Schecter Omen Elite-7 Electric Guitar - Black Cherry Burst Reviews
With its bewitching burl top and hair-raising Heretic pickups, the Schecter Omen Elite-7 is one seven-string you won't be able to keep your hands off for long. The Omen series has been a longstanding favorite to players and customers here at Sweetwater, and we feel the Omen Elite-7 marks a notable upgrade in all the right directions. Back are the substantial-feeling mahogany-maple construction and streamlined electronics. But factor in a slew of visual upgrades, a fast-as-ever Thin "C" neck, and mean-sounding set of hot-rodded Heretic pickups, and this Elite is one Omen that's too good to pass up.
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Highest Rated Reviews
Needs work!
I purchased a Schecter Blackjack SLS in 2013 and today, almost 10 years later, it is still just as fun and easy to play as it was on day #1. When I thought of taking the leap to a 7-string my first thought was for another Schecter, this guitar quickly becoming the frontrunner. Other brands were seriously considered, but after weeks of trying various models at local stores and researching all the different options available, the Omen Elite 7 came out on top.
This guitar looks stunning, plain and simple. The red is not too dark to where it's invisible among the black burst, but it's also not so bright that it looks like the laminate top has a backlight. This is reflected on the headstock perfectly, not too dark and not too bright. Playability is very nice (once setup issues were fixed, see below) and the neck doesn't feel too alien coming from 15 years of 6-strings. It's shockingly light, contoured in all the right places, and is very comfortable to play for long sessions.
Unfortunately that's where the positives end. Out of the box the guitar sounded really, really bad: The bridge pickup was very quiet, the neck pickup very loud, and the mixed options in the 5-way switch were dominated by the neck pickup. On top of those issues the bridge pickup sounds too hollow and weak, the neck pickup too fat, as if the pickups themselves weren't chosen to compliment each other. I've replaced the pickups and been able to balance out the volume issues and most of the tonal problems, however I did have to modify the new pickups to fit the rounded pickup tab slots. In addition to the pickups I had to replace the volume and tone potentiometers because they were faulty and caused some loud popping when moved. As a personal decision I replaced the knobs with simple black knobs and the 5-way switch with a 3-way switch. TL;DR I replaced every electronic component, mostly out of necessity to get something that sounded nice.
The most disappointing part of this guitar was the out-of-the-box setup. Fret rattle was severe, with the B and E strings rattling on any fret below the 5th. It was passable on the A string at this point, but not great. String height was extremely high, with the 12th fret being almost 3mm on the higher strings (this is at least partially attributed to having to relax the Truss Rod for the string rattle). Once I got these two things sorted out it plays very well, but I'm still fighting a very bad tuning instability issue that I haven't been able to track down the root cause.
With nearly two weeks of work that went into this guitar it really pains me to say anything bad about it, but having to put that much effort into something to get it working well is disappointing. With the pickups and new electronics I've put almost $850 into this guitar which completely nullifies the purpose of looking for a less-expensive entry into the 7-string market. If I could go back and do it all over, knowing what I know now, I would probably just fork out a bit more money for a different one.
