Agile Interceptor Pro 725 - or better 7 string?

[Laimon]

Hello all!

So, I don't really know what this thread is about, maybe a complaint, a call for confrontation, suggestions for the future, whatever.
Since 4 months I own an Agile Interceptor Pro 725...it is an excellent guitar for the buck, no doubt, but I find a few flaws that are bothering me a bit, and leading me to consider other options. In ascending order of gravity:

1) The neck is a bit thicker than one could wish for. Not that it is uncomfortable, but a thinner neck is somewhat desirable.

2) It is a quite heavy guitar. I didn't weight it by itself, but with the case it reaches 9 Kgs! Again, it won't kill anybody, but it is quite tiring after a while.

3) Mine has Seymour Duncans (active) Blackouts, and they are good in some way (lots of body, very thick) and bad in others (not as bright, defined and intelligible as passive pickups).

4) I don't know if it comes from the mahogany body, the neck-through construction or whatever (feel free to enlighten me ;-) ), but it has a very heavy resonance on the low-mid, with a consequent muddiness on the rhythms which is now driving me quite crazy :(
For now I normally "solve" (sorta) by cutting the mids quite heavily, but the heavily scooped sound I get is not really what I'm looking for.

So the question is: what would you guys do? Look for another 7 string? If so, suggestions?
Thank you all in advance!

[dspellman]

My personal feeling is that a longer scale guitar (they have a 27" and a 30") works better for 7-strings and gives you more clarity at the bottom end. Normally a neck-through guitar will be brighter, rather than darker. There's also the question of your amp... Blackouts are pretty specific in their intent; it might be worth investigating different pickups. And finally, you might want to weigh the guitar itself; according to the specs, those are supposed to be 8.5 lb guitars. I don't believe that for a second, but it shouldn't be more than around 10-11 lb.

[Laimon]

My personal feeling is that a longer scale guitar (they have a 27" and a 30") works better for 7-strings and gives you more clarity at the bottom end. Normally a neck-through guitar will be brighter, rather than darker. There's also the question of your amp... Blackouts are pretty specific in their intent; it might be worth investigating different pickups. And finally, you might want to weigh the guitar itself; according to the specs, those are supposed to be 8.5 lb guitars. I don't believe that for a second, but it shouldn't be more than around 10-11 lb.

Thanks a lot man! A few comments on what you say:

1) I don't think I'd like a longer scale, my fingers are not that long and I'm so used to 25.5. Btw, when I say that rhythms get muddy, I don't refer only to the B string ;-) rather to the lowest 4 strings. Moreover, let's get this right: the sound is not properly "muddy", cause the attack is sharp and defined...the main problem is this low-mid resonance which ends up covering the rhythms.

2) I tried changing the Blackouts with some Bareknuckle Cold Sweats. The combination turned out awful. The Cold Sweats seem very nice, clear and well defined pickups, but the resulting sound was quite unsettling: thin, excessively sharp...not pleasant really :(

[nofearfactor]

Sorry, I wont be much help as I dont really have any suggestions to add. I have the same guitar, and love it.
#1- thickness of the neck doesnt bother me because my Schecter Damien Elite-7 is fairly similar. Ive just had to learn to stretch my fingers further when playing the 7s. The hard part though has been when getting ready to play a chunkier song and grabbing a Les Paul to play the song and trying to adjust to the more narrow frets and the thinner neck on the fly in front of an audience. I try to rehearse this but it is still weird.
#2- I play a mix of superstrats and Les Pauls and I actually go more for the heavier guitars, as well as mahogany is my favorite wood.
#3- I use active pickups in all of my guitars and have for years and am just now getting into Livewires after having used EMGs for years. I love both for what both do.
#4- Playing baritone and bass guitars got me used to longer scale guitars.
#5- I dont scoop my mids but I also dont accentuate them either. My rigs are not really midd'y sounding rigs- in the metal band I play in the rig I use is centered by 5150/6505 heads and combos, and the industrial/metal band and instrumental fusion/metal side project I use a rack rig alternating between an AX-FX or a GSP1101 for my preamp/digital stereo processor and a 200watt Marshall 9200 dual mono tube power amp.

[Laimon]

Sorry, I wont be much help as I dont really have any suggestions to add. I have the same guitar, and love it.
#1- thickness of the neck doesnt bother me because my Schecter Damien Elite-7 is fairly similar. Ive just had to learn to stretch my fingers further when playing the 7s. The hard part though has been when getting ready to play a chunkier song and grabbing a Les Paul to play the song and trying to adjust to the more narrow frets and the thinner neck on the fly in front of an audience. I try to rehearse this but it is still weird.
#2- I play a mix of superstrats and Les Pauls and I actually go more for the heavier guitars, as well as mahogany is my favorite wood.
#3- I use active pickups in all of my guitars and have for years and am just now getting into Livewires after having used EMGs for years. I love both for what both do.
#4- Playing baritone and bass guitars got me used to longer scale guitars.
#5- I dont scoop my mids but I also dont accentuate them either. My rigs are not really midd'y sounding rigs- in the metal band I play in the rig I use is centered by 5150/6505 heads and combos, and the industrial/metal band and instrumental fusion/metal side project I use a rack rig alternating between an AX-FX or a GSP1101 for my preamp/digital stereo processor and a 200watt Marshall 9200 dual mono tube power amp.

Well, thanks for the input in any case ;)
Mind that I didn't intend to crush the Agile, in fact I wish I could find a solution to these problems that is not "buying a new guitar"...also cause it seems to me the best option if you don't wanna sell a kidney for a Mayones.
The thick neck is also for me bearable, as well as the weight; with the pickups it's a bit more complicated, from picking the right ones (as I said, Bareknuckle Cold Sweat sounded, IMO, crap on this guitar) to installing them (different pickup size). But active vs passive is a matter of personal taste. BTW, do you know of any passive pup with same size as active ones?
The only problem that could be (maybe in the future) the main deal-breaker is in fact the mids problem. I do play metal as well, but I don't love to scoop the mids too heavily, and here I would be forced to do it just so to keep the sound clean and intelligible enough...

[nofearfactor]

sevenstring.org lists some of these:
DiMarzio D-Activators; Bare Knuckle Miracle Man or Painkillers; EMG HZs.

[ef_in_fla]

I think you need a PU change. I had some Bare Knuckle Miracle Mans in an Ibanez 6 string and they were damn good.

[Laimon]

I think you need a PU change. I had some Bare Knuckle Miracle Mans in an Ibanez 6 string and they were damn good.

I wonder whether I ****ed it up mounting the Bareknuckles at this point, and they didn't sound right because of whatever, poor soldering, poor cable inside...and in short if I should try having a luthier install them properly for me :|

[Jarnozz]

I'm planning on bying an Agile interceptor 725 MN :D
I think i know what youre problem is with the resonating. since the Interceptor comes with a Reversed headstock the lower strings can ring since the space between the nut and the tuner is way bigger than on a 6 string. this might ne the cause of the resonate. to solve it simply slide a piece of foam underneat the strings to stop the ringing. hope that helps you a little!

[Laimon]

I'm planning on bying an Agile interceptor 725 MN :D
I think i know what youre problem is with the resonating. since the Interceptor comes with a Reversed headstock the lower strings can ring since the space between the nut and the tuner is way bigger than on a 6 string. this might ne the cause of the resonate. to solve it simply slide a piece of foam underneat the strings to stop the ringing. hope that helps you a little!

I might give it a shot tomorrow (it's night in Europe now ;-) )
In any case, if you're planning to buy one, despite all I vividly recommend it, it's an awesome guitar, and I'm actually struggling to work things out/be less finicky.
In particular, if you like active pickups and intend to scoop the mids, go without hesitation ;-)

[Jarnozz]

i live in europe to ;D In the netherlands! i always play with more treb than mid so. it needs to have a good low sound for hard nevermore like riffs but also very clean, sharp and warm lead sounds, i found a vid on yt where it had amazing lead sounds with the same amp and effects i have. within 3 months i'm gonna order my own agile ;D already have a guitarstand ready for it ;D

[Laimon]

i live in europe to ;D In the netherlands! i always play with more treb than mid so. it needs to have a good low sound for hard nevermore like riffs but also very clean, sharp and warm lead sounds, i found a vid on yt where it had amazing lead sounds with the same amp and effects i have. within 3 months i'm gonna order my own agile ;D already have a guitarstand ready for it ;D

Ah, you're in the Netherlands! If you happen to pass by Zürich, give me a shout and you can give the Agile a test run ;-)
What amp do you plan to use it with? I played it with a Peavey Valveking (which is per se a bit muffled and flabby on the lows) a Masotti X3M (italian handmade preamp, awesome but also very particular) and very quickly with an Engl Powerball...in the first two cases I need to scoop the mid, and I never get a very "cutting" sound on the rhythms, whereas the Engl is scooped by default hence you get cutting rhythms even if you don't want them ;-)

[Jarnozz]

no ,im not passing zürich, but thanks for the offer! got a few amps and some software.
amps: line 6 spider 3, crap but had to start with something though my 6 string sounds very good with a drop b tuning!, blackstar ht-5 with mesa boogie express 112 cab. sounds great for leads and rythm, there it's: guitar- wah pedal - tube screamer-metal zone-compressor-amp-10 band eq-flanger-delay-chorus-reverb-amp-speaker-sure sm57-line 6 toneport-fruity loops. the amp is from my uncle who is a musician so dont have that forever :(
software: all with line 6 toneport, amplitube 3, use it for rythm very easy to make a recti sound
guitar rig 4, use that for leads, cant get a good rythm out of it xD
gearbox software coming with the toneport, good for a beginner but sounds quit cheap.

thats about it, and every day i want that agile MORE AND MORE :D do you got a yt channel or something like that where i can see the puppy in action ;D would be great though i already viewed 100 of them

greetzz

[snowblind56]

Curiously, when you changed the pickups, did you change the pots and output jack? Active pickups use a 25k pot where passive humbuckers use 500k pots. I have a set of Cold Sweats in my Ibanez RG7620 and they sound massive. If you didn't change the pots, that would be the reason why the BKP's sounded bad.

[Laimon]

Curiously, when you changed the pickups, did you change the pots and output jack? Active pickups use a 25k pot where passive humbuckers use 500k pots. I have a set of Cold Sweats in my Ibanez RG7620 and they sound massive. If you didn't change the pots, that would be the reason why the BKP's sounded bad.

I changed pickups, pots (550K as recommended by Tim of Bareknuckle), output jack and also selector.
I was in fact very surprised to find them so empty, so thin. But is that possibly due to a bad installation? Should I maybe try to get a luthier do it?
And just to figure out, what amo do you use them with? (to understand how much the massiveness comes from the amp or the pups)

[snowblind56]

I changed pickups, pots (550K as recommended by Tim of Bareknuckle), output jack and also selector.
I was in fact very surprised to find them so empty, so thin. But is that possibly due to a bad installation? Should I maybe try to get a luthier do it?
And just to figure out, what amo do you use them with? (to understand how much the massiveness comes from the amp or the pups)

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a tech take a look at the wiring. Maybe you have some of the wires crossed?

I use them through an ENGL Powerball, but all my BKP's sound wicked through it. Much better than the Dimarzio's that they replaced. Then again, a good sound doesn't come from one piece of your chain. It comes from the some of all the parts.

[Laimon]

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a tech take a look at the wiring. Maybe you have some of the wires crossed?

I use them through an ENGL Powerball, but all my BKP's sound wicked through it. Much better than the Dimarzio's that they replaced. Then again, a good sound doesn't come from one piece of your chain. It comes from the some of all the parts.

Funny, that I had a Powerball there and didn't try it :D
But I can assure you, I tried them with a Masotti X3M, a handmade italian preamp that has the most *massive* sound ever (imagine a Soldano on steroids), and it sounded kind of empty...soloing with the bridge humbucker in particular was impossible, it was like soloing with a knife :P

[dspellman]

Btw-- what amp are you using? I know I touched on it in my first post, but I just had a chance to borrow a 27" Agile and run it through a few of the amps here, and we decided that it absolutely sucked through a couple of them, and we managed to get some strange low mid resonances (it was the cabinet!) as well. I'd almost bet on you're amplification system being the culprit; this thing sounded awesome through my modeler, power amp and 212s. Nearly took out some windows. And Very clean.

[Laimon]

Btw-- what amp are you using? I know I touched on it in my first post, but I just had a chance to borrow a 27" Agile and run it through a few of the amps here, and we decided that it absolutely sucked through a couple of them, and we managed to get some strange low mid resonances (it was the cabinet!) as well. I'd almost bet on you're amplification system being the culprit; this thing sounded awesome through my modeler, power amp and 212s. Nearly took out some windows. And Very clean.

Well, now that you make me think of it, I use it with a Peavey Valveking 112 here, and when I used it at my parent's place I used this Masotti preamp, but then again it went to the power amp + speaker of Peavey Transtube (solid state power amp this time).
Peavey does not have the most defined sounds ever, I admit...