Jstickley
February 1st, 2007, 11:30 PM
Picked up this guitar, because i absolutly LOVE jackson guitars. This was no expception.
Lets start off with the overall appearance of the guitar. The finish is supurb, tough urethane finish, nice routing on the pickup area and bridge area. Nice tight fit on the neck to the body.
The 24 fret neck is A DEFINATE plus. If anyone plays lead at all, youll definatly benfit with the 24 frets. One major benfit is this guitar utilizes Jacksons "XJ" Frets, which simply means Xtra Jumbo. I have fat fingers, and the jacksons are one of the few makes of guitars that i can play clean solo's on. My model has the sharkfin inlay's, which are classic with the type of music i play, which is mostly 80's hairband covers.
The bridge setup is a licensed floyd rose. Not as good as the real floyd rose, but theres no much difference. The knife edge on the bridge is sharp as hell, and since its a licensed tremolo, it is very VERY weak. Setting the bridge height while under tension yeilds a very good chance of damaging the knife edge. This knife edge, unlike Ibenez's Edge tremelo, is NOT REPLACEABLE. So if you get this guitar, or any guitar with a licensed floyd rose tremelo, be careful when setting the action. The locking nut on the neck, out of the box, was a tad loose, a few minutes with a phillips screwdriver and a 3mm allen key and it was tight, and with no worries. All in all ill give it a 8/10, which is very conservative.
Now for the bad. The pickups. Duncan Designed pickups, and they are GARBAGE. The newer pro dk2's come with real duncans, but the duncan designed pickups are horrible. They leave alot to be yearned. Also, out of the box there was a slight ground buzz. That was all the pickups. I have since reloaded the guitar with a Dimebucker and 2 duncan single coils (cant remember the model right off hand, very clean, warm tones). The pickups will work for a while, but later on you will end up changing them.
All in all this is a GREAT guitar with HUGE potential. Overall i give this guitar a 9/10, and thats simply because of the weak knife edge on the floyd rose and the stock pickups. Other than that, it is SPOT ON for any heavy stuff that you might play. I play alot of kix, ratt, warrant, poison, etc stuff and this guitar was built for it. Good stuff!
If you are looking for a decent guitar, that will last you for years, this is definatly a good guitar. I hope this helps you guys!
Jesse
Lets start off with the overall appearance of the guitar. The finish is supurb, tough urethane finish, nice routing on the pickup area and bridge area. Nice tight fit on the neck to the body.
The 24 fret neck is A DEFINATE plus. If anyone plays lead at all, youll definatly benfit with the 24 frets. One major benfit is this guitar utilizes Jacksons "XJ" Frets, which simply means Xtra Jumbo. I have fat fingers, and the jacksons are one of the few makes of guitars that i can play clean solo's on. My model has the sharkfin inlay's, which are classic with the type of music i play, which is mostly 80's hairband covers.
The bridge setup is a licensed floyd rose. Not as good as the real floyd rose, but theres no much difference. The knife edge on the bridge is sharp as hell, and since its a licensed tremolo, it is very VERY weak. Setting the bridge height while under tension yeilds a very good chance of damaging the knife edge. This knife edge, unlike Ibenez's Edge tremelo, is NOT REPLACEABLE. So if you get this guitar, or any guitar with a licensed floyd rose tremelo, be careful when setting the action. The locking nut on the neck, out of the box, was a tad loose, a few minutes with a phillips screwdriver and a 3mm allen key and it was tight, and with no worries. All in all ill give it a 8/10, which is very conservative.
Now for the bad. The pickups. Duncan Designed pickups, and they are GARBAGE. The newer pro dk2's come with real duncans, but the duncan designed pickups are horrible. They leave alot to be yearned. Also, out of the box there was a slight ground buzz. That was all the pickups. I have since reloaded the guitar with a Dimebucker and 2 duncan single coils (cant remember the model right off hand, very clean, warm tones). The pickups will work for a while, but later on you will end up changing them.
All in all this is a GREAT guitar with HUGE potential. Overall i give this guitar a 9/10, and thats simply because of the weak knife edge on the floyd rose and the stock pickups. Other than that, it is SPOT ON for any heavy stuff that you might play. I play alot of kix, ratt, warrant, poison, etc stuff and this guitar was built for it. Good stuff!
If you are looking for a decent guitar, that will last you for years, this is definatly a good guitar. I hope this helps you guys!
Jesse