I understand that many won’t continue reading past this first paragraph, and although I love my Omen Extreme, I must be honest with my review. The guitar that is and has been in my possession for the past 8 months, is the 3rd new out of the shop guitar that I laid my hands on. The first had a rather nasty join on the two parts of the maple top and was clearly repaired poorly in some way which just shouldn’t have past the Quality Check. The second one had a couple of fillings between the neck and the fretboard, and the string-through holes were not aligned with the bridge. The 3rd one had no defects, and so I added it to my collection.
Why did I keep it? Why did I keep looking for the right one?
I understand that looks are subjective, but personally I find this guitar to be an absolute stunner. The finish on the maple top (black cherry), transforms relatively to the light and sometimes can look darker and other times fiery red, plus the “sparkling” Abalone & Pearloid inlays, is just amazing. It would look awesome in the hands of a metalcore guitarist to a Santana kind of player, and that’s saying something.
Now, as far as the basics are concerned. Overall build quality is pretty good for a budget to mid-priced (at least for my budget) guitar. This is a light modern Stat-shaped guitar, very comfortable in any position (standing, sitting or classical). Tuners could probably be upgraded to locking ones. The pickups in combination with the push pull tone knob (switch to humbucker or single-coil) give a lot of tone options, and I find this to be one of the best advantages of the Omen Extreme. One could upgrade to better/more expensive set of pickups, I am thinking about it too, but this is in no way a must-do, as the guitar already sounds great, covering a lot of genres and tones from metal and rock to twang and cleans. So the key here is versatility.
The other strong feature of the guitar is the neck and fretboard. This is not a high-end built and/or feel, but it is well crafted, friendly and fast, and to me at least shows an inclination towards leads and solos (shredding included). One major factor that contributes to this is the 14” fretboard radius, but also the 41.3” nut width which honestly feels “narrow”, especially for someone like me who has XL hands. I personally don’t mind this, as with this guitar I am willing to sacrifice comfortable chords for example over an easily accessible and fast (said it before, I say it again!) fretboard.
Overall, I would rate this guitar with a solid 8.5/10 and absolutely recommend to it to fellow guitarists and musicians, provided the one you find passes your Quality Inspection!
This guitar is never leaving my collection.