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Review - Slammer By Hamer


Curtis P

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Well, heres my Review on the guitar Slammer by Hamer

let me start off with a few things, I bought this guitar for myself on my birthday, i traded my Washburn strat copy and some cash for it, so i bought the guitar for a little bit more then 275 plus my Washburn.

Now, the review, this guitar has a fast neck, faster then my washburn, but, it has the "heel from hell" on it, so that makes upper fret access slightly difficult.

The electronics are O.K. for now, but i will be swapping them for some EMG's later on

One downfall on the electronics is that they are very "ringy" while playing clean, you have to roll back on the tone knob a little to get the ring out

The nut is not properly slotted, i have to widen the high e string slot a little bit

The truss rod does not rattle, but i havent done a string change so i cant check out the route yet by pullin on the truss rod cover

Body is 3 peices of what appears to be mahogany with a 1 peice maple neck and it is scarf jointed

The finish is, on a scale of 1 to 10, i give it about a 9, you can see a little bit of wood filler on the end grain, and there is a small blemish where it looks like it was bumped into something while still wet

The sound, it sounds pretty good through my Peavey Bandit, and my Boss HM-2 pedal, i had to tweak my EQ a little bit to make i sound "good" but it will sound way better with the EMG's in it

Frets, cant complain, they did a good job on the frets, no over hang, no buzzing

Tuning pegs and Bridge, just low budget ones, but they do the job well, it stays in tune pretty good, except for the high e, but that is because of the nut

In conclusion, this guitar is perfect for the money, it came with a 5 year warranty on everything (neck, body, frets, electronics, hardware, everything) it also came with a patch cord, about 5 picks of different guages and some cheap strap locks, but they do the job fine

Heres some teaser pictures:

NewGuitar6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v314/cur.../NewGuitar7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v314/cur...s/NewGuitar.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v314/cur...NewGuitar11.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v314/cur.../NewGuitar3.jpg

Curtis

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Cool, I wondered what the quality was like on those Slammer guitars considering I've only heard good things about Hamer. Also, Happy Birthday.

keep in mind thatthe slammer series are not made by the same people as the hamer americans.

the hamer line is very,very nice.the guy at the local music store toured the factory and bought a les paul copy,and he let me look at it up close...3 piece necks,one piece bodies,aluminum cover plates...those things are top knotch

the slammer series is made at the same places that all of the "subbed out" guitars are made...i think it was kamen,last i heard...

http://www.hoovers.com/kaman-music/--ID__1...ite=kaman-music

according to this,kaman only distributes.i can't find the name of the builder...i think it is the same people who make the low end ltd?someone else probably knows for certain.

all of those korean guitars are getting better...the slammer of a few years back was very poor...that one looks very decent.

oh...in case you are interested

http://www.hamerguitars.com/

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all of those korean guitars are getting better...the slammer of a few years back was very poor...that one looks very decent.

I agree. The first Slammer's I saw were pretty pathetic. The one's I've had in the last year are as good as any Korean made guitar out there. IMO the Korean guitars are going to be the next 70-80's Japanese guitars so if you guys have a decent model or a fairly rare one hang on to it (you listening Curtis :D ). It will probably be worth a lot of money in 10-15 years. With all of the building going to China now the Korean models are becoming less common. It's typical economics.....70's moved produciton to Japan; poor quality at first but dirt cheap labor; labor went up as quality went up so the move was made to Korea; labor went up as quality went up (IMO far above what the Japanese quality ever was) so the move is to China, quality is poor to excellent out of China depending on the factory (there are hundreds if not thousands of guitar factories there so you're spinning the wheel hoping for a good one); next move will be to ????

BTW Fender and Epiphone own or control their Chinese factories (I don't think anyone but a Chinese can actually own a factory there but I may be wrong) so you should see decent quality from both of their Chinese lines. I don't know about the other major players. Maybe someone can fill us in.....Kevan or Brian?

Nice guitar Curtis, I sold several of those this year and they were IMO some of the nicest in the Slammer line.

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Cool, I wondered what the quality was like on those Slammer guitars considering I've only heard good things about Hamer. Also, Happy Birthday.

keep in mind thatthe slammer series are not made by the same people as the hamer americans.

I knew that, I just always wondered what they were like because no one around here carries them and I knew that Hamer made nice guitars so I figured their korean counterparts might be not too bad.

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Hmm, very interesting, the spec page just says the body is "solid" it doesnt say what wood it is made of.....

anywho, i just got back from playin it, after playin around with trying to get close to "randy's" tone, my tone went from good to really good, so i am very pleased with myself :D

What would be a good combination of EMG's?? i was thinking 81/85 since i know alot of people on here use that combo...

Curtis

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What would be a good combination of EMG's?? i was thinking 81/85 since i know alot of people on here use that combo...

Curtis

Duncan Distortion's B)

Sorry, I dislike EMG's, but lets not turn this into a EMG war thread.

EDIT:I'm serious about the Distortions.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/showthr...&highlight=SH-6

Follow the link to that guys recordings. He used a Distortion in the bridge with NO EQ. There's a Bark At The Moon cover in there. I'm sure you won't be disapointed :D Listen to all of the other clips too :D

Edited by AlGeeEater
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My local shop has a pair of Slammer Explorer's used, they had a Epiphone one there for a while too,

looked like they were trying to start a club of something. B)

I'll speak up on the quality of Korean guitars too, I've played some dandy instruments to come out of there in the last few years. And I've played some awesome Taiwanese guitars, all Yamaha's. Does anyone else make guitars on that island?

Out of curiosity, does anyone know where the line between the Slammer's and the Hamer imports lies? There's a Hamer Echotone (335 clone) in that shop that says China on it, and I expect a higher level of quality from Hamer than Slammer. It's 250-300 more than an Epi Dot sitting across from it, and something tells me it probably came from the same factory...Only difference is the machine heads. :D

Whereabouts in Ontario are you, Curtis? If you're not too far west, I'd head over to eastern Quebec. That thar's Godin country, and apparently stores near the factory's take in guitars with some cosmetic defects, and offer them at tasty prices. :D

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Hmm, very interesting, the spec page just says the body is "solid" it doesnt say what wood it is made of.....

anywho, i just got back from playin it, after playin around with trying to get close to "randy's" tone, my tone went from good to really good, so i am very pleased with myself :D

What would be a good combination of EMG's?? i was thinking 81/85 since i know alot of people on here use that combo...

Curtis

The 81/85 combo is a pretty safe bet, but I guess it really depends a bit on what you want. The 81 in the bridge is basically a no-brainer, however the neck position is open to a bit of mucking around. My experience here is limited compared to someone like Wes, but I've found that the 85 in the neck is quite round and fat, good for lead work, whereas the 60 on the other hand is a lot more punchy, and while still rounds off in the neck position to some degree for warmer lead stuff, the punchyness also helps make for some nice clean tones that almost have a snappy piezo type feel as well when in the neck position. Thats in my opinion anyway.

- Dan

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I've found that the 85 in the neck is quite round and fat, good for lead work, whereas the 60 on the other hand is a lot more punchy, and while still rounds off in the neck position to some degree for warmer lead stuff, the punchyness also helps make for some nice clean tones that almost have a snappy piezo type feel as well when in the neck position. Thats in my opinion anyway.

i agree 100 %

i prefer the 85 myself in the neck.

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so the 81/85 is pretty good combo then, hmm, time to start settin aside some money for the EMG's and stands.

Dan, you said the 60 was very punchy, what would that sound like in the bridge?? would it still be really punchy?? I want as bad ass sound as i can squeeze out of my little Peavey amp until i upgrade the amp

Curtis

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Do you mean that Hetfield is using a 60 in the bridge now Wes? Cause I know originally when he started using EMG's it was 81/60, then I noticed some of his guitars had 81/81... what are you meaning he has now?

Anyway, I would definitely just stick with the 81 in the bridge like Wes suggested Curtis. For metal it kicks serious ass... coming from a guitar I have here with middle of the range pickups in it, pinch harmonics are ridiculously easy all over the fretboard... I mean, I was fine with them before on my other guitars, but EMG's just make it easier :D Its also tight and punishing under high gain.

If you want to experiment, try the 60 in the neck. Its still smooth enough to handle lead work, but you might be able to do something cool with the extra bite, who knows? I really did love the clean sound from it. Otherwise, once you have them installed its a peice of cake to switch them out, so regardless of which one you choose, you can always get the other and just swap it out.

- Dan

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