Vortex EX Review

An homage to shred guitar and the legions of shredheads worldwide, the Peavey Vortex is a fast-and-furious metal guitar outfitted with the hottest ceramic Peavey pickups available.

Features:	8.5
Sound:	8.5
Action:	8.5
Reliability:	8
Impression:	8.5
Overall rating:	8.4
Users rating:	8.1
Comments:	14

overall: 8.8

Featured review by: afrika18, on april 30, 2007

Purchased from: MusicStop/Long&McQuade

Features: It's a 2007 Peavey Vortex EX made in China; 24 frets, 25 1/2 " scale, thin maple neck with rosewood fingerboard. Frets are relatively high off the fretboard, giving the guitar an almost 'scalloped' feel. Body looks like a Jackson Rhoads, it's solid basswood and quite light, with a satin black finish. it's got a licensed floyd rose, with the Peavey logo on it as well. Two ceramic humbuckers (very hot) with three-way Switch and a single volume knob (no tone control). Tuners are grover with hollow pegs which look cool. The construction is flawless, I could not find a single fault construction-wise in this guitar. Finish is perfect (but scratches easily). I give features an eight only because of the lack of a tone control. // 8

Sound: This is definately a metal-shred guitar. The basswood body give solos an out-front, mid-rangy tone that really cuts out. The pickups are really good for stock pickups and harmonics really leap out. It could use a little more bottom-end, so I'm likely going to change the pickups to duncan invaders. The neck pickup sounded pretty good clean, for bluesy/jazzy tones. But bottom-line: this is a metal guitar. // 9

Action, Fit & Finish: Action was a little high for my taste, but I've adjusted it and it's fine now. Pickups are kind of slanted downwards towards the neck of the guitar. The guitar plays extremely well. it's made to shred on. The highest frets are easily accessible as there's a distinctive cutaway for it at the neck. Hammer-on's and pull-offs are efforteless due to the higher frets. The guitar forces a lighter touch. After I lowered the action a bit, there is some mild buzzing on some frets, but nothing really noticeable. // 10

Reliability & Durability: As far as gigging with this guitar, I'd be concerned about the finish wearing off, or denting or breaking the guitar. The light basswood coupled with the extreme shape give one a sense that a sudden turn might snap a horn off the guitar if you hit something. I would not play Live without a back-up, but this is true of any guitar. // 8

Impression: I play metal and this guitar does exactly that, and does so rather nicely. I've been playing off and on for many years and I've had many guitars. The best guitar I've owned was a Charvel 475 special. This Peavey is probably the second best guitar I've owned (and I must say, that it plays better than the Charvel). Right now, I'm playing through a Roland micro-cube. If this were stolen, I'd probably buy something different. Not because I'm unhappy with it, but just because I like to try different things. I wish the guitar came with a bound neck and shark-tooth inlays. // 9

overall: 8

Reviewed by: Phillitalian, on november 05, 2007

Price paid: $ 395

Purchased from: Walters Music

Features: // 9

Sound: Surprisingly, this is a metal guitar. Sure the neck pickup is wonderfully bassy and the bridge is extremely twangy on the clean but if you want this axe to scream, get a nice distortion or overdrive goin and you'll be busting out some insane leads or rythms. Right now I run it through a Fender Frontman 15G, sadly it's the only amp I got at home. It tends to get noisy at higher volumes, but I blame the crappiness of the amp because on my friends Peavey Transtube 212, it's beautiful. Although it is a metal guitar, it is pretty versatile. // 8

Action, Fit & Finish: The action on this was beautiful, but I didn't like that it came with .9s on, so I switched to .10s. Everything about this guitar is perfect, except for the slight unbalance while standing, but it's no more than a half inch dip. One other thing I didn't like was that it only came with 2 springs in the back. // 7

Reliability & Durability: This guitar was made to play Live. I've hit the upper horn in the back quite a few times and there are still no scratches there. The paint on this is pretty solid but I have scratched it due to me playing around with the intonation and scratching it with an allen key. I have yet to gig with anything at all, but I think it's stupid to gig without a backup, although I'm still waiting for that faithful day when the strap I'm using falls off whislt playing this. Why? Because the strap buttons are so huge, it took me 5 minutes to get the strap on properly. The paint on the bridge has come off due to heavy palm muting, but it gives it some pesonality. // 8

Impression: I play just about everything as long as it has a beautiful lead or rhythm part in it. I've been playing for a year and 2 months now and this is about 4715890347689 times better than my Yamaha ERG121. if it got stolen, I'd sit in my room, cry, cut myself etc (just kidding) then go find Who took it and kill them slowy in front of their family. I wouldn't buy it again simply because I already had one. I would go get an ESP lp with 24 frets or save my money for a few months and get a Gibson SG. The only thing I don't like about this guitar is the FR, but I've learned to get used to it. I have no regrets about this purchase, except for the fact that the case I got with it was for a standard guitar and not a V. // 8

Comments

[Agent_00Funk]

Looks like a very nice guitar. Id rather have inlays on it though (the pics ive seen of others had no inlays).

[Norse_Iron_King]

wats the price????
ive been looking for a 24 fret FR V-shape with dual buckers for years!!

[afrika18]

Mine cost $449 Canadian dollars.

[Magnet07]

i want this guitar!!

[O_Maligno]

does the tunning stand well? or does de floyd detune the guitar?

[afrika18]

it stays in tune very well. But honestly, I don't use the floyd a lot so...

[On Neptune]

i think im gona buy this! mmmm

its £189 from gak.co.uk

[hadik]

this is an amazing guitar! i got it a few months ago, and i love almost EVERYTHING about it.

4 things i dont like...well, 5 are the following:
-the paint is a lil weak. and when i got it, i noticed that the paint had a few bubbles on it, meaning the facoty didnt do a good job
-the peavey site said that this guitar comes with a single knob for volume and tone(which means it might be a push/pull, or a variation of them)...but i only got a volume knob. and unlike most guitarists, i actually play around with my tone knobs quite a lot, and i dont apprecieat if my tone is set to 10 by default
-though this guitar is fairly light comparing to strats and les pauls, it still is heavy when comparing to jacksons or some other guitars. the bass wood is slightly lighter, but when comparing to alder on jacksons guitars...there is no comparison. would have liked it to be a lil lighter
-for a hundered dollars more, peavey offers rotor ex, and v-type exp guitars that come with neckthru constrution. wondering why vortex doesnt have that option. would have liked a neckthru neck
-nothing too big, but i would have liked this guitar to come in different colors. would have liked it in white.



but i love how it has no inlays. it gives it a more cooler look.

[timmeh_fz3]

does anybody know whether this guitar is neck-heavy? Meaning, is it balanced? when you stand up with it strapped on, will the neck droop to the floor unless you hold it up?

I'm interested in this guitar, but I'm concerned about the possibility of neck-heaviness. I hate having to hold up a guitar neck while I'm playing it.

if you feel like responding to me via email, I would be very appreciative! I'm at timboykin gmail

[Cpl_Metal_Head]

Its kinda neck heavy, but that dosent really affect the playability unless you have it slung really low

[Mad73]

It costs 249.00 EUR at Thomann.de.
Does anybody know that is it suitable with Rockcase Beast? Cuz I'd like to buy a case for it, but I couldn't find any other.

[hellsdefender]

does it come with a trembolo bar ???

[xdaynex]

do u guys recommend this guitar?

[BulletzAreScene]

hellsdefender wrote:

does it come with a trembolo bar ???

i'd imagine it did, if not, their only like, $8.