We're focusing on the darkest side of the guitar spectrum. If you like heavy metal, thrash, hardcore and so on, and you want a truly gothic look, you need to check out the Cort EVL K6. It's completely in the style. Last issue we started with the Cort Pagelli, a guitar that sat between two worlds: Les Paul and PRS. The EVL K6 is a far more specific guitar. When you take the instrument out of its case, several things grab your attention: first, the looks and finish, which are carefully done down to the last detail; then you notice the hardware it carries; and finally, you start wondering how all those demonic riffs running through your head at the sight of this guitar are going to sound.

Construction

Woods
The truth is that when an instrument like this lands in my hands, many considerations come to mind. A guitar so clearly marked for a particular style first makes you consider the characteristics of that style and, therefore, the needs we'll have when we tackle the repertoire and our own playing. When you listen to bands, and more specifically to guitars in these styles, you realize that low frequencies are the most common, so we need a big arsenal of low-end sounds to hold our own within that spectrum. But careful: we have to work in the lowest registers without crossing the line into the kick drum or the bass itself.

The guitar uses several woods, depending on the neck or body. The body is mahogany, which gives a slightly brighter color to that dark sound. Considering the configuration the guitar comes with, we can see the dark tendency of its sound, so the mahogany body adds some brightness so that we don't sink too far into the low frequencies. The neck is maple, to bring a little more highs into the low timbre. The fretboard is ebony, which you notice as soon as you pick up the guitar, since such a dark fretboard isn't often seen on current guitars. This is possibly more of an aesthetic matter, since black is the color that covers the whole guitar, and the ebony, being so dark, doesn't clash with the overall tone.

An important factor in an instrument like this is how the neck is joined to the body. That connection is decisive in leaning toward one sound or another. If we attach the neck to the body with screws (Fender style) we get a sound with more attack. On the other hand, if we join the two parts by gluing the neck to the body, we get less attack than with a bolt-on, but longer note duration, what is known as sustain. On the Cort EVL K6, they opted for gluing both parts, giving us much longer notes and a darker timbre, that is, closer to a Gibson sound.

Hardware
As we said at the start, this is a very defined instrument in terms of style. We can see it in many details, such as everything beyond the wood. Let's go through all the hardware, pickups and so on, one by one:

· Bridge / Tuners: If we focus on what covers the tuning of the guitar itself, we find a typical “Floyd Rose-style” system, but proprietary to Cort, which is practically identical to the Floyd. So we have a floating bridge that looks sturdy enough to withstand all the onslaught of our palm mutes, alternate picking and so on, and any extreme whammy-bar attack. We can also see its fine-tuner controls, with which the guitar is supposed to stay almost perfectly in tune almost all the time, needing only the tiniest correction. One detail I personally like is that the included bar is the “lockable” type, with a pseudo-nut that lets you fix the bar at a set point or leave it free so that gravity always keeps it vertical. This lets you use it in several ways and find the best position for different Floyd-style dive techniques. On the headstock we find the typical string locks that clamp the strings and take the tuning machines out of the equation. There are three, like any Floyd, and they use Allen screws. Finally, we have the tuning machines, which are Cort's own, and with this much hardware in place, tuning doesn't depend to a great extent on the quality of the machines, so having six that do their job is enough. The machines are laid out “3 and 3” on the headstock, like any guitar with a Gibson-type headstock. In addition, the headstock is angled back, so string trees aren't vital for getting more twang (if that's possible), but it still has a retainer that keeps the strings even closer to the headstock.

· Pots / Pickup Switch: The guitar is conceived as a mix between a Strat and a Les Paul, but with an intention to “Ibanez-ize” it. You can tell from details like these: we have two pots, one volume and one tone, so simplicity is served, but we lose versatility. The pickup selector is a Gibson-type toggle, but it isn't in a Les Paul position on the guitar. It's closer to an “SG”-type position, though not exactly. It sits between the two pots, which I find really awkward, since any pickup change means navigating around the controls. The switch has three positions, which limits our options even more, but once we know the type of pickups we'll understand even better why versatility is lacking.

· Pickups and Circuitry: The Cort EVL K6 comes equipped with a serious arsenal of EMG pickups. The models chosen for this guitar are the EMG 81 and EMG 85. That immediately tells us these are active pickups and therefore have high output thanks to the active circuit. The other factor to consider is that they need a 9 V battery to power them, with the maintenance that implies. Although we'll cover it in the “SOUND” section, we can start sketching the guitar's sound. As we can imagine, these pickups are a perfect weapon for the most aggressive sounds and, above all, for maximum gain (the active circuit acts as a springboard to saturate even the cleanest amp). In addition, one of the properties of these EMGs is that, being so well shielded, they are much harder to get to feed back, which is really useful when working at high gain. The pickups are selected with the three-position switch. As you can imagine, with the switch in the up position it's the neck pickup, in the middle it's both, and in the lower position it's the bridge pickup.

· Neck: Regarding the neck, we need to focus on the frets, since this is where the guitar finally clicked for me as clearly a Metal guitar with a “Shred” intention. The main reason I say this is that guitars like this usually have big frets, but in this case the frets are really big (“Jumbo”). This will make any kind of technique very easy to perform. Legato, sweeps, tapping and so on will be really easy. Frets this extremely large and a 10-46 string set (which works best with a Floyd Rose) aren't the best friends of perfect tuning. So we may well have a few minor tuning problems when trying to record. In addition, the number of frets again indicates the intention to play in the highest registers: we have 24 frets and, thanks to the construction, easy access to those very high frets.

Assembly and Finish
This is a section I personally consider important but not crucial, except on an instrument like this, where looks and finish are lethal, since they can end up deciding between one guitar and another. The gothic look is emphasized by the neck inlays, which are a kind of star somewhere between the Slayer and HIM logos. But what stands out most is the 12th fret, which is marked with a large pearl cross, giving a most attractive look.

The guitar has a very meticulous finish. Everything has been studied and thought out so that nothing escapes that somber image, highlighted by a matte finish that reminds me of Gibson's Gothic models.

The assembly is perfectly done. In fact, one of the things I liked most is how easily it lets us reach the highest frets; the neck joint is excellently made.

Feel
The feel of the guitar is interesting. At the neck, it's great not to feel your hand sticking because of the nitro, but on the other hand, I feel that at times the first and last strings sit too close to the edge, with the possibility of slipping off the neck. The 10-46 strings tend to lose a bit of the feeling of having a piece of wood resonating in your hands. The body is great: being Strat-style, it adapts to your body in every situation. And of course, once again, access to the highest frets is really great.

Sound
As you can already tell, the guitar's sound falls within registers strongly marked by Heavy / Thrash / Gothic Metal. The sixth string gives us the perfect punch for thick riffs, and the higher frets let us hold bends with practically infinite sustain. All of this is due in large part to the pickups used and, of course, to the fact that they're active. So let's forget about dynamic sounds, creamy sounds or picked-attack sounds, and move on to very compressed, dark sounds with lots of grain in the distortion. On the other hand, I think using a Floyd takes away some punch, and using strings this thin loses attack. In other words, I miss a fixed bridge where the tuning is practically perfect and the bridge helps me maintain the punch of a guitar for this style.

Conclusion
The Cort EVL K6 is a decidedly Metal guitar. Its looks, its sound, its finish, even the way it's conceived radiate metal from every angle. In my view, it's a truly competitive guitar, and above all a great option if you're the lead guitarist in a Thrash / Heavy Metal band and you want to keep a gothic image on your instrument.