Jackson USA Select Soloist SL2H

I bought this guitar from a credit freeze at Ross Musice in RI. The price was $1698.

This guitar is perfect. It plays very easily quickly. The neck is smooth and you can slide up and down like nothing. The pickups are seymour duncans and give a very strong tone good for heavy metal and speed picking. Most of all the finish body and size are what i like most.

I'm hard pressed to find anything wrong with this. Maybe if it was about $500 cheaper i wouldnt regret buying it. Or if you could do drop d tuning without knocking the rest of the guitar out of tune.

There isnt a flaw with the design hardware of sound of the guitar. I've had it for about a month and the tuning hasnt slipped more than a quarter of a step in a week.

If your ready to go out and spend money on a guitar this is what to get. You'll never need a new one in our life.

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

I paid $1200 for this guitar one year ago. I got it at the Guitar Center in Seven Corners, Virginia. Since then, I have practiced for hours every day on it, used it for numerous live shows and recording sessions, and traveled with it every few weeks. I got it because it is the ultimate Jackson, and the best possible metal guitar for the money.

I like the fact that this instrument is totally specialized for metal. The bound ebony fretboard in particular is wonderful - it feels ultra-smooth, and the compound radius makes you significantly faster immediately. I was considering buying an SL-3, which would have come with a rosewood fretboard for a few hundred dollars less, but I definitely recommend spending the extra money. The stock Seymour Duncan pickups have great crunch and good clean tone. The Floyd Rose was perfectly balanced and set up from the factory. The finish is superb, and the thru neck feels wonderful. The instrument sustains almost indefinitely.

I have found Jacksons rather difficult to clean, because they have lots of corners to reach into. Also, there are times when I wish the guitar had a more versatile sound. When playing metal, which is what I do 95% of the time, it is the most amazing guitar imaginable. With playing clean blues or jazz, which I do every once in a while, its tone sounds somewhat thin. This is just due to its degree of specialization - I don't really consider it a disadvantage, because if it were more versatile it wouldn't be so great at metal.

Of course, there are major advantages and disadvantages to a Floyd Rose, but I assume that if one is considering this guitar one has already made up one's mind about them.

The construction and quality is impecable. I have used it constantly for a year under widely varying conditions, and nothing has broken or come loose. The screws are all still tight, the finish still glossy, and the tone pots free from any sort of crackling.

If you appreciate fine metal instruments, you'll know this is the perfect guitar as soon as you pick it up. It feels instantly comfortable and you will feel like a true hard rock sophisticate playing it. If you have any questions that I didn't answer, I'd be happy to help you by email - mine is spiral811@hotmail.com

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

The Jackson SL2H is a variation of the famous Soloist that has been made by the company since the '80s. It features dual humbuckers for the electronics platform, which is a departure from the typical H-S-S pickup configuration. Specs wise, it features an alder body, a maple neck with ebony fretboard, 24 frets, Original Floyd Rose Tremolo, a pair of Seymour Duncan humbuckers ('59 and JB) and a simple electronics layout of a single volume and single tone control, along with a 3 way toggle switch. It comes in a variety of finishes including some really awesome graphics that take you right back to the time of big hair and loud guitar finishes. They're built in the USA by Jackson and are as high end as you can get without veering into Custom Shop territory.

UTILIZATION

The design is very ergonomic to me. The guitar has neck through construction which feels very solid and smooth. The shape is extremely contoured and forms to the body quite well. The weight of these guitars is a bit heavier than one might expect from a superstrat, but it's still not like holding a Les Paul on your shoulders. The upper fret access is great considering it's a neck through and nothing will impede your hand from getting all the way to the 24th fret.

Getting a good sound out of this guitar is pretty simple. It's meant to have a nice bright tone for hard rock and shred sounds mainly. It's pretty much going to get those standard shred type tones but it does have a fairly thick quality to it as well that is great for rhythm work, so it's not a one trick pony by any means.

SOUNDS

The tones out of this guitar are really quite nice for modern lead playing. It's not the most versatile guitar in the world I find, but what it does, it does very well. The clean tones aren't the greatest in the world but they do have somewhat of a sparkle to them when put through a good clean channel of an amplifier. The mid gain tones don't do a whole lot for me because I find them to sound a bit forced and bright sounding. This guitar uses alder, maple and ebony together which is a bright combo, so you really need a sound setting that can handle that amount of treble. The highest gain sounds are really top notch. The Seymour Duncan '59 at the neck offers a nice smooth liquidy tone for leads, and the JB at the bridge is perfect for raunchy riffage and very '80s lead work. Very cool.

OVERALL OPINION

All in all I think the Jackson SL2H is a great guitar for anyone looking for the top of the range neck through superstrat that can really do those '80s tones as they were intended. It's not cheap at about $2,200 new, but you're getting a quality instrument that will last you for decades to come. The parts are all top notch and the feel and tone are just superb. Aside from Suhr, I think the USA Jacksons are in the group of some of the best superstrats made today.

This is the Jackson soloist guitar with its pointy headstock and just ripe tone. This is almost like a custom shop guitar because it's a Jackson US production model but it's built so well that it almost feels like a custom shop guitar. It has a great feel and a great neck if you like a nice then necks of any good ripper shredder guitar. It features in alder body and a maple neck which is pretty standard for most instruments. You also get 24 fret switch allows you to really soul up in the high fret register. And my most favorite thing about this guitar is it it features a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker and a 59 humbucker in the neck. This is the most classic rock pickup combination that you can find in any guitar. This is pretty standard and most guys guitar instruments you play hard rock and metal.

UTILIZATION

Body: Alder

Neck: Neck-Thru-Body Quarter-sawn Maple

Neck Dimensions: 3rd Fret: .790 inch, 12th Fret: .850 inch

Tuning Machines: Die-Cast Tuners

Fingerboard: Ebony

Number of Frets: 24 Jumbo Frets

Bridge Pickup: Seymour Duncan JB TB4 Humbucking Pickup

Neck Pickup: Seymour Duncan '59 SH1N Humbucking Pickup

Controls: Master Volume, Master Tone

Bridge: Floyd Rose Original Double Locking 2-Point Tremolo

Pickup Switching: 3-Position Toggle:
- Position 1. Bridge Pickup
- Position 2. Bridge and Neck Pickups
- Position 3. Neck Pickup

Hardware: Black (Chrome on Transparent Colors)

Strings: NPS, Extra Light (.009 to .042)

Case: Includes Deluxe Molded Case

Scale Length: 25.5 inches

SOUNDS


I love the tone of this guitar primarily because it has an alder body to maple neck with my two favorite pick ups installed. You can get some ripping tones with this guitar and couple that with a nice Floyd Rose tremolo system which makes this a great shredding guitar. The orange colors not my favorite but hey this is a great guitar if you can find it. The neck is very slim and tapered down and then pointed headstock is essential for someone who likes to shred.

OVERALL OPINION


You can find guitars right around $2000 which is a great price for an American made Jackson guitar. This is a nice guitar and a guitar that is pretty much set up right out-of-the-box. I has a great feel and a great neck and overall it's a perfect guitar for shredder or hard rock player.