Kramer has just given its Pacer range a Deluxe power-up, bolstering its latest trio of high-performance electric guitars with a bevy of appointments fit for any retro-minded shredder.
Okay, there is some common ground, with the Pacer Deluxe Collection comprising three takes on the HSS Strat-style guitar, which means you can pretty much dial in any kind of tone on this .
They all come strapped with Kramer’s KeyLock neck system, an ingenuous bolt-on design from the brain of Senior Product Development Engineer Richard Akers, which enhances neck stability and sustain, courtesy of a five-bolt joint that is said to increase the 'vibrational tone transfer'. Nice. And you’d better believe these neck profiles are indecently thin and quick.
You also have black pickguards and knobs, and familiar dimensions, including a 25.5” scale and 22 medium jumbo frets. But all three offer something quite different.
Take the Pacer Deluxe GT. This is a Superstrat but it doesn’t scream it, not with finish options that include Intruder Black, Triburst, and the web/Gibson Garage exclusive Butterscotch. This has a 2-point tremolo system with the push-in arm. It really looks like an gently hot-rodded S-style, and like its peers, it too has had a nip and tuck to the body to enhance ergonomics.
It has a USA-made Golden Classic humbucker and a pair of Kramer USA Triton noiseless pickups at the middle and bridge positions. The skirted volume and tone knobs hark back to the 1981 when the Pacer first dropped, and the apple was not that far from the Stratocaster tree. This retails for $899.
The Pacer Deluxe ups the ante a little. It shares the maple fingerboard of the GT but upgrades the three-piece plain maple neck for a thermally treated roasted maple one, and recognizing that most maniacs who have bookmarked the Kramer homepage in their browser are only interested in one thing – and no it’s not Yngwie’s protein gummies – they have equipped this with a Floyd Rose 1000 Series double-locking vibrato.
Kramer is shipping this alder-bodied marque in Classic White, the exclusive Kerry Green, and the slightly more provocative Ruby Red Metallic, a finish that reminds us of Alex Lifeson’s Sportscaster. The Deluxe is priced $999.
If the latter two are a little too, well, polite, what with that “beak” headstock not really screaming “SPAN-DEX” at you, Kramer has just the thing...
Sadly, it’s an exclusive, so you’ll only find it online or in person from the Gibson Garages in Nashville and London, but the Pacer Deluxe 87 EMG, with its Flip Flop Blue finish, is the sort of guitar whose very presence would have you spending the kids’ college funds on vintage rack gear on Reverb. It’s like... well, just look at it.
This has the 10” to 14” compound radius rosewood fingerboard, the 87 SpeedTaper neck profile that manoeuvres your finger to the note before your brain has had time to think of the note, plus the Floyd, the more satisfyingly radical six-in-line bound headstock, and those EMG active pickups, with an 89 humbucker at the bridge, EMG SA single-coil pickups at the middle and neck.
Again, with that five-way blade-style selector switch, there are so many tones you can get into it with here. We just hope you’ve got yourself a mighty fine chorus pedal for positions 3, 4 and 5 on the switch.
And don’t be shy with that reverb. The Pacer Deluxe Collection is all the excuse any maturing shredder needs to dig their old Lexicon MX200 out of the attic.
The Pacer Deluxe 87 EMG is priced $1,499. For more information on the Pacer Deluxe Collection head over to Kramer.
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