New Charvel Jake E Lee Signature

Kramer SM-1 Electric Guitar - Candy Blue

Solidbody Electric Guitar, with Mahogany Body, Mahogany Neck, Ebony Fretboard, 3 Humbucking Pickups, and Tremolo - Candy Blue
Write your review
Share
Item ID: KSM1CBBF
Kramer SM-1 Electric Guitar - Candy Blue
Kramer SM-1 Electric Guitar - Candy Blue

We Can Get It!

While this isn't an item we normally stock, we can still get it due to our great relationship with Kramer. Go ahead and place your order and we'll follow up shortly to let you know when to expect it. Estimated July 2026.

Add to Cart
Sales engineer photo
Ask An Expert

Our expertly trained Sales Engineers are ready to help!

(800) 222-4700
What is a Sales Engineer?
Sweetwater Gear Exchange

Have one to sell?
Check out Sweetwater's Gear Exchange!
Learn More

Kramer SM-1 Electric Guitar - Candy Blue
We Can Get It!
Add to Cart
Add to list
Skip to Description
Most Popular Accessories & Related Items
Certified Fit

Cases and Gig Bags

No more guesswork! Cases with this logo are hand-tested and guaranteed to fit this Kramer SM-1. See how we do it | Visit the Guitar Case and Gig Bag Buying Guide

Back to navigation

Written By

Our Product Research Team

Get to know them!

Versatile Rocker for a New Generation

Like a hot-rodded '80s original, the Kramer SM-1 solidbody electric guitar packs a ton of appeal for heavy metal guitarists. With a pair of Seymour Duncan Cool Rails humbuckers combined with a JB humbucker at the bridge, the SM-1 delivers a world of vivacious tones to explore, from plucky cleans to rich, punchy rhythms and leads. And with its Floyd Rose 1000 series tremolo and locking nut, you can dive bomb and generate harmonic squeals with amazing tuning stability. Complete with its K-Speed SlimTaper neck profile for fast, fluid playability, the Kramer SM-1 guitar is ready to rock.

Floyd Rose tremolo for twisting, bending, and dive-bombing

Do you dive-bomb? Shriek? Squeal? Flutter? Of course you do! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be on Sweetwater.com looking at shred machines like the SM-1. Similar to other high-performance solidbody electric guitars, the SM-1 comes equipped with a rock-solid Floyd Rose 1000 series double-locking trem with R2 locking nut. It can be used for subtle vibrato or full-blown dive bombs — the choice is yours. Either way, you’ll experience the same response and tuning stability that you'd expect from a Floyd Rose. Whether you use it or abuse it, you won't have trouble keeping the SM-1 in tune.

Seymour Duncan pickups = the sound of rock

Kramer’s SM-1 was built for hard rock. Its Seymour Duncan JB bridge pickup is one of the most popular in the world, serving up the classic sound of a hot-rodded humbucker. You know, that sound — the one we've all loved for over 30 years. And with a pair of Cool Rails humbuckers in the neck and middle positions, you've got a wide tonal range to explore. Even better, the master volume boasts a treble bleed mod and a mini toggle switch gives you access to split-coil tones too.

Kramer: rocking hard since the '80s

Kramer guitars were at the forefront of the '80s metal scene, with endorsements from pros like Eddie Van Halen, Neil Schon, Richie Sambora, and others. Kramer guitars have been the guitar of choice for some of the hardest rocking guitarists in the world, and you can tap into that experience yourself with the Baretta Special. You're getting more than a great value with the Kramer Baretta Special, you're getting a guitar that's built to rock.

Kramer SM-1 Solidbody Electric Guitar Features:

  • Brings a classic '80s shredder to a new generation
  • Robust tone from three Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups
  • Fast, fluid playability from the K-Speed SlimTaper neck profile and 14"-radius fretboard
  • Floyd Rose 1000 series tremolo and R2 locking nut allow for expressive bends and dives with amazing tuning stability
  • Mini toggle gives you access to split-coil tones
  • Treble Bleed mod on Master Volume control

Why Buy Your Guitar from Sweetwater?

See how Sweetwater goes to great lengths to give you the very best online guitar buying experience. From our online Guitar Gallery that allows you to see and select the exact instrument you want to our 55-point Inspection process and our in-house guitar techs, we take the guesswork out of buying your next guitar online.

Resources

Electric Guitar Buying Guide

Warranty Info

Sweetwater's FREE 2-Year Total Confidence Coverage Warranty

Extra peace of mind at no extra cost.

  • Save money with FREE parts and labor
  • Get back to making music with the industry's fastest turnaround time
  • Fix it the first time with our award-winning, factory-certified Service Department
Learn More about Total Confidence Coverage
2 Year Total Confidence Coverage
Back to navigation

Tech Specs

  • General
  • Number of Strings 6
  • Left-/Right-handed Right-handed
  • Body
  • Body Type Solidbody
  • Body Shape SM-1
  • Body Material Mahogany
  • Body Finish Gloss
  • Color Candy Blue
  • Neck
  • Neck Material Mahogany
  • Neck Shape K-Speed Slim Taper C
  • Neck Joint Neck-through
  • Radius 12.598"
  • Fingerboard Material Ebony
  • Fingerboard Inlay HS Motif
  • Number of Frets 24, Medium Jumbo
  • Scale Length 25.5"
  • Nut Width 1.625"
  • Nut Material Floyd Rose R2 Locking
  • Hardware
  • Bridge/Tailpiece Floyd Rose 1000 Series Locking Tremolo
  • Tuners Black Die-cast
  • Electronics
  • Neck Pickup Seymour Duncan Cool Rails Humbucker
  • Middle Pickup Seymour Duncan Cool Rails Humbucker
  • Bridge Pickup Seymour Duncan JB Humbucker
  • Controls 1 x master volume (treble bleed mod), 1 x master tone, 1 x mini-switch (coil-split bridge)
  • Switching 5-way blade pickup switch
  • Miscellaneous
  • Strings .009-.042
  • Case/Gig Bag Sold Separately
  • Manufacturer Part Number: KSM1CBBF1

What Makes Our Sales Engineers Great?

Sweetwater Sales Engineers are a world-class team of experts dedicated to you. Hand selected from across the globe, each brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the world of music gear to provide you with unparalleled service completely free of charge. Friendly relationships, real trust, and the right gear are only a call or a click away!

(800) 222-4700
Contact Your Sales Engineer
Back to navigation

Reviews

4.3

Write A Review

Customer Photos & Videos

Kramer is Back!
This guitar plays amazing! The K-Speed neck is thin enough shred but not too thin to be uncomfortable, it's perfect for shredding and rock licks alike. I was happy to see Alpha 500k pots and that the coil split switch and pickup selector feel crisp, solid and quality. Nothing to say about the Seymour Duncan JB and Cool Rail pickups, they sound killer as always!

One of my favorite parts of this guitar is the ebony fretboard which feels smooth as glass! The frets are nice and level so you'll have no problem setting a low action and the fret edges are smoothed off. Mine did need a fret polish job out the box, there was some grime on the frets especially near the bass-side of the higher frets. Another feature I like is the contoured heel which will lets you reach all the way up to the 24th fret with ease. It should be noted that from the factory the action comes pretty high.

The Floyd Rose 1000 trem stays in tune even during the most obnoxious dive bombs. There is a little play in the trem arm so I'll be upgrading to a push-in style (which I was planning on doing anyway) to solve this issue.

The quality control is not great (in Gibson fashion I guess haha). The back had a finish defect where the wood is exposed, I can tell it didn't happen in shipping because it is under the gloss finish. There is a similar defect by the neck pickup and the routes could be cleaner. The binding is also an area that needs improvement as it is little sloppy and uneven in some areas. Another thing Kramer can improve on is the tuners. They aren't the best quality but they get the job done. The issues with this guitar are purely aesthetic and do not affect the playability whatsoever. As I mentioned before it plays incredibly well.

As far as cases go the Gator GTSA Molded case fits pretty well, even better than the Jackson Dinky & Soloist case. The Gator case offers a bit more support to the entirety of the neck.

Shout out to my Sales Engineer Lucas Norton for offering unparalleled customer service!
by Carlos from Los Angeles, Ca on
Great new guitar.
This Kramer SM-1 was my very first purchase with Sweetwater. I'm proud to say I couldn't be happier with either one. The guitar is fabulous and showed up in perfect condition, set up and tuned. The service and assistance I received from Andy was top notch and I will use his help and guidance for my future purchases.
by Sweetwater Customer on
Affordable Shred Guitar
Quality guitar for an affordable price. Better than some of the others in this price range. Plays like a dream! The neck is great but is quite different to my Charvel Pro Mod San Dimas. I feel this neck is a little easier to play than the Charvel but it is more narrow at the nut. I love the Cool Rails pickups along with the JB. My only issue is the linear volume pot... it feels like it goes from off to on with no real adjustment. You will need to switch out the pot to the audio taper if you want to use your volume to clean up the gain.
by Eric Collom from CA on
Music background: Semi-Pro musician
A true shredding machine!!
This thing is not only beautiful, it is truly shred ready! Harkins back to all the great Hair Metal Gear Heads from the '80's; bring out your EVH and rip up some solo's!!

Good weight so you know you have something to hang on to, but not overbearing! The tone and sustain are simply amazing! It's my first and only Floyd Rose so far and I'm truly impressed!

You really cannot go wrong with this beast!!
by Joe from San Tan Valley, AZ on
One year review, awesome guitar, marred by Gibson QA issues
This is my review after owning this guitar for just over a year now.

First off let me say this might be my favorite guitar that I own. The versatility, tone, and comfort are top notch. Despite the 80s shredder aesthetics I feel like I can use this to cover almost any genre under the sun.

The good:
-While this is mostly personal preference I love this neck. Its thicker than a wizard-style and closer to a D shape than a C shape, and feels comfortable ranging from high fret sweep picking down to open chords.
-The bridge is excellent. I was hesitant on the Floyd Rose 1000 series bridge as it is not German made and in my experience the Floyd Rose Specials have been terrible, however this bridge feels just as high quality as the Floyd Rose Original.
-The pickup combination is stellar, the JB bridge shines as always and has that perfect balance of clarity and grit that to my ears is hard to match, and the cool rails can go from heavily distorted leads to clean jazzy tones very well; I am incredibly impressed. Also worth mentioning is that the JB sounds great with the provided coil-split due to its high output and does not get thin and unusable like coil splitting a lower output humbucker. I was planning on having to wire in a resistor originally to do a partial coil split but it ended up being completely unnecessary.

The bad:
-Gibson's notorious QA. There are some messy routes (especially around the neck and middle pickups on mine), frets that do not seem to have been cleaned up before inserting them into the neck (small bits of metal poking out that can be seen on the fingerboard), an input jack that seems to have been forced into the cavity because it is lodged into the wood at a bit of an angle and I can't seem to remove it. However the worst thing was that after a few months of playing the neck pickup started acting strangely and cutting out. When I opened the control cavity I saw that the ground wire had come undone. While an easy fix if you are comfortable with soldering this should not be a problem on any production guitar, let alone one this expensive.
-Due to the arched top and how the volume and tone pot are drilled the knobs rub against the top of the guitar, which makes them drag. This may be unique to my specific guitar, but there are points where the knob seems to catch and does not have a consistent-feeling turn. This has carved out little silver circles below the guitar knobs, which to me is not a big deal as they are pretty much entirely out of view. With that being said, this should not be an issue on an instrument that costs $.

The meh:
-The treble bleed circuit on the volume knob. Some people love this mod, and if you want to turn down your volume knob without it rolling off high frequencies than you may really like it. However this type of wiring creates an issue where the volume knob produces no signal early in the turn, and then all of a sudden the signal jumps out of nowhere. If you do volume knob swells this will be unusable for you. Mind you this has nothing to do with the pot itself or its physical taper, it is simply a byproduct of the treble bleed circuit. The good news is that you can just snip off the cap and resistor and the knob will function as normal with a perfect taper (which is what I did).
-The trem arm. This is not unique to this guitar and is an issue with all guitars factory equipped with a Floyd Rose, but that default screw-in arm SUCKS. You will find yourself having to constantly tighten it to avoid play in the arm, and over time it will wear and lead to sustain-killing clicking when you bend notes. Make sure to buy the aftermarket push-in style, it solves all of the issues, is better engineered, and is a very cheap upgrade.
-While this likely won't matter to most players the recessed route for the bridge is pretty shallow. There are a few strings where I am so close to being able to bend up to a note that I can hit on any of my other guitars with recessed Floyd's, but it just isn't quite there, so I end up using the vibrato system more for bending down in pitch. Again, this probably won't be relevant to most people unless you are like me and try to cover up your bad metal solos with excessive divebombs :P

TLDR: This guitar is perfect if you can look past a few finish issues that frankly shouldn't be there and don't mind spending a couple hours and around $30 to do some upgrades and playability tweaks.
by Brian from Portland, OR on
Music background: Extreme Metal
See also: Solid Body Guitars, Kramer, Kramer Solidbody Guitars