works0fheart
Tike Myson
Long post incoming.
Alright guys, so I've had this guitar for about 2 or 3 weeks now but I wanted to get a bit more playtime on it before posting anything detailed on it. Since then I've tried dialing in a few presets for it and taken it to band practice a few times, and just in general practiced on it. First things first though, let's get the specs.
This is your standard RR24 style guitar that many of you have come to know and love, but with a few different things. To make this easy I'm also going to list my thoughts on each of these specs. So we've got the following:
So with all of that being said, I think it's a pretty good guitar. Is it worth $1900? Probably not, but at this point now days, that's debatable as well. It plays pretty well and I've had no issues with it other than trying to dial in the sound I like. It doesn't bad but it does sound different than the tone I usually try to dial in. I could do with an all satin neck and, of course, some SS frets, but all in all I really like the guitar. I wish I'd seen the new concept series HS RR24 before purchasing it though lol. I did have some issues getting this guitar though so I'll go ahead and provide a story on that.
I tried to order this through Musiciansfriend's ebay page since it was cheaper on there by about $200 (I would come to find out later that it was because it was open box, something that wasn't mentioned at all in the advertisement for it). When I purchased it I accidentally used the wrong payment method (I'm an idiot and this one is on me) so I went to try to change it only to find out that I couldn't, so from there I had to cancel the order. I immediately reached out to them and told them the situation and by the time they replied to me the guitar had been sold from the store floor (Which was pretty infuriating because that just tells me I wouldn't have received the guitar regardless since it was in under a 12 hour window). Anyways, so I reached out to Musiciansfriend through their contact info on their website and spoke to a guy named Rey. Rey was super helpful and managed to get me a brand new one at the same price. Thanks a lot, Rey!
Now, horror story time: I had been following the shipping updates on it because I was excited obviously. I live in an apartment complex in the Portland, OR area and typically Amazon packages in the like are delivered to a locker near the front office. I had assumed that this, being a large box, would have been delivered to the front office as well where they'd have held it and I'd swing by, sign something and pick it up. NOPE. I was at work and on lunch when I saw that it was listed as delivered so I went home to potentially pick it up from the office at the front of my neighborhood but upon pulling up to my place I saw it literally just leaning on my front door, out in the open. USPS dropped it off without even need of a signature or anything. This pissed me off pretty badly as theft is a common occurrence out here and someone thinking that leaving a box that large out front of someone's house was a good idea was just baffling to me.
Anyways, so what are all these other pictures? Welp, these are what I'm basing my review on comparisons to. Keep reading, because you might be surprised by this bit. Excuse my dirty office, I have 2 Huskies and dog hair is an endless battle, especially in February lol.
Alright guys, so I've had this guitar for about 2 or 3 weeks now but I wanted to get a bit more playtime on it before posting anything detailed on it. Since then I've tried dialing in a few presets for it and taken it to band practice a few times, and just in general practiced on it. First things first though, let's get the specs.
This is your standard RR24 style guitar that many of you have come to know and love, but with a few different things. To make this easy I'm also going to list my thoughts on each of these specs. So we've got the following:
- Neck-through body construction
- It's no secret, and should be fairly obvious at this point, but I prefer neck-thru builds. This one feels fine and the Jackson neck profile has always been my favorite. It's thin enough for me without being too thin, and just feels the most natural in my hands.
- 5 piece Maple/wenge neck - Maple is becoming the standard for neck material now days it seems, which is fine to me as it's what I've always used anyways. I think each of my guitars has it now that I'm really thinking about it, and that wasn't necessarily intentional. I can't tell you whether the extra strips of Wenge make that much of a difference but it looks cool anyways.
- Ebony fretboard - I used to prefer ebony early on but I have to say I've even come to love rosewood in recent years even though I don't own any guitars with it currently. Lately I actually like maple fretboards quite a bit even though they tend to show their dirt a little too much for my liking. This board though feels smooth and I haven't found any issues with it yet. The only thing I can nitpick about is that it's not as dark as some of my other ebony board guitars, although I suspect that's not actually natural. My RC8X actually has similar coloring on the fretboard whereas my 2 Alexi's and 2 MIJ RR24's have pretty dark fretboards.
- Alder body - Not much to say here. Same situation as the neck. This has become a very standard wood in guitar bodies and I think it honestly sounds fine. Mahogany guitars sound very warm/round to me whereas alder sounds more bright/thin. I don't have much to say on this and I think the things I do have to say about sound with this guitar are centered around the electronics.
- 24 jumbo, Nickel frets - This, again, is no secret to anyone. It's actually annoying to me that a guitar at this price point doesn't feature SS frets, but that horse has been beaten enough so I'll leave it be this time.
- Original Floyd Rose - Now this may seem like something to skim over and forget fairly quickly, this is actually one of the big positives for me. Most of my guitars have been some form of a licensed Floyd (FR-1000 or w/e, etc). None of those I've had any serious issues with other than that the trim arm never seems to hold as firmly when tightened. This one actually is adjustabe to the point that I can get it to lock into a position or free-swing if I want. Is that worth a few hundred dollars extra? No, probably not, but I guess it's cool.
- EMG 81 (Bridge) + EMG 85 (Neck) - This is where my issues with this guitar comes in surprisingly. I own several other guitars with this same pairing and they're so inconsistent from guitar to guitar, at least for me. My white Soloist just sounds much more precise with this same combo, but more on that later. I can't get a sharp enough sound out of it on this guitar for some reason. I really like that articulated, precise, almost-percussive type sound in pickups and I'm having a hard time dialing that in with this guitar. That may be a few other things at work here that I haven't figured out yet, so any tips would be appreciated.
- 1 volume, 2 tone control - So this is more of just a minor gripe to me, but I very admittedly don't care much for tone controls usually. Give me a single volume and that's usually all I need. This guitar is no different, but the volume knob placement just confuses the shit out of me. Rather than it being the knob closest to the pickup, it's actually the one closest to the trim arm of the Floyd. This often irks me a bit when I'm practicing and I want to turn my guitar down only to find out that I just rolled back the tone knob.
- 3 way toggle - Not much to say on this. It does what it does I guess?
- Satin neck that transitions into gloss finish - I know this may look cool, but I'd rather it actually not have the gradual transition there, at least at that point on the neck. Once I go up to the upper frets and I hit the gloss it feels weird. I think they could have brought the transition closer to the joint. Not a big deal since I'm used to playing guitars with either finish, but I do prefer more of the satin feel.
- 12" - 16" radius, 25.5 scale - I never put a lot of thought into stuff like this, at least for the radius, but I'd imagine this is probably playing a big part in why Jackson necks feel so comfortable for me.
- Luminlay side dots - These are a thing on here? Neat I guess. Never had a use a for them since I don't really gig, but I appreciate them including them.
- Foam core case - Hot take time: I actually like this case. Cases that are normally shipped with these guitars are huge, clunky, and just annoying as all hell to move anywhere. I actually like this one though it's admittedly not very durable if I had to guess.
- 5 piece Maple/wenge neck - Maple is becoming the standard for neck material now days it seems, which is fine to me as it's what I've always used anyways. I think each of my guitars has it now that I'm really thinking about it, and that wasn't necessarily intentional. I can't tell you whether the extra strips of Wenge make that much of a difference but it looks cool anyways.
- Ebony fretboard - I used to prefer ebony early on but I have to say I've even come to love rosewood in recent years even though I don't own any guitars with it currently. Lately I actually like maple fretboards quite a bit even though they tend to show their dirt a little too much for my liking. This board though feels smooth and I haven't found any issues with it yet. The only thing I can nitpick about is that it's not as dark as some of my other ebony board guitars, although I suspect that's not actually natural. My RC8X actually has similar coloring on the fretboard whereas my 2 Alexi's and 2 MIJ RR24's have pretty dark fretboards.
- Alder body - Not much to say here. Same situation as the neck. This has become a very standard wood in guitar bodies and I think it honestly sounds fine. Mahogany guitars sound very warm/round to me whereas alder sounds more bright/thin. I don't have much to say on this and I think the things I do have to say about sound with this guitar are centered around the electronics.
- 24 jumbo, Nickel frets - This, again, is no secret to anyone. It's actually annoying to me that a guitar at this price point doesn't feature SS frets, but that horse has been beaten enough so I'll leave it be this time.
- Original Floyd Rose - Now this may seem like something to skim over and forget fairly quickly, this is actually one of the big positives for me. Most of my guitars have been some form of a licensed Floyd (FR-1000 or w/e, etc). None of those I've had any serious issues with other than that the trim arm never seems to hold as firmly when tightened. This one actually is adjustabe to the point that I can get it to lock into a position or free-swing if I want. Is that worth a few hundred dollars extra? No, probably not, but I guess it's cool.
- EMG 81 (Bridge) + EMG 85 (Neck) - This is where my issues with this guitar comes in surprisingly. I own several other guitars with this same pairing and they're so inconsistent from guitar to guitar, at least for me. My white Soloist just sounds much more precise with this same combo, but more on that later. I can't get a sharp enough sound out of it on this guitar for some reason. I really like that articulated, precise, almost-percussive type sound in pickups and I'm having a hard time dialing that in with this guitar. That may be a few other things at work here that I haven't figured out yet, so any tips would be appreciated.
- 1 volume, 2 tone control - So this is more of just a minor gripe to me, but I very admittedly don't care much for tone controls usually. Give me a single volume and that's usually all I need. This guitar is no different, but the volume knob placement just confuses the shit out of me. Rather than it being the knob closest to the pickup, it's actually the one closest to the trim arm of the Floyd. This often irks me a bit when I'm practicing and I want to turn my guitar down only to find out that I just rolled back the tone knob.
- 3 way toggle - Not much to say on this. It does what it does I guess?
- Satin neck that transitions into gloss finish - I know this may look cool, but I'd rather it actually not have the gradual transition there, at least at that point on the neck. Once I go up to the upper frets and I hit the gloss it feels weird. I think they could have brought the transition closer to the joint. Not a big deal since I'm used to playing guitars with either finish, but I do prefer more of the satin feel.
- 12" - 16" radius, 25.5 scale - I never put a lot of thought into stuff like this, at least for the radius, but I'd imagine this is probably playing a big part in why Jackson necks feel so comfortable for me.
- Luminlay side dots - These are a thing on here? Neat I guess. Never had a use a for them since I don't really gig, but I appreciate them including them.
- Foam core case - Hot take time: I actually like this case. Cases that are normally shipped with these guitars are huge, clunky, and just annoying as all hell to move anywhere. I actually like this one though it's admittedly not very durable if I had to guess.
So with all of that being said, I think it's a pretty good guitar. Is it worth $1900? Probably not, but at this point now days, that's debatable as well. It plays pretty well and I've had no issues with it other than trying to dial in the sound I like. It doesn't bad but it does sound different than the tone I usually try to dial in. I could do with an all satin neck and, of course, some SS frets, but all in all I really like the guitar. I wish I'd seen the new concept series HS RR24 before purchasing it though lol. I did have some issues getting this guitar though so I'll go ahead and provide a story on that.
I tried to order this through Musiciansfriend's ebay page since it was cheaper on there by about $200 (I would come to find out later that it was because it was open box, something that wasn't mentioned at all in the advertisement for it). When I purchased it I accidentally used the wrong payment method (I'm an idiot and this one is on me) so I went to try to change it only to find out that I couldn't, so from there I had to cancel the order. I immediately reached out to them and told them the situation and by the time they replied to me the guitar had been sold from the store floor (Which was pretty infuriating because that just tells me I wouldn't have received the guitar regardless since it was in under a 12 hour window). Anyways, so I reached out to Musiciansfriend through their contact info on their website and spoke to a guy named Rey. Rey was super helpful and managed to get me a brand new one at the same price. Thanks a lot, Rey!
Now, horror story time: I had been following the shipping updates on it because I was excited obviously. I live in an apartment complex in the Portland, OR area and typically Amazon packages in the like are delivered to a locker near the front office. I had assumed that this, being a large box, would have been delivered to the front office as well where they'd have held it and I'd swing by, sign something and pick it up. NOPE. I was at work and on lunch when I saw that it was listed as delivered so I went home to potentially pick it up from the office at the front of my neighborhood but upon pulling up to my place I saw it literally just leaning on my front door, out in the open. USPS dropped it off without even need of a signature or anything. This pissed me off pretty badly as theft is a common occurrence out here and someone thinking that leaving a box that large out front of someone's house was a good idea was just baffling to me.
Anyways, so what are all these other pictures? Welp, these are what I'm basing my review on comparisons to. Keep reading, because you might be surprised by this bit. Excuse my dirty office, I have 2 Huskies and dog hair is an endless battle, especially in February lol.
