Schecter Blackjack SLS C-1 Review Shred Machine!

Hello there, back again with another excellent electric guitar review! This time we will be looking at a Schecter Blackjack SLS C-1 STBB (See-Thru Blue Burst) with active pickups. My regular readers are already aware that I’m a huge Schecter fan!

I have played dozens of Schecter as well as their more affordable line from SGR by Schecter electric guitars. There was not a single model that I wasn’t impressed with the value they offered!

Schecter is an American guitar manufacturer based in California and they have been able to dominate the market, especially in modern and progressive-designed electric guitars.

They also feature a wide variety of traditional designs with modern touches, however, when you think about the Schecter brand, the first thing that would come up to your mind is their modern guitar designs!

My experience with Schecter guitars actually has made me buy one for myself! 🙂 Recently, I got a Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid PT-7 electric guitar and again, excellent value/money as always!

In this review, we will be looking at a model that really impressed me with its build quality, ergonomy and sound quality. Schecter Blackjack Series is still in production, however, this particular model is not easy to find online anymore since it’s not actively manufactured anymore.

There are variations of this model. I searched for it on Schecter’s website, however, I was only able to find Blackjack SLS C-1 “EX” or “A” models. These still are almost identical to the one you will see in the video below. But the inlay at the 12th fret which is called “Hell’s Gate Skull” can never be seen on any Blackjack SLS C-1 models. No idea why!

When our customer bought this guitar, it was the last one in stock. Probably the last brand-new one in Turkey! We did some tests and found no issues. However, just before we packed it, I noticed a crack in the pickup frame.

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There was only one option to go for! We informed the customer and offered them a pair of free DiMarzio pickup frames. He happily accepted it and we shipped it 🙂

As our regular procedure, we recorded the guitar in a full-length, unbiased guitar review video format. Before we get into tech specs and some commentary, let’s have a look at the video!

Schecter Blackjack SLS C-1 Review & Sound Demo (no talking)

Like the other full reviews, this video was recorded again with a Marshall JVM205C valve amp and Shure SM57 microphone directly into the TC Electronic Impact Twin.

And before I give you my opinions about this guitar, let’s have a look at the tech specs table. I have compiled this from the Schecter website, but I have simplified it a bit as Schecter has different sections for each part of the instruments which is not really necessary to see the full picture.

Schecter Blackjack SLS C-1 Tech Specs

Schecter Blackjack SLS C-1 model electric guitars feature a classic combination of an arched top mahogany body with a multi-ply binding on the body as well as on the neck. This particular one in the video also features a beautiful see-thru blue burst finish that goes perfectly cool with the black colour on the instrument.

This guitar comes with a classic compound radius that you can find in modern designs. Compound neck profiles don’t offer you a fixed radius amount across the neck, instead, the radius changes from 12″ to 16″ towards higher registers. So basically, you have a flatter feel on higher registers while you have a more round feel on lower registers.

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Schecter Blackjack SLS C-1 also features 42mm Graph Tech XL Black Tusq, Schecter locking tuners, and TonePros bridge. These components are very high quality and promise a stable tuning and intonation experience.

As for the pickups, the Blackjack SLS C-1 series actually come in different pickup configurations. This particular one featured in the article comes with a pair of Seymour Duncan Blackouts active pickups that operate with a 9V battery. Back in the day, we had both of these versions as well as a passive and satin black finish one.

Conclusion

Normally, you would expect a set of active pickups would cost more, but in fact, the passive one (Seymour Duncan Full Shred & Jazz pickups) was a bit more expensive than the active one followed by the passive, black satin finish one which was the cheapest.

I can clearly remember that I enjoyed playing this guitar in video and played as many samples as possible in a limited time while we were shooting this series of videos.

It was a breeze to play this instrument, completely ergonomic and great sounding instrument as it’s no surprise when it comes to Schecters. Most Schecter guitars are made in South Korea and I strongly believe South Korean guitar manufacturers (Not sure which facilities) have gained a tremendous amount of experience in guitar making and always deliver the highest value for the money you pay!

As you can hear from the video, this pair of active pickups generate way more output than your passive ones, so you can easily hear that even on clean channels of the Marshall amp, the sound was slightly overdriven. This is pretty normal and expected for active guitar pickups as they generate more output and can easily break up valve amps.

To be completely unbiased, I never touched the settings of the amp. EQs are always flat, and I always used the same gain settings for each channel. Thus, you can easily hear the effect of different pickups vs the same settings on a valve amp!

As for the fingerboard/fretboard, it features a pretty glossy ebony fingerboard which was kind of strange initially. You normally expect matte-looking, fully black ebony boards. My current Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid PT-7 also features an ebony fingerboard, however, it also has some dark brownish figures. I have seen completely black ebony fingerboards mostly, but Blackjack SLS C-1 was pretty unique to me in terms of this glossy ebony board. You can actually see the white light reflection in the video! They may have polished it and made it really smooth and shiny.

Overall, this guitar is another excellent & flawless axe by Schecter, apart from the crack on a pickup frame which can happen to any instrument due to screws that weakened the plastic, there was not a single issue.

Even the setup was completely ready to play without any adjustments! The only problem with Schecter guitars in my opinion is that even though they offer one of the highest value/money in the market, almost all guitars in this range don’t come even with a gig bag! I mean hard cases are not really my thing, but a gig bag would be so cool dear Schecter! 😉

I must say I would only get this guitar if I wanted something modern in terms of sound and feel. I’m not saying clean tones were not cool but overdriven and high-gain sounds were solo fluid and nicely compressed!

Schecter once again had gained my full trust! As I have mentioned, it’s almost impossible to find the exact model nowadays, however, you can always go for Schecter C-1 Blackjack Gloss Black model which is due to arrive in Thomann’s warehouse. This guitar is almost identical to this version.

I hope you have enjoyed this guitar review and found this helpful and insightful! At cigilovic.com, I will keep posting real reviews, unique articles and content that you can never find anywhere else!

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