Schecter Banshee Elite 7 Review

The Banshee series by Schecter was introduced a couple of years ago as their modern take on a classic hot-rodded superstrat guitar. Originally their flagship bolt on model, the series has evolved to include neck thru and other attractive/high end features in general. Check out how this 7 string holds up!

 

Features:

  • Swamp Ash Body
  • Flamed Maple Top
  • Transparent Cat’s Eye Gold Finish
  • Neck Thru Multi-Ply Walnut/Maple Neck w/ Ultra Access & Carbon Fiber Reinforcement Rods
  • Thin C Profile
  • Ebony Fretboard with Maple Binding
  • 12”-16” Compound Radius
  • Offset Brass/Mother of Pearl Dot Inlays and Glow In The Dark Side Dots
  • Ernie Ball Compensated Nut
  • 27” Scale Length with 24 Stainless Steel Jumbo Frets
  • Schecter Locking Tuners
  • String Thru Hipshot Bridge
  • Schecter USA SuperCharger Mach 7 Pickups
  • 5 Way Blade
  • 1 Volume & 1 Tone

The specs on this are very popular for 7 strings, especially in boutique circles right now. 27” is a no-compromise scale length for 7s for utmost clarity, and swamp ash is lightweight with great extended range tone. The maple top is nice and thick with natural binding (on the neck too, which really brings it all together), and the neck thru construction showing on the front really completes the hotrod look.

Right down to the Hipshot bridge, locking tuners, and offset dots, there aren’t any specs I’d really change on this at all. It’s a beefy, functional, great looking tone machine.

To touch on two of the more unique things about it: a lot of sevens just have extremely flat fretboards, but this has a classic 12”-16” compound radius. I don’t mind this at all, I never need flatter than 16”, and it keeps chording really easy near the nut. The Ernie Ball compensated nut is also fantastic and I wish features like this were on more guitars. The intonation is just fantastic and improves your sound greatly. There’s nothing wrong with a traditional nut when cut well, but these go above and beyond.  It’s a surprising feature to find on a guitar that isn’t $2000+ too.

 

Tone:

A neck thru swamp ash and maple baritone 7 is designed for clarity and sustain. That’s the foundation this guitar is working with, and it does all of that in spades, so what I’m more interested in is how Schecter’s choice of pickups perform in these.

The USA Schecter pickups in this are SuperCharger Mach 7s. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because the USA pickups are mostly used on their actual USA Custom Shop guitars. Normally when I’m playing those, they’re the more vintage Strat and Tele style models, which in turn have more vintage-styled USA Schecter pickups in them; so this was my first time trying Mach 7s.

These are pretty hot modern-voiced ceramic pickups with oversized pole pieces. Overall, they have a very wide frequency response, and sound huge, with a lot of response to pick attack. They sound less compressed than a lot of other pickups designed for modern metal, so they can be sculpted towards whatever sound you’d like easily. The best way to describe them is that there’s a lot of everything without being overwhelming: big bass, searing highs, and crunchy mids.

The split positions are fantastic as well, and I really enjoyed all the clean and crunch sounds I was getting with this guitar. Very full sounding while still being snappy and clear. I’m just taken aback by how good this guitar is for all genres. I think maybe these pickups are a bit on the warmer side because they sound really even in such a bright, clear, baritone guitar that would normally produce some icepicking conditions.

 

Build Quality:

Schecter has been impressing me with their builds lately. They’re showing that some great value instruments can be produced in South Korea. Not only does it seem as though their higher end imports such as this model get even better QC than the mid-range ones, but overall less and less flawed instruments are being produced. Even on the off chance a factory mistake was made, you don’t have to worry because Wired Guitarist sends back any flawed guitars to the manufacturer. This is one of the best guitars from World Musical Instruments I’ve played, and the finish and binding are especially great.

 

Final Verdict:

This looks like and sounds like a high end 7 string. There are no features that this guitar is missing.

In my opinion, the icing on the cake is the killer aesthetic appointments like the natural maple binding, and the surprisingly awesome USA Schecter pickups.

There are more expensive, higher end guitars that will have better fit and finish, but they won’t have stainless frets, a compensated nut, high quality inlays and binding, 27” scale, carbon fiber neck reinforcement, etc. unless you pay 2-3 times as much. There has been no better time in guitar history than right now to be a player on a budget.

This guitar is for anyone looking for a rugged yet beautiful beast of a 7 string with great features for non-boutique prices.
10-10-10

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