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Hatsubai « One of my favorite Jacksons »
Published on 10/15/11 at 14:32The Soloist itself is so popular that some people forget that there's a two humbucker version of this guitar. This has everything you've come to know about the normal Jackson Soloist but with one neck humbucker instead of two singles. The guitar features an alder body, a maple neck-thru design with an ebony fretboard, 24 extra jumbo frets, sharkfin inlays, an original floyd rose, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
With these Soloists, it's crazy easy to get up to the higher frets. The neck-thru designs is really a great design in terms of performance. While I tend to prefer the tone of bolt-ons, it can't really be argued that neck-thru gives great access to the upper frets. The guitar had an original floyd rose on it, and this is the bridge that every floyded Jackson should have. Sometimes Jackson has those licensed bridges on them, and I hate that. They're almost always not as good as the original is, and they tend to not flutter as nicely. The finish on this was a solid color yellow, and it was great at standing out a bit more than most normal guitars. The rest of this was pretty much like your standard Jackson. Fretwork was killer, too.
SOUNDS
The guitar had DiMarzios installed in it, and you don't see these too often. It had the newly released Crunch Lab and LiquiFire pickups put in it. For those that don't know, these are Petrucci's latest pickups, and they're amazing. The Crunch Lab is super tight, but it's also fairly linear in how it sounds. It can work with pretty much any wood you can think of. It's powerful enough to do any genre you can think of, but it's also organic enough to be able to respond to your volume knob and ease up on the overall output and compression. The LiquiFire is my new favorite neck pickup. It took everything I loved about the Air Norton and made it so much better. It now has way more character and seems to be a bit more organic than the previous one.
OVERALL OPINION
These are awesome guitars, and if you have the chance, go out and play one. Not everyone likes the neck-thru tone, and I can understand that. I'm one of them as well. However, Jackson knows how to make the neck-thru design work, and you can really tell by the way they made these guitars. If you decide to buy one, buy used to help save on the overall price.
UTILIZATION
With these Soloists, it's crazy easy to get up to the higher frets. The neck-thru designs is really a great design in terms of performance. While I tend to prefer the tone of bolt-ons, it can't really be argued that neck-thru gives great access to the upper frets. The guitar had an original floyd rose on it, and this is the bridge that every floyded Jackson should have. Sometimes Jackson has those licensed bridges on them, and I hate that. They're almost always not as good as the original is, and they tend to not flutter as nicely. The finish on this was a solid color yellow, and it was great at standing out a bit more than most normal guitars. The rest of this was pretty much like your standard Jackson. Fretwork was killer, too.
SOUNDS
The guitar had DiMarzios installed in it, and you don't see these too often. It had the newly released Crunch Lab and LiquiFire pickups put in it. For those that don't know, these are Petrucci's latest pickups, and they're amazing. The Crunch Lab is super tight, but it's also fairly linear in how it sounds. It can work with pretty much any wood you can think of. It's powerful enough to do any genre you can think of, but it's also organic enough to be able to respond to your volume knob and ease up on the overall output and compression. The LiquiFire is my new favorite neck pickup. It took everything I loved about the Air Norton and made it so much better. It now has way more character and seems to be a bit more organic than the previous one.
OVERALL OPINION
These are awesome guitars, and if you have the chance, go out and play one. Not everyone likes the neck-thru tone, and I can understand that. I'm one of them as well. However, Jackson knows how to make the neck-thru design work, and you can really tell by the way they made these guitars. If you decide to buy one, buy used to help save on the overall price.