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Hey all,
I finally got around to joining the party... years, not minutes late.
I've been lurking around here lately, and it's nice to find another legit forum with tons of knowledge floating around. I've been playing guitar since '91, when I got my first guitar for Christmas shortly after my 9th birthday. I was into Kramers at a young age, but quickly grew to like Jackson/Charvel after my mom bought me a purpleburst Charvel 475. Everything snowballed from there... I've owned 20+ J/C guitars, including 2 original San Dimas guitars, a gunmetal gray Charvel (#5115) and a very early Jackson that was black with pink gridlines, it was #5xxx (not even sure how I remember these numbers so many years later!).
I strayed away from Jackson in the late 90's when they started putting out crap for imports (post-Professional line). I ended up with an ESP M-1 and have been buying/selling/playing ESP's since...until Charvel started promoting the Production Series. I've always loved Charvels with a strat headstock ala DeMartini. I started reading all the reviews on here about the Productions and seeing they were such a hit, I had to have one. I sold off one of my favorite ESP's to fund it, and I don't regret it one bit...
I went with a tangerine SoCal and it is AWESOME. The neck is a dream to play on, and the DiMarzio's sound absolutely killer. Charvel nailed these things on the head. Great price and all top notch compenents... I played a few of the pointy San Dimas guitars a couple years back, but they didn't blow my mind for the $1700 they were asking. These things however are the balls, and I plan on picking up another (or two) when funds permit.
Here's my SoCal... I saw another member's tangerine with a white pickguard and had to have one... Tony from Pickguardian hooked me up and it should be here any day. The white guard really brings the orange finish alive on these things!
This is my 'go to' guitar. It's a 1985-era Kramer Baretta replica, 100% hand made for me by Warren Parker @ Southeast Guitars. I can't describe how cool this thing is. There's something about this guitar that sets it apart from every guitar on the planet, mainly being there's not another one like it. The old Barettas were usually alder and rarely maple, but I had him build the body from mahogany. I really like mahogany's heavy low end but warm overall sound. He used a beautiful piece of flamed maple for the neck, its a jaw dropper in person! The combo of maple and mahogany is the best of both worlds tone wise... It's currently still naked finish wise, but I'm thinking about having it painted up like one of Michael Wilton's (Queensryche, I'm a huge fan) Barettas that he used in the Rage for Order days... black with a steel gray TriRyche logo on it.
And last but not least, here's a project guitar that's been ongoing for quite a while, but should be wrapped up soon. I'm a big Lynch fan and love the Kamikaze model, but I had a fellow ESP forum member paint this one up in a one-off color scheme, urban camo. He did a fantastic job, and now I'm just waiting to get a couple of final pieces to get this one all assembled. Should be killer!
And that's about it. I'm looking forward to learning more about J/C's. On a side note, if you guys have any ESP-related questions, feel free to hit me up. I've got quite a library of knowledge stored upstairs
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