S/H Schecter Robin Finck Ultra III

The body is big and the large headstock takes this guitar almost to Firebird-sized proportions. While the arrangement of the machineheads could be the source of some annoyance, it's strangely intuitive and pretty soon you'll forget that it's any different.

The rosewood fingerboard has 22 extra jumbo frets, which are finished impeccably, and the glassy feel makes string bends and wide vibrato a dream. Our model came set up with a comfortable string height - not the lowest, but definitely not the highest action we've played.

Finck's guitar has a three-position toggle for each pickup and all can be set to either 'full', 'split' or 'off'. Played clean, the neck presents you with an authentic surfy twang.

The middle pickup is less round and you get greater attack with more thump from the mids. It sounds great for a straight-up rock rhythm tone under distortion, too.

The bridge SM3 gives the most output and bite, and if you've doubted mini-humbuckers' hard-rock credentials, this might make you re-evaluate.

The most fun comes when you mix the combinations - all pickups on, middle and neck together, neck in full humbucking mode with the bridge split, for example.