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I've been wanting one of these for almost a year when they were first announced. I hate ordering guitars and waiting for them to be built but I found a used one and bought it a few weeks ago. I wanted to give my thoughts on it...
First of all, I had spinal surgery in 2002 and while it was successful, I have a problem with disc deterioration and my back is gradually getting worse. Therefore, weight is a serious issue for me. The heaviest guitar I can play is around 7lbs. Anything heavier and it causes nerve pain for me.
This kiesel weighs 6.2lbs. It is an ash body, maple/ebony neck, 20" radius , standard neck profile (a little fatter than a standard strat neck), jumbo frets, beryllium neck pickup and lithium bridge pickup. The beryillium is the kiesel version of a PAF with alnico II and the lithium is a higher output pickup for more modern metal players with alnico 5 magnets. The guitar weighs 6.2lbs! It also comes with a small gig bag that could fit into an overhead bin so it's going to be nice for portability. Incidentally, Tim Miller is now using a Zeus....
The guitar has a 5 pos switch which gives an odd combination of coils, i'd prefer positions 2 & 4 to be inner coils in series and outer coils in series and position 3 to be both humbuckers in parallel (like every other 2 humbucking guitar) but it would require a "superswitch" and kiesel seems averse to adding new hardware to their stock...
1) neck hb
2) neck inner coil
3) neck and bridge inner coils in series
4) bridge outer coil
5) bridge humbucker
I set it up with .49-.011 wound strings with a .019 plain 3rd.
In general, I like the way the guitar sounds. I think you sacrifice a bit of tone by losing the headstock. Comparing the guitar to my Ibanez S5521Q which weighs 6.5lbs, the zeus is a little less complex. Much has been made of the 24 fret guitar's inability to get a good jazz tone but I'm very happy with the neck pickup sound on both of my 24 fret solidbodies. It's a little more modern sounding but i dig it.
I like the sound of position 3. It's a nice variation from the standard 2 humbucker guitar but I miss the standard 2 humbucker combination. In my preference, you would get the kiesel pos 3 sound in pos 2 of the switch, get the standard 2 humbucker combination in position 3 and get a tele-like combination in pos 4. I found the stock single coil positions 2 & 4 to be wimpy and there is too much volume differential to be useful in a live situation.
Position 5 (bridge HB) is too aggressive for my taste. The lithium pickup has too much midrange and gain for my tastes. It's difficult to dial in a holdsworth or robben ford tone IMO.
One issue with the guitar is that the tone control doesn't do much in the first 1/4 of it's sweep and then it becomes super aggressive. It's hard to roll off just a smidge of treble. This could be:
1) Incorrect taper on pot
2) Incorrect capacitor
3) Incorrect pot value
I haven't had a chance to investigate fully.
Another issue is that the pickups are too close to the strings and due to the springs, I could not adjust them much lower. They were both about 1/8" from the strings.
I had decided I was going to replace the pickups with a set of burstbucker pickups I had laying around but when I took the pickups out, I realized I could not do this because of the feet of the burstbucker frame. The kiesel pickups do not have the typical L bracket mount that you see on every other humbucker. Instead, the mount is an extension of the pickup frame itself and the pickup cavity was not deep enough to accomodate a gibson humbucker without routing the cavity which I didn't want to do. So...I'm going to order a beryllium bridge pickup instead.
After about 3 weeks, the jack started shorting out and now I have to wiggle the connector to get it to work. I took the back panel off and the wiring is cleaner than I have seen in previous carvins but the parts look very cheap. Very inexpensive caps, pots and a cheap plastic jack. I will replace the jack with a switchcraft at the first available opportunity.
After all the issues I decided to sell the guitar and listed it for a couple weeks at $900 (~500 less than new) and didn't get a single offer. I think this goes to the lack of resale value in general with Kiesel guitars.
Rather than dump it for a ridiculous loss, i'm going to change out the pickup selector, bridge pickup, jack, pots, caps and put a midi pickup in it. I actually like the basic sound of the guitar and I think the less complex neck pickup jazz sound actually makes for a pleasing sound.
The retail price on the Zeus is about $1100 (mine was a bit more because of some extras) and at that price, you'd be hard pressed to find a small, light guitar of the same quality but you have to be willing to put up with some issues. I assume you can order it with the 2 beryllium pickups and some folks may not mind the lithium bridge pickup so that may not be an issue for everyone.
Hope this mini review is useful.
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01-01-2019 11:32 AM
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Thanks, Jack. Have you been able to compare this with the HH2? I have some recollection you trying one of those.
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Nothing mini about that review! Good insights, great review, thanks for sharing! I always have an eye out for guitars like this but for me it would serve as a travel guitar (for now I stick to my Aria Sinsonido for that).
(The Aria Sinsonido is super lightweight and might serve people who need a light and comfortable instrument for physical reasons, although one would have to do (or have done) quite a few modifications to turn it into a gigable instrument but potential is there!)
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It's kind of hard to compare since in both cases, I bought used and didn't get exactly what I wanted and therefore the HH2s I owned (3 total) were very different pickups and materials then the zeus. I do like the spanky resonance of a bolt-on neck a little better though and that comes through in the zeus...OTOH, one of the HH2s I owned was chambered and I like what that does to the complexity of the sound. However, the zeus is available chambered as well...
Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Yeah, this guitar could be improved but other than the jack issue, it's giggable as-is. I'd just like it better with different pickup combinations. I'd like to see carvin offer this with a standard 3 way OR 5 way with a super switch. As it is, the current 5 way is not very useful to me because the individual coils are just weak in their pickups. It'd be better with an umbucker type design... Originally Posted by Little Jay
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I had a custom made Kiesel a few years ago, was very underwhelmed by the final guitar. Cheap pots, lots of little QC issues, very nondescript sound, and from the feel of it - I think they really only make guitars for metal players.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I wired a partscaster Jazzmaster with HB’s in similar fashion with the split coils. I never liked it and changed the wiring to not split the coils. Like the OP, the output was too weak to get anything good out it. One thing that I learned is that all pickups behave differently from each other. Just because you can split coils it doesn’t necessarily result in usable tones. It sometimes may be better to stick with the original intention of the design.
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split coils where the coils are still hum/cancelling and between coils of different pickups sound great and are inherently usable because you get the same gain structure as the original but with a little phase cancellation due to the physical difference between pickups. This results in a better sound for fusion/funk rhythm which is why I'm doing this. This is what the original PRS guitars did. I have had a couple guitars wired like this and loved it... Originally Posted by lammie200
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Jack, great honest and detailed review as usual.
The head on photo seems to show that it has a rather flat fretboard. Is that true?
And does the guitar have high frets? The reason I ask is I had a Parker Fly once that I wanted so much to love. I got use to the flat fretboard profile in pretty short order, but I could not get along with the high frets in combination with the flat board. Even though the action was low relative to the frets, it was high relative to the board which really threw me off. (I know, it doesn’t take much..)
I’d love to hear you play it. I like Jim Soloways mellow videos on his compact little gems. I’d love to see where this guitar finds its groove with your playing.
Joe D
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Thanks Joe, yes, it's a 20" radius. Interestingly enough, the Ibanez S5521Q i've been using has a 16" radius but is not as comfortable. I think it's due to the thin/wide neck shape. So the radius and jumbo (6100 size) frets don't feel uncomfortable to me. Originally Posted by Max405
Sound-wise, I think a solid body and on top of that a headless solidbody is doomed to failure if you compare it to anything with air but my back sure loves it!
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Thanks. Good review. I understand the waiting for a custom guitar I hate it but where I live there are few opportunities to try anything similar. I own a completely hollow body Forshage. I agree with you that the lack of a headstock changes the tone but I don't now how much as I don't have two identical guitars. That said, while I'm very pleased with the ergonomic aspect and tone, I don't know how folks deal with the tuning especially on a dark stage. I can get used to the fact that one can't sound a note with their right hand and tune up/down with the left i.e. use a pedal tuner but I'm always fumbling for the right tuner knob. My Forshage came with the ABM bridge but most headless bridges are similar. They are identical barrels set close together. To compound the problem, mine are black.
I'm hoping that with more headless guitars on the market, there will be more inventiveness in the tuner portion. In the interim, I'm contemplating inserting a plug in the end of the tuner barrel on every other tuner to give me some tactile sense of direction.
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i grab the tuner knobs by feel so I don't mind not being able to see them. However, I forgot to mention that one of the issues with a headless guitar is that the tuners have super high gear ratios. This is necessary for re-stringing but horrible for fine tuning. Someone needs to design a tuner that has a spring loaded low or high gear that can be activated by pulling out the tuning knob.
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I don't look at the tuners either but feel can be tricky (with the exception of the two outside tuners) when they are right next to each other and indistinguishable from each other. So I slide fingers over the tuners till I reach what I think is the correct one and turn. This takes seconds but sometimes I've grabbed the G instead of the B. I would also agree with the tuner ratio. Like I said, I'm hoping with increased acceptance some good engineers will come up with a better solution that short of something like the Koll RE7.
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Some interesting comments on the conceptual issues. I've now spent a considerable amount of time with both the Forshage and the Dynarette, two very different designs. The Forshage was undoubtedly a much slicker build but conceptually I've come to much prefer the Dynarette. The conventional tuners work very well and can are much easier to use by touch and the nut end ledge is large enough to use a clip on tuner.
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i also forgot to mention I use a d'addario clip (planet waves) tuner on the zeus. Works like a charm.
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Here's the current PRS switching. Note that position 1 is the bridge pu, and so on, working forward. I think it's nice, although Position 2 is meh. Position 4 gives a great quacky strat sound. I *believe* it is both inside (slug) coils. I agree that both humbuckers (P3) is a vital sound to include. Full and lush. I wish I could get this setup in other guitars. Originally Posted by jzucker
Position One: Bridge humbucker
Position Two: Bridge humbucker with neck singlecoil, in parallel
Position Three: Bridge and neck humbuckers
Position Four: Neck singlecoil with bridge singlecoil, in parallel
Position Five: Neck humbucker
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Just curious, have you signed onto the Kiesel Forum? Some real Carvin/Kiesel heads there.
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Where does it clip at the top of the headpiece, to the recess at the bottom of the body or somewhere else. (There was no place I could use mine on the Forshage.) Originally Posted by jzucker
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it clips onto the head piece Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
me? No, i tend to stay away from fan forums. Too much group-think. I do belong to the kiesel facebook group but ot reeks of chronyism and metal-mentality Originally Posted by Woody Sound
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I have a Peterson Strobo tuner clipped on the metal portion of my Forshage. The jaws open wide enough to fit over the top and bottom. Works fine. I also have a Turbo Tuner on my small pedal board.
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Hmm, there are some very informed people there who know the products inside-out. And plenty of tech assistance. And also, no shortage of legitimate critique. But I guess you know what you need. Originally Posted by jzucker
Kiesel Guitars / Carvin Guitars - KieselGuitarsBBS.com
(ps - You don't see the tech sub-groups unless you log in as a member.)
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Maybe it's just the size of the jaws on on my Korg Sledgehammer tuner. There was way to get that on the Forshage. Originally Posted by rob taft
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Probably, as I also tried my Intellitouch and the jaws on that tuner just don't open wide enough to get a good grip. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
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Whenever possible, I use the Peterson iStrobe app on my phone, and usually the PitchGrabber, which goes into the phone's headphone jack and clips on the guitar, which works like other clip-ons, but it has very large jaws that fit all sorts of things. It's a little clunky having a cable between the phone and the guitar, but it works really well, giving me a real strobe tuner that works in noisy environments, and is much more sensitive and accurate than small clip-ons. The phone works by itself using the internal mic, but that's not always practical. I do tune that way at home most of the time, though. The PitchGrabber should clip onto almost any guitar, and almost anywhere on a solidbody. It would work in several places on the Soloette.
PitchGrabber Active Clip-On Pickup | Peterson Strobe Tuners
Available from Amazon, Musician's Friend, Sweetwater, and most other musical instrument purveyors. The phone app for iOS has more features than the Android version, but the Android version works very well.
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that's sort of why i always avoided carvin/kiesel guitars. their weird instance that you have to use their stuff and stay in their eco system as far as pickups and stuff goes. and given the lack or resale value (especially outside the metal community)... no thanks. a quick peek at ebay or reverb will tell you how many people had second thoughts about their custom dream guitars and are stuck with them. and frankly, they just don't seem to be as good as other guitars, sonically or build wise. for my needs and tastes, anyway.
this may have been a cool travel guitar but i'm glad i read the review. at least it looks better than you'd expect. thanks for sharing.
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