Engineering Wonder or Blunder? The Kaizen Review
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ย. 2024
- Join me for a twenty minute review of EBMM's alien love child of several of their eclectic guitars. In this video I talk through all the features and walk through all the sounds of this guitar.
Thank you for this review, especially the thoughts on the multiscale fretboard. I was a bit torn between this one and a Music Man Cutlass HT and went for the Cutlass this time. The Kaizen is special however, like a dream from the 80s, I hope I can play on this guitar one day!
Love the lighting on your shredder videos.
Thanks! Still a work in progress. I have new lighting (Nanlite Forza 60B II with the Para 90 Quick-Open Softbox), still trying to get that just right.
Price tag is annoying, but its an awesome design and build
it is crazy expensive, isn't it? And the vibrato's not even that great. It's the only major downside, in my opinion. If you scroll up to a reply to a different comment, you can read about my experiment making this vibrato bridge "float" for the better part of a week. That was originally in my video, but I edited it out because of how long the video ended up being. (Didn't think it was terribly interesting, anyway, but I did the experiment.)
@@onceuponashredder floating bridges are the worst… glad its fixed. Better for palm muting styles
@@Starch1b2c3d4a Not for me. I think it's up to the individual guitarist and how they "do" palm muting, similar how there's no one way to hold a guitar pick (slant backward like Eddie VH, "flat" like some others, forward like probably most other guitars, etc.).
@@onceuponashredder I let my guitars do what they do best. Its hopeless trying to mod and do tricks to make them something they are not. At least thats how I see it
Really like that finish. Pictures don't do justice
Indeed! Even video doesn't quite do it justice. Some finishes just have be seen in person to appreciate.
What finish is it?
@@foreverzeromusicit’s called spectraflame - only 75 made in this color
Thank you for convincing me that nothing here warrants a near 4000$ price tag.
LOL! That's awesome. Glad I could help!
Never had any Music Man guitar in my hands and honestly, they never appealed to me that much. But this one actually looks oddly beautiful. The only thing I can't get myself to like are the headstocks with 4+2 or 5+2 tuners configuration, somehow it's just a massive no-no even though they are surely great playing guitars. Just wish they were made with 6 or 3+3 tuners design.
Yeah, I have never been a EBMM guitar fan. I still don't like the shapes of most of their guitars. The Cutlas body shape is not bad. I like the St. Vincent quite a bit. Otherwise, meh.
My hands-on experience with weird arrangement of tuners surprised me! I figured I'd hate it. But here's the thing: the high B and high E strings have always been weirdos, right? Everything is 4ths from low-to-high, then from the G to the B string it's a 3rd. Suddenly, it made sense... whether that was their intent or not. It made sense to me, anyway. Suddenly: order from chaos. The stupid B and E strings have to be different, so why not give them their own tuners.
There's another brand - Caparison - does the 2 on top and 4 on the bottom. That's just a bridge too far! 😝(Joking, but still sorta serious. I can "make sense" of the EBMM arrangement. I can't make sense of the Caparison one.)
It shortens the neck's head...no neck dive.
@@kipponi Their headstocks are a little "squattier" than even a Les Paul headstock. So, yeah. Hadn't considered that angle!
Regarding the tremolo / vibrato bridge, couldn't you just set it to float a little bit, just like many people do with their 2-post bridges? You wouldn't have the almost unlimited range of a Floyd Rose, but it's pretty easy to rise 3 semitones up on the G string, which is a great deal.
Hi Davi, I tried that! In fact, I recorded an extensive explanation of my experience attempting to make it "float". I edited out that part because the video was getting too long, and I felt it wasn't terribly interesting. The short version of my experience making it float is this: I did it. However, tuning was unstable. I thought if I gave it a week or so in "floating mode", the tuning would stabilize, but that wasn't the case. As you probably would guess, I made it float by backing out the screws that hold the two springs attached to the vibrato block inside the back cavity. That lifted it just enough to satisfy my need to do slight warbles, since that's what I mostly use it for (think Holdsworth and Lukather). But tuning wouldn't stabilize enough after the better part of a week, so it wasn't worth keeping that way.
@@onceuponashredder Oh, I'm so glad you answered! I've looked for someone's experience on trying to float this new tremolo, but there's simply no information about it, even at the official Music Man channel.
Until now, I've only seen floating tremolos for mulsticale guitars on headless models, which is not very practical for me since I tend to dislike dual locking systems... It's just impossible to change a string during a show and then having a backup guitar is a real necessity, even for the smallest gigs. For a non professional like me, that's just not practical.
@@DaviSiqueiraSilva You know, that was one of the advantages of the old Steinberger double-ball string system. I wish I'd never sold my Steinberger.🙁 I spent around $2K back in 1996 or so on a GL4T, when there were still great new Steinberger instruments available, though not many. The double-ball strings were a little more expensive, but they were the easiest strings to change in the world. It was the best of all worlds, in my opinion. Nice vibrato system, amazing tuning stability, etc. And the guitar itself was essentially the perfect instrument, and I sold it off by around 1999 or 2000, thinking I'd found something better. (I imagine, for most guitarists, there is "that one guitar" they wish they'd never sold off. 🤪)
There are other great guitars with floating vibrato systems. Strangely, most Ernie Ball Music Man guitars don't come with floating vibrato bridge systems.
Crazy sustain
Yeah! Funny, because having started playing seriously on a Les Paul Deluxe waaaaay back in my youth (thanks to my Dad buying one for me; still amazes me that he did that), I've always held onto the "heavy guitars sustain longer" myth, even though I know empirically that is not true. I should not have been surprised that a well-engineered guitar like would sustain so well.
Do you think a .60 gauge or even .62 could be added through that tuner? Comes with 56 but I might want that B to be an A, know what I’m saying? Haha. You tuned your low string to A but sounds like you managed with the stock string being super slinky… Let me know what you think. thanks!
Nice but feel input jack should be hidden at the back of guitar to improve look when plugged in like strandberg does. 😎🇬🇧
Good point! Yeah, that would make more sense with this design, wouldn't it?
In two weeks, no one has suggested you order a second backplate to replace the one with the autograph?
James, thanks! I didn't occur to my silly brain, and now that you mention it: it's the obvious answer. 😛
@@onceuponashredder Music Man should have included it, foreseeing this problem.
Have been considering the 6 string version, but am concerned about the multi scale/fan frets (am primarily a Les Paul guy lol). Was their much of a learning curve jumping from your LP’s to this? Also, have you played the 6 string version?
If the 6-string version had been available at the time, I probably would have bought that instead. I didn't know they would be introducing a 6-string! Those look awesome. Cool new colors, too.
The fanned frets are not as distracting as you might think. It's a little different, but not a huge difference. It's sorta similar to switching between a Les Paul and a Strat.
the fan fret is so slight you wont even probably realise
I’ve played guitar for 30 years. To me there was zero learning curve for multiscale. If anything a single scale instrument now feels odd from the aspect of feeling like I have less “space”.
for a 9 year old what size of a electric guitar would you recommend?
Hi Ben, personally I'd go with a 24-inch scale length, like one of the newer Squier Paranormal Super-Sonic electric guitars. I have this thing saved in one of my wishlists on Sweetwater: www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SupSonParBS--squier-paranormal-super-sonic-electric-guitar-blue-sparkle-with-pearloid-pickguard
(I am such a terminal guitar freak that I have to explicitly talk myself out of buying more guitars, even when they're fairly inexpensive like the linked model. Look at that wall of guitars behind me. And that's not even half of the guitars I own! Anyway, I have my eye on that particular Super-Sonic, partly because I like the blue sparkle, partly because it's 24" scale length - so shorter scale length that a Les Paul, meaning frets are slightly closer together - and because I really like the pickup configuration, including the slant of the bridge pickup. Sweet guitar. I'd probably do some upgrades, but still. Sweet axe.)
Great Review I like the guitar but it's TOO EXPENSIVE FOR ME !!!!!!!!!!!! reminds me of Kip Wingers HAMER IMPACT BASS !!!!!!!!!!!
Indeed, crazy expensive!
I bet you will sell this guitar wihtin a year from now, in total within 2 years.
I did! Because they released a 6-string version a few months later, which is what I would have bought if I'd had the option. I kept the Mint (color) 6-string Kaizen and sold the 7-string. I have a 9-string Schecter Damien multi-scale prototype guitar, so my guitar-with-more-than-six-string needs more than fulfilled with the Damien. But you're absolutely right! Perhaps not for the reason you might have thought. The 6-string Kaizen is my idea of a nearly perfect guitar. If you watch my review of my Mint-colored 6-string Kaizen, I explain why it's only nearly perfect.
They should have slanted the bridge hum with the bridge. The low strings are in big danger of getting muddy this way.
True, but those pickups are wildly unique from what I recall so maybe they thought that through.
That's a good point. My experience Metal-ing with it didn't seem to conjure "these are a little muddy" when I was recording. But I normally prefer that pickups to be slanted on fanned-fret guitars. The pickups on my nine-string Schecter Damien are crazy slanted - same angle as the bridge.
Just played it , it’s overrated guitar , a standard music man is pretty same
Yeah, depends on one's perspective, right? It's overrated if that's not what you're looking for, or it's just not your "thing".