The story
Custom shop days, 1976-1983
In 1976, David Schecter opened Schecter Guitar Research, a repair shop in Van Nuys, California. The shop manufactured replacement guitar necks and bodies, complete pickup assemblies, bridges, pickguards, tuners, knobs, potentiometers, and other miscellaneous guitar parts. Contrary to popular belief, Schecter never supplied parts to Fender or Gibson. By the late 1970s Schecter offered more than 400 guitar parts, but did not offer any finished instruments.
In 1979, Schecter offered, for the first time, its own fully assembled electric guitars. These guitars were custom shop models based on Fender designs. They were considered of very high quality and expensive, and were sold only by twenty retailers across the United States.
Schecter guitars and parts have been used by, among others, Prince, Rick Parfitt, Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Porl Thompson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Anthony, John Norum, Gary Holt, Steve Lukather, Pete Townshend, Jeff Loomis, Mark Knopfler, Gustavo Cerati, Ritchie Blackmore, Chris Poland, East Bay Ray, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance, Richard Patrick, Jinxx, Jake Pitts, Tommy Victor, Dan Donegan, Lou Reed, Todd Rundgren, Robin Zander, Rodrigo Amarante, Tony Maue, Shaun Morgan, Nelfo Alfonsin and Nikki Sixx.
Texan ownership and mass production, 1983-1987
By 1983, Schecter had reached its custom shop production limit and could no longer meet demand. That year, the company was purchased by a group of Texas investors who wanted to build upon Schecter's reputation for quality. The investors moved the company to Dallas, Texas, where they produced guitars using both imported parts and Schecter parts under the Schecter name for less than five years.
At the January 1984 NAMM Show, Schecter introduced twelve new guitars and basses, all based on Fender designs. The most popular of these guitars was a Telecaster-style guitar similar to those that Pete Townshend played. Although Townshend never endorsed this model, it was known unofficially as the "Pete Townshend model". Eventually, the Telecaster-style guitar became known as the "Saturn", and the company's Stratocaster-style guitar became known as the "Mercury". All guitars from these years have the "lawsuit" peg heads (two small marks on back of headstocks). Schecter was still using Stratocaster and Telecaster headstocks, which Fender had allowed when Schecter was a parts company.
During this period, Schecter managed to sign a famous endorsee, the Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. Schecter built several custom guitars for Malmsteen that featured his signature scalloped necks and reverse headstocks. Malmsteen soon took up a custom model of the similar Fender Stratocaster.
Shibuya Hisatake and reform, 1987-present
In 1987, the Texas investors sold the company to Shibuya Hisatake, a Japanese entrepreneur who also owned the Musicians Institute in Hollywood and ESP Guitars (to this day, Schecter Guitar Research and ESP Guitars have remained separate entities). Shibuya moved the company back to California and returned Schecter to its custom shop roots, devoting all its efforts to manufacturing high-end, expensive custom instruments.
Schecter guitars were once again only available from a few retailers, one of them being Sunset Custom Guitars in Hollywood, which Hisatake Shibuya also owned, and where Michael Ciravolo, the future president of Schecter Guitar Research, worked. During 1994/1995 Schecter managed to sign another famous endorsee, the Swedish guitarist John Norum.
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In 1995, Schecter introduced its 'S Series' guitars and basses, which were Fender-style instruments. In 1996, Shibuya asked Ciravolo to become Schecter's president and run the company. Ciravolo, an experienced musician, brought to the company many well-known musicians as endorsees, including Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots, Jay Noel Yuenger (whose Teisco Spectrum 5 served as a model for J's stage guitars) and Sean Yseult of White Zombie, and Xavier Rhone.
Ciravolo had never really liked Fender designs, so he sought to distance the company from its Fender-style models. To that end, he added the Avenger, Hellcat, Hollywood Classic CT, and Tempest models to the Schecter catalog. He also wanted to reach a new generation of musicians he felt were ignored by most major guitar manufacturers. Yet, at this time (1996-2000), the company was producing only expensive, custom shop models of a quality not seen since the company's early days under Dave Schecter, whose maximum output was forty guitars a month, all custom made.
Ciravolo, seeking a U.S. factory that could mass-produce Schecter guitars while maintaining the quality standards of the U.S. custom shop, met with several Asian guitar manufacturers at the Tokyo Music Festival and subsequently decided on a factory in Incheon, South Korea. Thereafter, Schecter's guitars were built in the South Korea factory, shipped to the U.S., and set up in a Schecter shop. At the 1998 summer NAMM Show, Schecter introduced the Diamond Series, which included six affordably priced non-custom guitars, including a seven-string guitar, the A-7. In 2000, Schecter introduced the C-1, debuted by Jerry Horton in Papa Roach's "Last Resort" music video. The Diamond Series is still in production.
Expanded custom shop, return of USA production, and Schecter Amplification, 2013–present
In 2012, Schecter expanded its custom shop, adding 14,000 square feet, several Haas Automation CNC machines, and a new 1,500-square-foot spray booth, and announced a new line of U.S.-built guitars called the "USA Production Series." These guitars were officially debuted at the NAMM Show in 2013. Schecter also announced a new line of hand-wound electric guitar and bass pickups to be used on USA Production and custom shop models and perhaps sold as parts.
At the same show, Schecter announced their introduction into the amplifier market, debuting amps designed in part by the designer James Brown, known for designing the Peavey 5150 amplifier with Eddie Van Halen and a line of effects pedals under the Amptweaker name. The amps first announced were the Hellraiser USA 100, Hellraiser Stage 100, Hellwin USA 100, and Hellwin Stage 100, the USA series built in Schecter's U.S. shop and the Stage series overseas. The Hellwin is the signature amp for the Avenged Sevenfold guitarist Synyster Gates, who helped design the head with James Brown. Both Hellwin and Hellraiser amps use EL34 power tubes, an on-board noise gate, a passive and active input that compensate for the output difference by changing the circuit instead of reducing output, and a Focus control that adjusts the low end response; the main difference is the Hellwin's use of MIDI controllers. The Hellwin is also a three-channel amp, as opposed to the Hellraiser's two-channel design.
Schecter also introduced a line of speaker cabinets, one, called the Depth Charge, featuring a 200W sub-woofer to increase the cabinet's bass response.
From Wikipedia’s article on Schecter Guitar Research, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4