tjon901 « Low end Randy Rhodes Jackson »
Published on 06/14/11 at 20:44Jackson has been making Randy Rhodes guitars for many years. When Randy died he was arguably the most popular guitarist in the world. Shortly before he died the guys at Jackson offered to make him a custom V to Randys specifications. The original RR was slightly different but the basic design is the same. It is an offset V with the larger horn shorter than the lower horn. This design helps with the guitars balance. This is a budget model of the Randy Rhodes design. It has a bolt on maple neck with a 24 fret rosewood fretboard. The Fretboard has a compound radius which is nice. The body is made of alder and has two Jackson pickups. There is a Jackson Floyd Rose rip off tremolo system for the bridge and a locking nut. It has a master volume knob and a master tone knob with a 3 way toggle pickup selector in between them.
UTILIZATION
The quality of this guitar isnt too great. The frets are big but it really needs a proper fret leveling and setup. The compound radius is something you do not find on many guitars and none at this price. with the compound radius the radius of the fretboard near the headstock is about 12 inches while the radius near the body is 16 inches. The flatter radius near the body means that in the area you would be soloing the fretboard is flatter and you can get your bends to be better. Near the headstock the area where you would be playing chords the radius is slightly more curved so the chords are more comfortable for your hand to make. This guitar is 24 frets which is unusual for a RR shaped guitar. The high frets are pretty difficult to reach because of the body and the bolt on neck joint just makes this worse. The cheap Floyd Rose tremolo on this guitar is not very good either and is made out of soft metal and goes out of tune pretty easily.
SOUNDS
The Jackson pickups are voiced for metal. They have plastic covers on them to try and make them look like EMG's. Like most low quality high output pickups the pickups sound kinda muddy at high gain. The bridge pickup can get you a nice crunch for your distortion sounds. Heavy riffing and single not runs sound good on the bridge pickup. The neck pickup is great for solos and clean tones. You can get a nice liquidy smooth tone for solos and your clean chords will ring out well. For a clearer sound you should probably swap out the pickups for some Duncans or EMG's if you want active pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
Jackson is making this model so beginners who are fans of Randy RHodes can play a guitar that looks like his. They have a whole line of these JS guitars. JS stands for Jackson Student. Jackson had a Student line of guitars in the 80s that where stripped down versions of the high end models and these are the modern versions of those guitars. Its pretty funny that this guitar comes with 24 frets. For the longest time the high end RR1 models only came with 22 frets and people begged for 24 fret versions and the first one that came out was the lowest end version. I believe these guitars came with 24 fret necks so they could use the same necks across the whole JS line of guitars. If you dont have much money and want a Jackson RR model this is pretty much your only option.
UTILIZATION
The quality of this guitar isnt too great. The frets are big but it really needs a proper fret leveling and setup. The compound radius is something you do not find on many guitars and none at this price. with the compound radius the radius of the fretboard near the headstock is about 12 inches while the radius near the body is 16 inches. The flatter radius near the body means that in the area you would be soloing the fretboard is flatter and you can get your bends to be better. Near the headstock the area where you would be playing chords the radius is slightly more curved so the chords are more comfortable for your hand to make. This guitar is 24 frets which is unusual for a RR shaped guitar. The high frets are pretty difficult to reach because of the body and the bolt on neck joint just makes this worse. The cheap Floyd Rose tremolo on this guitar is not very good either and is made out of soft metal and goes out of tune pretty easily.
SOUNDS
The Jackson pickups are voiced for metal. They have plastic covers on them to try and make them look like EMG's. Like most low quality high output pickups the pickups sound kinda muddy at high gain. The bridge pickup can get you a nice crunch for your distortion sounds. Heavy riffing and single not runs sound good on the bridge pickup. The neck pickup is great for solos and clean tones. You can get a nice liquidy smooth tone for solos and your clean chords will ring out well. For a clearer sound you should probably swap out the pickups for some Duncans or EMG's if you want active pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
Jackson is making this model so beginners who are fans of Randy RHodes can play a guitar that looks like his. They have a whole line of these JS guitars. JS stands for Jackson Student. Jackson had a Student line of guitars in the 80s that where stripped down versions of the high end models and these are the modern versions of those guitars. Its pretty funny that this guitar comes with 24 frets. For the longest time the high end RR1 models only came with 22 frets and people begged for 24 fret versions and the first one that came out was the lowest end version. I believe these guitars came with 24 fret necks so they could use the same necks across the whole JS line of guitars. If you dont have much money and want a Jackson RR model this is pretty much your only option.