An Honest Homage
This GVT52-112 weighs in at a hefty 52.2
pounds and sports a pair of 6L6 power
tubes and three 12AX7s in the preamp
section. The birch plywood cabinet of
our review specimen comes packed with
an 80-watt Celestion Seventy 80 speaker,
which can aptly handle the higher wattage
output of the GVT52-112. The amp
looks sharp with its vintage-correct black
vinyl covering, a black sparkle grille cloth,
and a silver faceplate. The control array
is especially user-friendly, with everything
well spaced and logically arranged. The
GVT52-112 offers 2 channels, each with
its own discreet Baxandall EQ section,
Gain, and Volume controls. The footswitchable
spring reverb and effects loop
can be bypassed. And a multi-color LED
that’s too bright to miss indicates the status
of the Full Power/Standby/Half Power
switch. Around back, effects loop and footswitch
jacks can be found aside a variety of
speaker outs for extension cabinets.
Running the Range
I plugged in a Custom Shop Stratocaster
to get a feeling for the amp’s clean and
mild breakup flavors on Channel 1. As I
strummed open chords with the EQ knobs
at noon, the GVT52-112 delivered an elusive
combination of warmth at the low end
of the spectrum and sweet musical clarity in
the upper midrange and highs.
With its ability to independently boost and cut frequencies, the Baxandall EQ made it easy to tweak what’s a very balanced tone to begin with. I could easily adjust the EQ to conjure a variety of crystalline and round Fender-inspired jazz tones that still packed a punch for solos. But the amp’s wide range of bright clean tones and impressive, snappy responsiveness would suit country styles as well. Tonal complexity was quite good across all these cleaner highheadroom settings and excellent for an amp in this price range, but lacked some of the indefinable singing harmonics you’ll hear in the best point-to-point circuits. And though our review unit exhibited a bit of cabinet vibration at certain settings, the amplifier is extremely noise free, which is great given how well it works with stompboxes.
A Voice All Its Own
The Ampeg really started to shine when I
pushed Channel 1 to the point of breakup.
And working through various EQ settings
and gain levels revealed a uniquely fierce
personality. With the EQ knobs dimed and
the Gain at 75 percent, I got an awesome
live Stones sound with a touch of bright,
near-fuzz flavor that would cut through
almost any band mix with ease. Breakup
sounds organic, and distortion is easy to
control with the guitar’s volume knob.
My Les Paul helped deliver classic ’70s crunch in spades. The GVT52-112 loves humbuckers, and at the same gain level, the punchy, fuzz-like tone I extracted from the Stratocaster was transformed into a killer raspy sizzle, roaring with girth.
The higher gain Channel 2 remained defined in grittier settings—even on the Les Paul’s neck pickup. Though the amp’s slight tendency toward the bright side is accentuated in this environment, it works great with humbuckers. Huge sustained chords in the vein of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” ring out in full glory at lower gain levels, with great bloom and sustain. Turning up the gain to noon and switching to the bridge humbucker yielded a thick “Reelin’ in the Years” lead sound that became more focused and gritty when I emphasized the mids with the EQ. After nailing so many classic distortion flavors, I was impressed that the GVT52-112 had much more usable gain on tap—the upper reaches of the Gain knob put me well on the way to Mastodon territory. The footswitchable boost offered a usable bump in output, perfect for the quick switch from rhythm to lead.
The Verdict
From the spot-on vintage design to the
unique-but-familiar palate of clean and
overdriven tones, the GVT52-112 offers a
fresh alternative for those in search of classic
sounds and styling that also isn’t from the
usual suspects. And its ability to stand apart
from the crowd while fitting just about any
classic rock setting is its greatest accomplishment.
The switchable power, classic, userfriendly
control layout, ample gain range,
and added modern features lend real-world
versatility to this tastefully styled throwback
design. And at an accessible price, there’s little
reason not to give this combo an audition.
Buy if...
you’ve been looking for an affordable Fender/Marshall/Vox alternative to set you apart sonically and visually.Skip if...
you have little interest in deviating from proven tone templates.Rating...
Street $749 - Ampeg - ampeg.com
A Hellbound’s Heart
The Hellraiser is a very well-built guitar. I
was hard-pressed to find any construction
or finish flaws anywhere on the neck or
body, which is semi-hollow mahogany with
a quilted maple top in a deep Black Cherry
finish. The body also sports a solid center
block with two tone chambers designed to
lend acoustic resonance. The three-piece
mahogany neck is capped by a 24-fret
rosewood slab fretboard and affixed to the
body with Schecter’s highly sculpted Ultra
Access neck joint.
With brightly hued abalone gothic cross inlays and double abalone binding along the top of the body, this Hellraiser isn’t shy about ornamentation. And the lines are simultaneously classic and forward-looking, combining an offset waist with Les Paul and Rickenbacker design motifs. In sum, it’s a very striking guitar.
The Hellraiser is packed with enough features and options to cover just about any musical situation you can think of. Two EMG active humbuckers—an 81 in the bridge and an 89 in the neck—are wired with a coil tap that splits the 89. EMG humbuckers are known for screaming lead tone when combined with high-gain amps, and the 89 ups the ante on that count by starting with two alnico 5 magnets, rather than ceramic magnets.
The 89 is effectively two different pickups in one, and the guitar offers separate preamps for each coil. When combined in series, the tone is more like an 85 model. When split, you get brighter tones more typical of the company’s SA single-coil. In the Hellraiser, the coil tap cuts out the coil closest to the neck, leaving the one closest to the bridge active.
The magnetic pickups can be combined with quasi-acoustic tones from the guitar’s Fishman TOM Powerbridge piezo system, or removed from the mix completely to let the Powerbridge sounds shine on their own. Schecter also includes a TRS Y-cable for splitting the EMG’s output to one amp and the Fishman’s to another. There are dedicated single Volume and Tone controls for the EMGs, a Volume for the Fishman’s output, a 3-way switch to select individual pickups or combine the Fishman and EMG outputs, and a conventional 3-way pickup selector switch.
Beer Drinkers & Hellraisers
The Hellraiser Solo-6 E/A isn’t a dark
sounding guitar by any means. Pretty
much every amplifier highlighted its
bright, high-end tendencies, but it excels
at smooth, searing high-gain tones. With
a 2011 Mesa/Boogie Multi-Watt Dual
Rectifier, the fire-breathing EMG 81
pickup was simultaneously detailed and
pummeling amid a flurry of trills, triplets,
and hard-edged, staccato riffing. Thanks to
the guitar’s solid center block, there was no
feedback, which helped the notes bloom
and soar in ways that only a good semihollow
body design can do.
The 89 had a pleasant, thick tone when I played single-note melodies at low-gain settings, but sounded less smooth than say, an EMG 85. The real strength of this pickup comes from its coil-tapped mode, which sounded round and punchy with a complex high end through the Mesa’s clean channel. With a Fender ’65 Twin Reverb reissue, the tone was warm and fuller still. You can coax a lot of great sounds out of the Hellraiser’s magnetic pickup set, but this one was the king of all of them. Maxing the guitar’s Tone control yielded a harmonically rich jangle that was perfect for ’60s garage rock, though I typically had to back the control about 3/4 of the way down to prevent the high end from becoming overpowering.
While the Fishman’s piezo-powered acoustic tones were usable and powerful, they’re also pretty bright. I really would have liked to have had a separate Tone control on the guitar for the Fishman system, which would have greatly expanded the sonic range—especially when combining the Fishman and magnetic pickup outputs. Running through the Ozzy Osbourne classic, “Diary of a Madman,” I kept having to drop the treble and bring up the bass on the Mesa when I would flip to the Fishman for the song’s classical intro, verse, and bridge buildup sections. It would have been so much easier to be able to control that from the guitar itself. Despite that drawback, the acoustic tones were still highly detailed with a nice, sparkly sheen on the highs, even when I would drop the amp’s Treble knob.
One of the Hellraiser’s biggest strengths is its ability to split its EMG and Fishman outputs into dedicated signals to two separate amps. Using the Twin and the Mesa, I piped the acoustic signal to the Dual Rec, which is significantly darker, and sent the EMG signals into the Twin. For years, guitarists have used acoustic guitars in the studio to thicken up backing riffs. With the Hellraiser, I was able to faithfully approximate this effect in a live situation, which was a blast to experience. Playing the arpeggiated opening line to “Diary of a Madman” never sounded so good, with the electric signal filling in a smooth midrange between the Fishman’s highs and lows.
The Verdict
Schecter’s Hellraiser Solo-6 E/A is an
extremely versatile rock machine that offers
the added benefit of being able to select
acoustic tones on the fly. These tones may
tend to toward the bright side, but they’re
still smooth and fluid with great sustain.
If you need a guitar that can cover all the
bases—including playing acoustic passages
in the middle of a tune—it’s absolutely
worth a play.
Watch our video review:
Buy if...
you need an all-in-one rock workhorse with usable acoustic tones.Skip if...
you prefer to work with multiple guitars or you need a single-coil in the bridge position.Rating...
Street $999 - Schecter Guitar Research - schecterguitars.com