Schecter Demon S-II Review WiredGuitarist January 7, 2018 Articles, Schecter Guitar Reviews, Uncategorized Schecter’s take on the traditional SG design brings an old-school guitar into the 21st century at a great price point… with the Schecter Demon S-II! Features: – Basswood Body – Black Satin Finish – 1-Piece Maple Neck – Rosewood Fretboard – 24.75’’ Scale Length – Extra Jumbo Frets – GraphTech TUSQ Nut – Tune-O-Matic Bridge – Duncan Designed Active Pickups – 3-way Toggle – 1x Volume, 1x Tone Tone: As a budget instrument it’s hard to expect any great sounds out of these pickups. The cleans are mediocre and the distorted sounds are passable – although these shouldn’t be of any concern for someone starting out with their first or second guitar. Just for fun, we tried a set of proper active pickups just to see how much we could improve the sound. Using a set of Seymour Duncan’s Jeff Loomis Blackouts we ended up being really happy with the results. One of the plus sides to active pickups is their ability to really transform a poor sounding guitar into something extremely workable, so there’s still hope for those who want to upgrade this guitar a touch. The tonewood combination is very familiar to anyone coming from the Ibanez family, Basswood body and a Maple neck are standard fare for most of the RG lineup. Personally, I’m a big fan of this combination. It’s fairly flat and moldable depending on the pickups you use and the maple neck helps with snap and attack. The tone is far from noteworthy, but the guitar has a decent base to work with, should you want to improve its tonal qualities in the future. Build Quality: The most obvious quality control issue is of course sharp fret ends. As one would expect with a sub-$1,000 instrument they are definitely present, although far from the worst we’ve seen at this price. Schecter’s own tuners aren’t half bad at all, with great tuning stability and a very heavy, tactile feel to them that simply “feels” like quality. The Tune-O-Matic bridge echoes this same achievement, and the stoptail-free design works quite well, adding resonance and reducing the overall weight of what is typically a heavy guitar design. The finish was free of any flaws, and we couldn’t spot any marks or imperfections in the body or neck. The playability was surprisingly impressive, with the Extra Jumbo frets being a welcome addition to the instrument. Perhaps that’s a good summary of this particular model: it’s a tried-and-true SG but with very small but highly effective improvements. Besides the flatter radius and larger frets that lend to fantastic playability, the redesign of the controls makes for a much more straightforward approach and removes the frustration of having to reach so far back to change your volume or switch pickups. The simplicity of this design keeps it from avoiding many of the standard pitfalls of budget guitars. As a result, while it has its predictable faults, it’s quite a well built instrument. Final Thoughts: There’s not much to comment on due to the stripped-down nature of this guitar, but if you’re a fan of the SG shape this might be the perfect marriage between traditional looks and phenomenal modern design and playability improvements. Additionally, if you are willing to pony up the extra cash for some nicer pickups you can have a really great all-around guitar on your hands for a steal of a price. Perfect for a beginner or intermediate player, or as a backup instrument.
