Schecter Stiletto Studio 5 FF Bass Guitar - Honey Satin Reviews
The Schecter Stiletto Studio-5 FF delivers the top-drawer sound and custom shop–level playing experience most bassists only dream of. This forward-thinking bass guitar features a bubinga-topped mahogany body, ensuring maximum natural tone and refined looks. EMG 40HZ humbuckers provide a smooth attack, level highs, and a warm, focused low end that you can shape to perfection with an active 3-band EQ. Explore new frontiers on this bass, thanks to its sleek body contours, Ultra-access Neck Carve, and easy-playing multi-scale rosewood fingerboard with 24 X-jumbo frets and a Graph Tech XL Black TUSQ nut. The Stiletto Studio-5 FF delivers rock-solid intonation, by way of a Schecter S-Tek bridge and tuners. Eye-catching satin gold hardware completes the picture.
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Highest Rated Reviews
Schecter does it again!!!
Should we be surprised? This is another quality bass from our friends at Schecter!
This 5 string multi-scale bass is a beast! Plays super fast and accurate!
Slick, sly and sudden.
A great affordable fanned fret...
Pro: The B string shows perfect intonation. The neck is slick and fast. The finish is beautiful.
Con: The strings it comes with are crap. Lots of fret buzz on the B and E strings The nut has really sharp edges so when you go down for a low C you are tearing up your fingers.The B string is boomy (like most neck thru). In other words, needs finish set up.
What I did: Changed out the .130 rounds for Black Beauties. Filed the nut to get rid of sharp edges. Raised the action to get rid of fret buzz. Lowered the top of both pups to get rid of the boomy B. Now this bass is a monster.
Things to know: The EMG active system is quiet. The control knobs are backward, bass-mid-treble. Other than that just like any other dual soapbar system. When you go down to the nut end of the neck it gets weird. Play a low C and your hand is off the neck. That is the only fretting issue. Other than that it feels really natural.
This bass is lightning fast even with new strings and capable of several on the fly tone changes.
The good, the bad, the ugly
The good-great pice, beautiful instrument with extremely low action
The bad-the pickups stink, even with the EMG BQ64 on board (comes standard), I struggle getting a good tone, the EMG 40HZ leave a lot to be desired, also, since this guitar has the EMG 40 routes and narrow string spacing the pickup replacement options are pretty limited, you are going to need a blade style EMG pickup
The ugly-the bubinga on the top is very thin, the hardware is painted gold and willl not stand up over time and worst of all the finish on the back of the neck could have used a bit of sanding, there are 3 or 4 spots that have distinct pebbles of finish which are quite annoying when playing
Has awesome potential, but QC is worse than I expected from Schecter
Getting this bass was a bit of a challenge. The first bass I got had a bunch of fret damage right out of the box. The box looked fine, so I can only assume the damage occurred before being boxed up. I sent that one back and waited another month to be shipped replacement.
When my replacement arrived, I put my favorite strings on it and took it to a venue that I'd played probably over a hundred times with my Ibanez and my Schecter (in the same gig) was super noisy! It was way more noisy under the same lights than my much cheaper Ibanez! I checked the cavity and there was zero shielding in the bass - only some aluminum tape on the back of the access cover. That was it! I even took my multi-meter to the black paint to see if it was conductive paint. Nope. So, I spent a few hours stripping my brand new bass down and copper lining EVERYTHING. As I was taking it apart, I was finding nuts that were basically just finger tight, bridge saddles that weren't locked down properly, and gap tolerances between the plastic cover and recessed outline that were visibly 'wobbly'. I get that's a bit of a nitpick, but any modern CNC machine should be able to hit tolerances of +/- .002 inches without even trying (was smaller than you can see).
After stripping it down, shielding it properly, snugging everything up, and throwing some lemon oil on the fret board (it looked very dry); it does play very nice! I would've liked to see a better bridge system than just sliding freely in a track and using a set screw to 'lock' it in place (mine weren't even tightened properly from the factory), but once you get it set, it's fine. I love the way it looks, and plays! It has a really crisp sound compared to my Ibanez's, which are a little more 'round' with the same strings. I opted to also install some strap locks and a Hipshot detuner on the 5th string and I plan to keep this bass for many many years!
TL:DR - Factory QC for lose nuts and set screws is poor and it does not have sufficient shielding. Still a great bass if you're willing to spend a few hours 'rebuilding' it and adding some proper shielding.
