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Buy modern/heavy style electric guitars at session
Are you a metalhead and want to buy a guitar that can keep up with the ton-heavy riffs and lightning-fast solos? Then you're looking for a heavy guitar and you've definitely come to the right place, because we've got everything a metal player's heart desires.
Inspired by Eddie Van Halen, who built a guitar to his exact needs with the "Frankenstrat", companies like Charvel and Jackson soon emerged, known for producing so-called Superstrats. From the intention to create the perfect tool for the fast, virtuosic and boundary-pushing playing style of hard rock and heavy metal of the 1980s, another category within the electric guitar world quickly developed: the heavy guitar.
Heavy guitars are instruments whose looks and features are specifically suited to metal and its many subgenres. They often have a thin neck, such as Ibanez's "Wizard" profile, and a low action to facilitate fast playing. Longer scale lengths and 24 instead of 22 frets are common for more expression in soloing and to stay in tune in lower tunings. Woods often used include powerful mahogany for the body and maple necks, sometimes combined with a fretboard made of rosewood or ebony. You'll also often find high-output or active pickups to achieve dense distortion and a clear note definition even at high playing speeds. Due to their midrange presence, humbuckers are used for the most part, though some instruments also feature one or two single-coil pickups in the middle or neck position. A Floyd Rose tremolo system is also a popular component of heavy guitars, as the strings are locked at two points so you can perform extreme tremolo moves without detuning the instrument.
Of course, aesthetics play a decisive role. Mostly you'll find black and other dark colours. Besides the mentioned Superstrat, there are heavy guitars based on classic Les Paul and SG models from Gibson or Epiphone. PRS and the mentioned Ibanez models also include heavy guitars. Manufacturers like ESP, Schecter and Jackson have even specialised almost exclusively in heavy guitars. You will often find extreme body shapes that more or less resemble the Gibson Explorer or the Gibson Flying V.
If you're also looking for a metal-capable electric guitar amplifier or matching distortion and booster pedals, you'll of course find them with us too. Up The Irons!