This just arrived! I'm a sucker for seafoam, the price seemed pretty good, so I thought I'd take a shot and try it out. I've never owned a 513 before and it might be a good fit for my current gig (variety bar band). It's from early in 2011 but has no real signs of wear. It's got the 2010 specs: Swamp Ash body and 513 neck carve.
My initial impressions:
- It's a little heavier than I usually like, which I understand is typical for the Swamp Ash version.
- The pickups are... different. They seem to be more mid-focused and are nothing like the Narrowfields, 57/08s and 59/09s I'm most familiar with. The humbuckers, especially the heavy config, do remind me a bit of the Dragon I's, in that they have a full almost piano-like sound. I'll probably need to adjust the settings of my "amps" (in the Fractal FM9) to compensate.
- Seafoam!
- I love switching to the heavy humbucker sound for leads. It's like having a fat switch on the guitar. Very nice! That setting is also a good fit for higher gain.
- The 513 neck carve is somewhere between the Regular and Wide/Fat. Regular is my favorite. W/F tends to be a little big for me. The 513 is fat but feels a little narrower and doesn't have the large shoulders that make the W/F less comfortable for me. It fits me well.
- I'd say the single coil sounds are more authentic single-coil than rolling down the volume on my NF3s, but they don't have the "character" that the NFs have.
I'm going to gig it before I decide whether it's a keeper or not. It is a very cool guitar and I can understand why some people are big fans of it. It seems the 513 is a love it or hate it guitar. For me, it's still TBD. I think I need to take it as it is and not compare it to other guitars.
I'm curious to hear of everyone else's initial impressions when they first tried a 513.
