Music Hardware - Peavey Raptor EXP Guitars

[Seth]

It's that time again, time for another Music Hardware article and this time it's the Peavey Raptor EXP Series electric guitars.

The first thing you'll notice about this guitar is that it's blatantly a Strat-style body. The large double cutaway allows very easy access to the higher frets on the neck (17 upwards). The picture shows a Raptor EXP in Sunburst, however they're also available in a variety of colours like black and blue etc.

There's a lot of similarities between this guitar and the Squier Strat I reviewed earlier in the year, however there are some major differences too. First, lets take a look at the hardware of the guitar.

Hardware

Right, on to the important stuff - pickups. The Raptor series offers two single coil pickups - one at the neck and one in the middle of the body - coupled with an open humbucker at the bridge which I think has a much nicer tone than the single coils and has less hum when you're dealing with overdrive and distortion.

The three pickups mean there's a 5-way pickup selector on the body, yet the Raptor only has two control dials - a master volume and a master tone dial. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it means all your pickups will have the same overall EQ and volume which I personally find is a better thing than the separate tone dials on the Strat.

The Raptor features a standard chrome tremolo bridge and chrome tuning hardware. There's also your usual strap pegs and a white pickguard so you don't scratch up your guitar if you go a bit overboard with your thrashing.

What I Think

I've been playing on one of these babys for just under a year now, and I have to say that this guitar (coupled with my Peavey Backstage 10W amp) has held up pretty well for the sorts of music I like to play. Whether you only want low levels of distortion for lighter songs or if you need the thicker distortion so you can blast out that Maiden track you love, the Raptor sounds great no matter how high your overdrive dial goes.

In addition, the neck on the guitar is quite thin compared to the Strat I have, which makes barre chords that bit easier and sliding up and down the neck is very easy and very smooth.

Overall, I can't put a fault to this guitar except that maybe I should've bought a different colour than red. The guitar plays great, the humbucker makes it sound great and - most importantly - it's great fun to use. If you're considering buying a new guitar, I'd definately recommend you check out a Raptor EXP.