Kramer Review: Striker 422SM

History: Been playing for 9 years now. Influences: heavy metal, like metallica, iron maiden. Now playing a mixed bag. Rock n Roll, Blues, Metal, stuff...

Purchase: Picked it up myself from Bharat Music House, Lajpat Ngr, Delhi, India. Pretty steeply priced. Rs 18500/- Been a month now (Sept 2006)

What I Like About This Kramer Striker 422SM: First n foremost: Quad rail + Dual rail pickups. Quiet as a mouse. Fierce as a lion. Dont get any noise from the guitar, even though earthing conditions of my amps is poor. My older Strat copy gives this awful buzz on distortion. The kramer doesnt give a peep. Allows to really crank up the gain, and gives an awesome feedback squeal when required. N looks way cooler than the ordinary pickups. Plus the push-pull coil tap tone control along with pickup selector switch gives a wide variety or tones to the guitar. From thick fat to moderately high treble. Body build quality and finish is nice. I've got a metallic red version. Definitely not lacking in style. Its got the curves in all the right places.

What I Do NOT Like About The Kramer Striker 422SM: Neck is a bit thick. FloydRose licensed tremolo will go off tune if (and only if) u freak out with the whammy bar. String dont sustain note too long. Esp on the higher frets. Might be due to russ rod adjustment, but i dont wanna mess with that. The unit i got has a slightly faulty push-pull tone control knob. Its a bit loose. Sometimes shorts. But hasnt really given me any major problem yet. Though i'm sure it will with age.

Kramer Striker 422SM Quality Rating: One of the things that i liked abt the unit was the smooth finish, excellant paint job, gentle curves, perfectly attached neck n the extra long headstock. Well the headstock looks cool, but i've got to be really careful not to knock it into things. Nicked it on the first day itself. If you turns around without holding the neck up, u r likely to knock over a few cymbal stands, mic stands or what not.

Review Summary: Like the guitar. No regrets. Having some probs with intonation, but always expected a floyd-rose licnesed to be fussy, so patience n perseverence ought to solve that in some time. I bought it at quite a high price, but then there were simply no good guitars at this price. n feature-wise, the pickups really make up for the cost. Doubt if anything cheaper would give this quality, but i have a hunch that maybe its available for a lesser price somewhere in India. On general, imported guitars are expensive here. Happy with the guitar, no regrets so far.

Rating of this Kramer product: 4

This Kramer Striker 422SM Electric Guitars Review Submitted By: leadviper

Review Date: 2006-10-01