[yuyaya]

1 Tone knob, 2 Volume knobs. 496R pickup in the neck, 500T for the bridge pick-up. It's got an ebony finish, chrome hardware, tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece. Came with a lovely hardcase. Built in 2001 but purchased in 2003. Everything you need - tuning stability, decent pickups, solid finish and a good quality body. No whisltles and bells like trems or effects. Supposedly rosewood fretboard, looks ebony, but it could be a heavily dyed rosewood.

Lets start by eliminating this myth - the Explorer *removed* is not just a hard rock/metal guitar. It is versatile. You can get a nice blues sound, clean sound, classic rock sound, mild distortion and hard metal distortion, it all sounds good. Think who've used this guitar and embraced it; Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), The Edge (U2), Rivers Cuomos (Weezer), Wayne Static (Static-X), Metallica (pre-AJFA) and many others. This guitar is a nice guitar for most styles, though it's shape immediately suggests rock.

The 496R is nice, sounds good for blues and rock. Sometimes to bassy, but the tone/volume knobs can calm it down. Same with the 500T which is uber-hot, but still useful in certain styles particularly dirty sounds. And single notes ring nicely with an attack for blues runs. With a three way pick-up selector you can use 3 settings; 1)496R 2)496R + 500T 3)500T. I tend to use option 1 and 2 for cleans. Option 3 for just about all of my dirty sounds. If you roll all the knobs to 10 and crank up the gain you can get a nice metal crunch. Roll em back and its more rock n roll. It's a gorgeus pick-up combination.

I play bits of everything; blues, classic rock, and some modern rock (Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Filter, Nirvana) and some softer stuff (Counting Crows, Coldplay, Starsailor). This guitar suits most of those styles. Though you can't get any sounds remotely like single coil sounds, so i struggle to get any Chili Peppers or Starsailor sounds. I don't gig or play my own music, I play for fun.

If you play soft/clean stuff exclusively, look away from this and consider a s/c Fender, if you want buckers, a Les Paul or SG might be better.

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