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Hatsubai « Bit ugly but sounds great »
Published on 11/04/11 at 15:46I can't stress enough about how much these guitars are questionable in terms of overall looks. It's a love/hate guitar, and I can't say I fell in love with the looks at all. It's such a different shape that I just couldn't really dig it. The overall guitar, however, is pretty cool. The guitar features a mahogany body with a figured maple top, a mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 jumbo frets, binding, dot inlays, a hard tail bridge, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a three way switch.
UTILIZATION
Despite it being all mahogany, this guitar was pretty light and resonant. That's one thing I really like about properly built mahogany guitars. When you don't have a lot of dead weight, they can be super resonant without weighing a ton. That's the key to a good sounding mahogany guitar. The neck on this was a nice, almost medium sized neck. The frets were a bit worn, and you could tell this guitar was played quite a bit. The frets should be leveled, and the nut should be replaced due to the wear, but this is what happens when you buy a guitar that's like 20 years old now. Natural wear happens, and it's just on par for the course. The rest of the guitar is pretty much what you'd come to expect from Jackson during this era.
SOUNDS
The guitar had the classic Seymour Duncan JB/59 combination installed in it. The JB is great for pretty much any genre you can think of. It can do anything from metal to blues and everything in between. It's not the best pickup at any of those genres, but it can do them without any problems. It seems to sound best in a mahogany bodied guitar as it helps cut down on that "stringy" top end that can occur and thickens it up a tad. The 59 in the neck is pretty much my favorite neck pickup from Duncan. It is a smooth, round sounding medium output PAF style pickup. It can do great leads and nice, shimmering cleans. It also sounds wonderful when split.
OVERALL OPINION
This is a solid guitar, but man it looks ugly. If you're into a more bizarrely shaped guitar, this could be what you're looking for. I'm sure a lot of indie guys would dig this. I'm more of a traditional kind of guy, so these bizarre shapes really aren't my style.
UTILIZATION
Despite it being all mahogany, this guitar was pretty light and resonant. That's one thing I really like about properly built mahogany guitars. When you don't have a lot of dead weight, they can be super resonant without weighing a ton. That's the key to a good sounding mahogany guitar. The neck on this was a nice, almost medium sized neck. The frets were a bit worn, and you could tell this guitar was played quite a bit. The frets should be leveled, and the nut should be replaced due to the wear, but this is what happens when you buy a guitar that's like 20 years old now. Natural wear happens, and it's just on par for the course. The rest of the guitar is pretty much what you'd come to expect from Jackson during this era.
SOUNDS
The guitar had the classic Seymour Duncan JB/59 combination installed in it. The JB is great for pretty much any genre you can think of. It can do anything from metal to blues and everything in between. It's not the best pickup at any of those genres, but it can do them without any problems. It seems to sound best in a mahogany bodied guitar as it helps cut down on that "stringy" top end that can occur and thickens it up a tad. The 59 in the neck is pretty much my favorite neck pickup from Duncan. It is a smooth, round sounding medium output PAF style pickup. It can do great leads and nice, shimmering cleans. It also sounds wonderful when split.
OVERALL OPINION
This is a solid guitar, but man it looks ugly. If you're into a more bizarrely shaped guitar, this could be what you're looking for. I'm sure a lot of indie guys would dig this. I'm more of a traditional kind of guy, so these bizarre shapes really aren't my style.