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Hatsubai « Slightly stripped down JS1000 »
Published on 07/11/11 at 22:00The JS1000 is pretty famous as it's the most popular JS model that Satriani has. The biggest difference between this model and the JS1000 is that this model doesn't have the high pass on the volume and doesn't have the coil tap on the bridge. Aside from that, it's nearly identical. The guitar has a basswood body with a maple neck and a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets with dot inlays, an Edge bridge, two DiMarzio humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a three way toggle switch.
UTILIZATION
The guitar is put together great. There are no sharp edges on the frets, so it feels great when moving your hand up and down the neck. The frets are also crowned nicely, and I was able to get some low action on this without any problems at all. The bridge on this was an Ibanez Edge bridge, and they're some of the best bridges to ever come out of the Ibanez factory. They flutter nicely, sound great and stay in tune like no tomorrow. There were no neck joint gaps on this, so no issues there, either. Overall, the guitar was pretty solid.
SOUNDS
The guitar sounded pretty nice, even though it lacked the versatility that the normal JS1000 had. The DiMarzio FRED in the bridge sounds great for lead tones and fusion playing. It has these cool overtones and harmonics that really jump out during single note lines. The clean tone is pretty cool on the bridge pickup, too, and I'm not even a huge fan of clean bridge tones. The neck is a PAF Pro, and it's been the staple of 80s shred tones since before I was even born. It's very open sounding, and it helps maintain its character even after going through a huge rack with tons of cable. The lead tones on this pickup are what really stand out, but it also gets a great clean tone.
OVERALL OPINION
This is actually a better buy than the JS1000, I find. However, these guitars are a bit more rare than the JS1000, so you can usually find the better equipped JS1000 cheaper on the used market than these guitars. If you don't need the coil tap and high pass feature, it could be worth looking into, but the price difference is so minimal that I'd probably just get the JS1000.
UTILIZATION
The guitar is put together great. There are no sharp edges on the frets, so it feels great when moving your hand up and down the neck. The frets are also crowned nicely, and I was able to get some low action on this without any problems at all. The bridge on this was an Ibanez Edge bridge, and they're some of the best bridges to ever come out of the Ibanez factory. They flutter nicely, sound great and stay in tune like no tomorrow. There were no neck joint gaps on this, so no issues there, either. Overall, the guitar was pretty solid.
SOUNDS
The guitar sounded pretty nice, even though it lacked the versatility that the normal JS1000 had. The DiMarzio FRED in the bridge sounds great for lead tones and fusion playing. It has these cool overtones and harmonics that really jump out during single note lines. The clean tone is pretty cool on the bridge pickup, too, and I'm not even a huge fan of clean bridge tones. The neck is a PAF Pro, and it's been the staple of 80s shred tones since before I was even born. It's very open sounding, and it helps maintain its character even after going through a huge rack with tons of cable. The lead tones on this pickup are what really stand out, but it also gets a great clean tone.
OVERALL OPINION
This is actually a better buy than the JS1000, I find. However, these guitars are a bit more rare than the JS1000, so you can usually find the better equipped JS1000 cheaper on the used market than these guitars. If you don't need the coil tap and high pass feature, it could be worth looking into, but the price difference is so minimal that I'd probably just get the JS1000.