I took out a loan recently as I worked out I'd be spending at least £100 less in outgoings per month, and I can get rid of all my credit cards. Well, after I paid the cards off I realised I had some left over. "What the hell," I thought "I've already taken the loan out, I'm going to treat myself!"
So, as cheap as she may be, she's the best guitar I have in my quiver now.
My new Agile Septor Pro Baritone!
I can see why these guitars are a bit on the cheap side. Generally the construction is actually really good, the finish is nice and it plays like a dream. It's a Mahogany body with Quilt maple top, ebony fretboard and a Maple / Walnut 5 piece thru-neck. Sounds really nice with the stock pups, which I was surprised about, but I will defo be getting some BKP's to squeeze a nicer tone out of it. The transition from 25.5" scale to this 27" scale was almost undetectable, really easy to play and not much more of a stretch on the lower frets than I thought, so I think my next axe will be a 7 string with 28.75 scale.
However, the fingerboard looks badly done. I know ebony is hard to work, but on the edges of the board all the way up the neck it's got quite an uneven finish. It looks like where the luthier has been filing down the fretwire, he has also caught the fretboard itself and it looks pretty rough. It doesn't affect the playability of the board, but it does look pretty bad. You can't see it from a ways off, but when you look at it properly it is really noticeable.
Having said that, for the price, I am really really happy with this guitar. It does everything I want it to do, ticks all those boxes, and I am going to have a blast recording with it when I have BK'd it.
Now I have one last hurdle to jump: Tim has recommended an Aftermath set, whereas I always had it in my head that I would either have a Painkiller set or a Painkiller bridge / Cold Sweat neck combo (I like John Petrucci's neck tone a lot!). He said both ideas were great choices, as I had told him I'd like to get close to a Periphery / Meshuggah tone. I know Periphery use Aftermaths, but Tim just told me that Jens from Meshuggah had also ordered a Painkiller. ARGH! Torn much? Lol!
Well at least a choice is the most worry I have when it comes to this axe. I know that whichever set I choose I am going to be really happy with the sound, so that's a plus. :D
Now to save those thousands up for a custom 7 string from Daemoness. I have a 7-string Painkiller bridge pup with Daemoness' name on it. :lol:
