Buying my first Gibson a year ago prompted me to sell my Ibanez, and give my Fender Strat to my son.
To fill the void a week ago I bought a Schecter Hellraiser. It's my first experience with active EMG's and for playing heavy they wail. I found them a bit sterile, especially when turning the OD down and playing clean. I changed that yesterday with a mod to 18 volts of power to the pickups. Adding another battery in series warmed these pu's right up and really gave it character.
Overall I'm really happy with the Schecter. It's well appointed, with some cool abalone binding and inlay. The Mahogony body, quited maple top combo is very sexy in black cherry, and the neck joint is smooth like butter. You can hardly tell it's a set neck, looks like a neck through. I'm considering replacing the tone pot with an EMG expander active eq. Probably order one tomorrow and dust off the ole' soldering gun.
