My new custom Legra came in… er, about two weeks ago. I wanted to have it for a while so I knew how it played etc. before I wrote the review.
First of all, apologies for the dodgy camerawork and length of the review. I figured it was only fair when Bob Johnson (Legra main guy) put so much work into it (the length, not the dodgy camerawork, lol). Also, if you're a member on several other guitar forums, you might have already seen this there. :lol:
Anyway, first of all, a rough spec and pics:
(I think it’s a good job Bob got some professional photos taken before he sent it to me :oops: )
Maple/Mahogany/Ebony 5-piece neck-thru. Ebony Fretboard with pearl dots and flamed-maple binding.
Mahogany Wings, Flamed Maple top. Satin finish to back, Gloss to front (the maple top, basically).
Gotoh Double-locking tremolo with Tremol-no, Gotoh tuners.
Bareknuckle Miracle Man bridge pickup, Cold Sweat neck, 2 volumes, 2 tone (with push-push pots for series/parallel operation).
Ok, I think that’s roughly it (if there’s anything else you want to know, please feel free to ask, I just didn’t want to make this post any longer!).
Anyway, the quality of workmanship is astounding, to the point where the truss-rod cover matches the stripes of the neck woods. It definitely has that “custom hand-made” vibe (that’s a good thing, by the way), the finish to the rear is super thin. The paint-job etc. is really well done too. The tone is excellent, it’s very, very resonant, considering it has a tremolo. I asked for a Les Paul type tone, but tighter, and this just about nails it. Upper fret access is extremely good; in fact, you’d hardly know you were playing on the upper frets. It plays extremely smoothly, to the point where guitars that I’d have previously said were pretty smooth players no longer are. The neck profile is great- I asked for something along the lines of an Ibanez wizard II (thin, but not super thin), but with an asymmetric profile- Bob nailed it. Both chords and fast lead are extremely easy to play- it reminds me a little of my eggle on the bass side, while it‘s pure shred on the treble side.
The woods and hardware, electronics etc. seem to be of an extremely high quality- absolutely no complaints there!
The Bareknuckle pickups are really very nice too. I don’t know if they’re the best pickups in the world (meaning I haven’t tried every single pickup that’s available, obviously enough), but these are very, very good. Certainly a large step above the “Big 3”, no question about it (in my opinion, anyway)- different league comes to mind. You can’t blame any mistake on the pickups, that’s for sure.
Miracle Man: tight, surgically so. Great harmonics. Really clear and open-sounding too, for such a high output pickup- it’s high output, but not crazily so. Has a nice 80’s edge to the tone too. Not super-versatile (I wouldn’t want to be playing anything much lighter than 80’s hard rock), but it does what it does really well. Cleans are pretty good, considering it’s ceramic, but obviously it wouldn’t stand up to a PAF-type pickup in the clean/vintage department. I’d say this is a “silly grin” pickup. I’m expecting the taste police to call any day, with the amount of dodgy 80’s hair-metal and shred type stuff I’m playing with this pickup.
Cold Sweat: decent cleans, awesome lead/overdrive tone. I think that just about describes it. Warmer (and incidentally, hotter) than I was expecting too, considering it’s supposedly a shred neck pickup- you could do jazz reasonably well with this too. You can get an excellent vai-type of neck pickup tone with this. Good harmonics too. I’ve definitely been playing the miracle man more than this one, so I don’t want to say too much about this one, in case I’m, er, wrong.
Parallel wiring is cool too (thanks to ben and phil king for suggesting it), reduces a bit of the output, a little more single coil-sounding, but still noiseless. I think if you wanted single coil sounds, a coil-split sounds slightly more authentic, but for everything else, I think parallel is more useful. It definitely helps the cleans to become more sparkly and cleaner.
The tremolo seems really very good, easily as good as any OFR or similar that I’ve tried (though time will tell how long it holds up, but based on what Bob has told me, I have no worries about that). Very responsive. Very ergonomic too under your palm, it’s more streamlined than an OFR.
The Tremol-No does what it says on the tin; at the start it’s a bit un-nerving to twist two little handscrews and suddenly your guitar is acting like a hardtail (which means you can change tunings without having to rebalance the trem, double-stop bends are in tune, etc.). The sustain improves quite a bit too- worth converting to hardtail mode if you’re playing a song which doesn’t require the trem.
Word of warning though, on this particular guitar/tremolo combination, there isn’t enough room to fit the “deep C” (the device which allows you to access “dive-only” mode) and still have the full range of up-pull when the trem is in full-floating mode. It wouldn’t happen on every guitar/trem, but it’s worth bearing in mind if “dive only” is one of the Tremol-no’s major selling points for you. It doesn’t really annoy me, even if I’d known before ordering the Tremol-no, I’d have still gone for it, out of the principle that it‘s still got more options than a bog-standard floating trem. Also, it’s a bit harder to set up than the you tube videos suggest (you have a few extra things (compared to a normal floating trem) which have to be aligned perfectly etc.), but it’s still a nice piece of kit.
I guess that’s about it. I’m really pleased I went for it, it’s certainly among, if not the, best guitars I‘ve played. It cost £1637 as far as I can remember, as Bob threw some money off the original price first because of finding a cheaper brand of hardcase, and then discovering it had a few minor scuffs- I’d never have noticed, to be honest, but it shows how trustworthy he is.
I think it was excellent value considering that I was able to entirely spec something that just plain isn’t available off the shelf, and the nearest thing to it is a USA Jackson King V, which doesn’t have half as good a spec and costs a similar amount of money.
I’d highly recommend checking into Legra guitars, they aren’t as expensive as you think, and are great, basically- especially in the UK where we get charged such inflated prices for an awful lot of what would be considered bog-standard kit in other parts of the world. Also, I’d like to add that Bob is extremely helpful and patient with any questions you may have- it was almost worth the price for the education!
Would I put this up against a USA Jackson? I think a more pertinent question is, “Would Jackson put up one of their USA models against this?”- because if they have any sense, they wouldn’t.
Again, sorry for the length (I’ve tried to keep it as short as possible), and if you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to ask.
