The punch of heavy music relies on one thing: tuning. Any riff loses its potency when it’s out of tune, whether it’s from the player’s intensity or hardware being pushed past its ability, it doesn’t matter. Cort’s KX700 is equipped with an EverTune bridge, and aggressive and stable as steel.
The body shape is a very modern double cutaway design, with a carved ash top and mahogany back, sporting a striking black open pore finish that showcases the grain and its texture. The 25.5” scale neck is made of 5-piece configuration of maple and walnut, topped off with an ebony fingerboard which hosts 24 stainless steel frets. While the fingerboard itself has a modern look with no fret marker inlays of any kind, the side dots glow in the dark with Luminlay appointments.
Pickups are by Seymour Duncan, with a Sentient in the neck position, along with a Nazgul in the bridge, and are controlled by a master volume, a master tone, and a three-way toggle switch — quite straight forward, with no push pulls or any coil taps.
To keep things in tune, locking tuners sit in a 3 +3 configuration on the headstock, and the bridge is an EverTune. Simply put; the EverTune bridge design maintains string tension desired by the player for their playing style. At the extreme end of things, it can be set so no matter how much the strings are bent, the pitch remains the same. Try boomer bends in this mode, and the pitch remains the same; very trippy.
That said, it can be adjusted to work like a normal bridge, and work with string bending and more traditional playing styles, as well as in between. This isn’t some gimmick. A heavy-handed player that seems to push a guitar out of tune would greatly benefit from the extra stability. In heavy music with double (and more than double) tracking, this can make or break a track. Each string can be individually adjusted for the response, so players who might only knock out the high strings, for example, can compensate for their playing styles.
The fit and finish was really good, but two very small imperfections in the cutaways were noticeable, it appears the masking during the painting process may have been a culprit. Considering the location, every time a player looks down at the upper frets, they are hard to not notice.
Plugging this in, and starting with a clean tone, the pickups were shockingly clear and articulate. The bridge pickup was smooth and full, and the neck pickup has depth that is well defined. Together they are well balanced, with the perfect blend of cut and warmth. It’s a shame though that there isn’t a coil tap mode, for those sparkly single coil modes. Going into heavier tones, running it through various high gain situations, it’s amazingly full — one would think that an instrument that’s geared towards modern styles would be heavily compressed, but there’s just enough open-ness where the amp or drive pedal generates the heaviness, while the instrument itself delivers the articulation.
Playing wise, this neck is hyper smooth and thin, with a radius 15.75” it’s quite flat, perfect for modern lead and rhythm playing and comfort. The neck joint is also very accessible, with a rounded neck heel, and recessed mounting screws. There’s nothing about the instrument getting in the way of the player here. Modern prog/metal players will really appreciate all the accuracy and definition that this instrument brings to the table.
PROS:
Excellent hardware, wonderful pickups, great neck and playability
CONS:
Slight finish imperfections (on our test instrument)
STREET PRICE:
$1399