Kramer Baretta FR404-S/D Reviews 5

My fiancee' purchased this guitar for me new as a birthday present back in 2000. This guitar was purchased from www.musicyo.com.

I love the fact that this guitar has a push pull pot for the pickup split. This allows me to get single coil sounds out of humbuckers. I love the reverse headstock (so 80's I know, but I love 80s stuff). I love the weight and feel of the guitar. The neck as it turns out is thin and flat (somewhat) similar to an Ibanez or Jackson profile. But being a strat man, this has taken some getting used to, and now it feels quite natural.

The pickups are perhaps the weakest link in the guitar. These are called "Quad Rail" pickups. The only style of music that these pickups complement is heavy metal and hardcore stuff. But they sound like garbage for everything else. I had a guy ask me if I had EMG's on my Baretta at my last gig, and I told him no. But that was only cause it was a heavy song.

This guitar is solidly build and has all the great features of a true metal guitar. Unfortunately, there are some places on the body (particularly on the edges) where the finish appears to be very thin and I can make out the wood color. Other than that minor gripe, everything else is really good about this guitar.

This thing is great and while not as awesome as the Kramers of yesteryear, it still remains an integral part of my rig. I can't wait for MusicYo to release the new Nightswan and Baretta reissues (80's reincarnate). This guitar kicks ass and is a great value.

Mark Lane rated this unit 5 on 2004-09-09.

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