks.The finish is still perfect besides a couple of dents but hasn't shown any ware. Due to the dodgy electronics out of the box I wouldn't be to keen on gigging without a backup, but with that sorted I think it would hold up pretty well. // 8
Impression: This guitar is obiously aimed at the metaller, with the pointyness and all, which it does very well. In my oppinion this guitar is more suited to heavy chugging rhythm playing, but sounds good for the odd solo as well. I definitely recommend the upgrade to EMGs, as the rockfields just weren't metal enough. I have been playing for nearly a year and a half and have had this since I started. I also own a ESP LTD DV200, a Peavey Rotor EX and a BC rich acrylic ice mockingbird. The fret access on the WMD puts all the others to shame, the neck through is insanely comfortable. If this was lost/stolen, well, I'd be pretty much screwed because I'm poor. If I was in the same position again I would spend the extra cash and get the NJ deluxe warbeast because that guitar is the balls! Have considered selling the Warbeast, but this guitar still rocks titties so I probably wont! In the end it's main downpoints would be the crappy input jack and bad balance, but it makes up for it in pure evil black metalness. // 9
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