Schecter Blackjack Atx C-1 Review
7 user reviews of C-1 Blackjack ATX FR by Schecter 0 I bought this guitar because I wanted a good, reliable guitar with a Floyd Rose, but with a tight budget. Therefore I was very lucky to buy it.
- C-1 Blackjack comes in two pickup configs: standard - EMG 81/85; ATX - Duncan Blackouts. Nice instruments. The neck is relatively comfortable (I have hand issues), although I prefer the neck on my SG Std; I definitely prefer the neck on the C-1 over the '59 on the LP Studios.
- STC-Shaped Guitar Schecter Blackjack ATX C-1: 131 images, 2 user review(s) and 1 video.
- It's armed with the Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) and '59 (SH-1n) pickup combination, which can be 'tapped' via a push/pull tone control or a 5-way Mega Switch.
What Schecter does with the Diamond series guitars is that they ship all of the materials for manufacturing the guitars to a plant in Korea. I know what you are thinking there still made overseas so they can’t be too good, but that is where you would be totally WRONG.
The technicians at Schecter Guitars do all the finish and set up work for their guitars right here in the U.S.A. They set them up to such a high quality standard that the guitars are almost always ready to play right out of the box. They even take it a step farther than that. Schecter guarantees their guitars for the life of the guitar. That’s right for as long as you own the guitar if anything at all goes wrong with the guitar they will take care of it for you.
Okay enough about the background of Schecter, onto the C-1 Blackjack FR.
Schecter does not use second rate parts of pickups in their Blackjack guitars.
The Schecter C-1 Blackjack uses only original Seymour Duncan pickups, a JB in the bridge position, and a 59 in the neck position, and this is only the beginning.
The guitar uses a set neck design with ultra access, and a 3 piece Maple neck, Mahogany body, and a Rosewood fingerboard. 24 X-jumbo frets and Grover tuners. Plus an all original Floyd Rose (not a copy) Tremolo.
The guitar plays fast, very fast, and the tone is as good as any guitar I have ever played. The action is excellent, as good as found on guitars that will cost you several thousand dollars.
This is simply one of the best guitars that I have ever owned, and I am already making plans to purchase several more. I already own 2 Schecters and would not hesitate to purchase another one.
Dollar for dollar I honestly do not think that you will find a better guitar out there anywhere. This guitar only uses the best of the best tuners, pickups, tremolo out there. And I have checked, if you try to purchase an all U.S.A. built guitar with these same features the least you are going to pay will be well over $2000.00.
Here is the best part, my Blackjack only cost me a little over $800.00, add in another $100.00 for one of the best guitar cases I have ever seen and you are all set and still got out for less than a thousand dollars.
You can even take the Blackjack a step higher, the Blackjack ATX model offers everything I already mentioned but adds an Ebony fingerboard, and Seymour Duncan active Blackout pickups. That will run you about $150.00 more, maybe less if you check around a little.
As far as reliability, well I have been playing my Blackjack for over a year now and have not had a single problem at all. And I do not expect any problems. The guitars are just so well put together and then inspected again and again before ever being shipped out to a customer. But if by some freak of nature you do have a problem all it takes is a single phone call to the guys at Schecter and they will waste no time at all doing whatever you need to get things right.
But, out of everyone that I know that owns a Schecter I do not know of anyone that has had any problems.
I do not have any reservations at all about recommending Schecter guitars to anyone; I just have that much faith in the guitars, and believe in them that much. And I never recommend anything unless I own it myself, and believe in it
You can check the Schecter C-1 Blackjack FR and the rest of the Schecter guitars at http://www.schecterguitars.com
If you have any questions at all please feel free to email me at terrywhite1@live.com or you can always find me on the Rockhouse Method message boards at www.rockhousemethod.com.
Terry White
Just as there are many different schools of metal – heavy metal, stoner metal, death metal, thrash, death-thrash, grindcore, gore-grind, industrial metal, black metal, TRUE black metal – there are also many different schools of metal guitar design. Radical shapes and extreme colours compete on the shelves against stripped back, simple but deadly designs. Active or passive pickups, fixed or floating bridge, 22 frets or 24 (don’t even joke about building a metal guitar with only 21 frets. How can you possibly be evil if you can only reach a high C#?). In many ways the C-1 Blackjack ATX FR is almost too classy to be a metal axe, with its carved top and chunky neck profile that are more likely to remind blindfolded players of a Les Paul than a day-glo heavy metal meat-axe. But don’t worry, there are still plenty of badass features in here for shredders and rhythm chuggers alike.
Spec check
This bad boy features a solid mahogany body with a carved top and aged binding, and a 3-piece maple neck with 24 jumbo frets and a rather flat radius. The fretboard is ebony, the grain of which is extremely tight, giving the fretboard a very smooth feel, especially combined with those huge frets. The only inlay on the face of the fretboard is an ‘active’ symbol at the 12th fret, although there are side dots too so you can still find your way around. The neck is glued in, but carved with Schecter’s ‘Ultra Access’ shape, which makes it feel like a neck-through. The back of the neck is painted, which some players will love, and others, not so much. If it bugs you that much, a good tech can scrape it away neatly, but even though I’m a player who likes a good chunk of unfinished maple, I didn’t find the painted neck to be obstructive or distracting at all. The headstock is Schecter’s pointy 3-a-side design, which looks traditional and hard-edged at the same time.
The review model has an original Floyd Rose locking tremolo bridge. There’s also a fixed bridge version available in 6 and 7 string but frankly, as a shameless 7-string noodler and whammy bar abuser, I feel the range is just that little bit empty without a Floyd Rose-loaded 7-string version. There, I said it. Schecter, please don’t send Zacky Vengeance after me to enact his namesake.
Pickups
The pickups are Seymour Duncan Blackout actives, with a volume control for each and, a global tone control. There’s a three-way pickup switch which selects between each humbucker or a combination of both: no split coil settings here, so the Blackjack’s clean tones lean more towards Metallica than Dream Theater. Seymour Duncan describes the Blackouts thusly: “The ‘other’ USA-made active humbuckers use unbalanced inputs in a differential preamp. The problem is, an unbalanced differential preamp is not very effective at cancelling hum. Our engineers figured out how to capture the tone that players want in an active design, but using balanced inputs. The result is 12dB to 14dB less noise, plus more lows, more highs, and more output. Simply put, Blackouts have more tone than other active pickups.”
Sound
The C-1 Blackjack ATX FR plays like a much more traditional guitar than a shredder’s plank thanks to the combination of the arched top and the neck carve, which is deeper and rounder than the majority of guitars oriented towards the speedier side of axemanship. The Blackout pickups are an interesting spin on the expected active metal pickup sound. They’re a little blunter and a bit warmer than you might expect, with more midrange and ‘woodiness’ than traditional actives. You can really hear the personality of the guitar, which isn’t always true with actives. The bridge unit has plenty of articulation and chunk – you’ll hear plenty of crunch and grind, which is especially great for ultra-fast, muted thrash riffage, while legato techniques have a real sense of movement and dynamics as overtones jump out. The neck pickup sounds round and vocal, responding especially well to huge vibrato, and again there’s a very musical pick attack. You know the kind of pick attack that sounds like an integral part of the note, rather than just a percussive bassy thud at its beginning? Well that’s what this baby excels at. Awesome. Both pickups are ideal for metal, but due to the warmer character they can be used for softer styles too. You may turn a few heads showing up at an indie gig to plug the C-1 Blackjack ATX into a small Fender combo for some ambient jangle, but it’ll fit the bill sonically, no problem.
My only niggle is the placement of the controls. The neck pickup volume is closest to the strings, with the bridge volume in the middle and then the tone control. This makes sense from one perspective – after all, it mirrors the placement of the pickups themselves – but practically, the bridge pickup will probably get the most use and it’s difficult to turn it down with the control in the second position. Easy enough to flip around if you know what you’re doing though if it becomes a problem, but I think the vast majority of players would prefer it to be swapped around to begin with.
Conclusion
This is a very powerful, great sounding and playing guitar with killer features and construction. While some guitars lend themselves more to either rhythm or lead playing, the C-1 BlackJack AX seems to cover it all pretty easily. It takes a lot to drag me away from my beloved neon shred axes but this monster could well do it.
Schecter Blackjack Atx C-1 Review Rating
[geo-out country=””Australia” note=””]Musician’s Friend shopping links:
Schecter BlackJack ATX C-1 FR Electric Guitar Aged White
Schecter Blackjack C-1 Electric Guitar Black
Seymour Duncan Blackouts Active Humbucker Set
Seymour Duncan Blackouts Active Humbucker Neck
Seymour Duncan Blackouts Active Humbucker Bridge
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