2010 Schecter Hellraiser Solo 6

In 2010, I entered a contest called CoverBand 2010, that was sponsored by NAMM, Musician's Friend, Schecter, Latin Percussion, Takamine, Ovation, and several other brands.  I entered the bass and guitar categories.  To enter, I had to submit a 2 minute video of my playing.

I placed second in the guitar category, and fourth or fifth in the bass category.  My videos were judged by Jeff Loomis from Nevermore - that was really cool.  For placing second, I won a Schecter Hellraiser Solo 6.  Though the shipping box says 1st place, I was actually 2nd.  Hmmmm..... I wonder if they got my prize mixed up with the first place winner.  He got a wine red one, which I would have preferred to this green one.


I've owned several Korean made instruments.  The first one ever was a Fender Strat made around '88 or so (the quality was okay).  I also had a fretless Ibanez TR800 bass back around '94, which was made fairly well but had some hardware issues.  More recently, I bought an MTD Kingston 5 string fretless bass, and the quality is outstanding - on a par with Japanese made guitars.  Korean manufacturing has come a long way, and I am very impressed with their quality.

The guitar had a chunky neck - I didn't measure it, but I'd say it was about 0.85" or so at the first fret.  The fretboard had a nice radius, again, not measured, but I would guess about 12" or so.  Frets were medium jumbos and were really nicely dressed.  Overall a great neck, but slightly too large for me.

The EMGs sounded just like EMGs should - hi fi and fairly high in output.  It was really easy to coax high gain tones out of this guitar.  The guitar sustained nicely, in part due to the strings through the body.

It had a beautiful quilt top and a nicely sculpted top, though I couldn't tell if it was solid, or if it was a thin laminate piece glued to either a plainer maple top or directly onto the mahogany body.  I don't suspect this guitar was chambered, as it was fairly heavy.  As you can see, the guitar was also heavily decked out in abalone, with binding all over the body and headstock, and inlaid on the fretboard as well.

The back of the heel was totally sculpted out, and gave some really nice upper fret access combined with the scooped lower cutaway.  The flip top battery compartment was a nice touch.

Ultimately I didn't like the green, and the neck profile was slightly too big for me, so I sold this guitar on Craigslist.  Kind of a shame, since I didn't get any kind of certificate or anything for winning the contest.




Here's the video that I submitted that I won second place.  I did it with my 2004 Les Paul Standard: