SC-Custom II Active Vintage BK : The best guitar (this much) money can buy

I’ve seen all the reviews on youtube at least 3 times, and I’ve read all the forums. I’ve also seen videos of other guitars by HB with a similar finish and with similar pickups, just so i can get an idea if this guitar is worth buying (I’m on a tight budget, so every dollar makes a huge difference).

After getting my hands on this guitar, and thoroughly inspecting it, i can only see a handful of micro-imperfections that you’d only see if you were looking for them... the imperfections are related to the finish of the guitar; slight blemishes, nut is off by 1/8 of a millimeter and slightly tilted towards the neck.

The first thing i noticed: the binding is gold/yellow, even though it was advertised as Ivory, it doesn’t necessarily look bad, but it wasn’t what i was expecting. Also the binding on the neck doesn’t look “perfect” and the “gold” color seems like it was sanded off when the fretboard was being sanded.

It came set up pretty well. The tuners feel amazing, the headstock is really nice with golden inlays that look like they fit in with the theme of the guitar. The action is okay, a bit high for my taste, but it’ll do. No sharp fret ends.

Even though it seems like i mentioned a lot of downsides, and lots of negatives, i really don’t mind any of them, i wanted a guitar with 24 frets that can SHRED, and it has active pickups and grover tuners as a plus!

All in all this is a great buy, and it could end up being a future mod guitar (probably the first upgrade will be the Het set pickups).

After playing it for a few days, i can safely say this guitar is way too good to miss out on. I tried playing it clean, with crunch and distortion. The cleans are CLEAR and the crunch and distortion don’t sound too “high output” they honestly sound balanced, granted i was using a noisegate, but even without it, it sounded just fine...

I highly recommend it if you’re not willing to drop $500, but still want a guitar that’s comparable to guitars twice (if not more) as expensive...