Finished building this on Thursday and then gigged it for the first time on Friday!!
These are the specs:
Les Paul shaped 7-string, 25.5” scale, ash body with walnut front, bolt-on wenge and maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, bound black pearl inlays, tusq nut, locking tuners, zebrano headplate with maple veneer in between, 22 jumbo frets with ball-ends, Evertune bridge, Bareknuckle Emerald bridge and Stormy Monday neck pickups in camo finish with black bolts, volume and two tone pots, paper-in-oil caps, 5-way superswitch with coil splits in positions 2 and 4, oil finish.
Just wanted to share my first opinions on the Emerald/Stormy Monday combo. Firstly they go together really nicely, no output imbalance and a great compliment to each other, and the split sounds of both are some of the best I've heard (in terms of them both sounds pretty single-coil-like when split). I've been using a Holy Diver combo in another guitar as my main gigging guitar; the Emerald is definitely less low-mid focused, with smoother and more compressed upper mids and highs. Still plenty of bottom end too, although it's definitely more high and upper mid frequency focused than the HD. Split harmonics are very easy to get, and it's a very warm sound with no harshness. The Stormy Monday is exactly what I wanted from a neck pickup, lots of vintage character, a very complex sound that responds really well to changes in volume and pick dynamics, etc.
Overall, I couldn't be happier!
