Jackson Stars SLSmg-j

I had this guitar ordered directly from Fender UK (Jackson's distributers over here) via Rainbow Music, for the list price of £799. I had played it once very briefly back in 2002(?) when it was first released, and fell in love with it instantly. I had to have one.

There's very little I don't like about the SLSMG. The neck is very thin and incredibly fast, and the body is well contoured and is light as well, despite being a mahognay guitar (My Schecter C-1 is MUCH heavier by comparison). The EMG HZ passive p'ups have great output, and despite what I've been told in the past, aren't sterile, and don't lack warmth. I was originally going to put active EMGs in, but I'm definitely rethinking now!

This is a lot harder. I suppose I would have liked a seperate volume control for the pickups to give a bit more tonal versatility... and perhaps it would have been nice to have the 20dB boost that other MG Series guitars have, but there are very minor things for me.

One annoyance I have is that the volume pot is sporadically noisy on mine- but since she's new, I've yet to look into sorting this. I don't anticipate it being a lengthy problem.

The entire guitar is constructed from mahogany, besides the fretboard which is ebony. The neck is of a through-body design, so there is NO heel whatsoever, making upper fret access the easiest I've ever sseen. Like I said before, despite being an entirely mahogany guitar, the SLSMG is incredibly light, while still having presence.

The finish (satin black on mine) is flawless, and seems very sturdy. The fretwork is fantastic, with no jagged edges. The creme neck/head binding is equally impressive with no bulges or cracks.

The SLSMG is, not to put too fine a point on it, an exceptional piece of kit. Sure, Jackson make mainly metal guitars, but the SLSMG can hit anything from classical rock and jazz to metal and punk.

Amazing.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is a pretty cool guitar as it has one of my favorite wood combinations out there, along with a construction that helps beef up the natural brightness of the maple neck-thru design. It's definitely a guitar more geared towards metal than anything else. The guitar has the following features:

Mahogany Body
Maple Thru-Neck Design
Bound Ebony Fretboard with Piranha Inlays
Hard Tail Bridge
EMG 81 in the Neck and Bridge
One Volume
One Tone
Three Way Switch

UTILIZATION

The guitar had one issue with it that I couldn't really get over. The hard tail bridge on this is something that I'm just not a huge fan of. I'm much more of a floyd guy, so this angle was something that took a good bit of getting used to. The guitar itself was put together quite nice, and I couldn't find any obvious flaws. There were some things about the binding that I wasn't crazy about, but it was still a fairly clean job. The finish was top notch, and I only noticed some small swirl marks in the back and some sloppiness in areas that you don't normally see (tremolo cavity and electronics cavity).

SOUNDS

The guitar had dual EMG 81s installed in it, and it was a pure metal machine. The 81 in the bridge was super tight and in your face. It worked great with the mahogany wings. Normally, the 81 can be a bit bright, and couple that with the neck-thru design and ebony fretboard, and you have some crazy treble going on. However, the mahogany wings helped tame some of that natural brightness that normally occurs. Despite that, the EMG 81 in the neck just isn't my thing. It's too bright, and I'm not someone who enjoys bright neck tones as I use the neck for lead and clean tones. I like my leads and cleans to be super fat and smooth. The 85 in the neck would be a better choice, in my opinion.

OVERALL OPINION

The guitar is very solid, and it had my favorite wood combination. The only thing I'd change about this guitar is that I'd install a floyd rose on this instead of the normal hard tail. That said, they make a floyd rose version of this, so there's really not that much to complain about. The guitar is great, especially considering the amount of money you can get these for.