Jackson Randy Rhoads RR24M

A Few years ago Jackson put out a limited run of Dinky Soloists with Maple Fretboards and black Sharkfin inlays. The guitar was an instant hit and they flew off the shelves. Looking to carry on this success Jackson has put out one of their other popular models with a maple fretboard and sharkfin inlays. The RR24 design is based on a custom model Jackson Alexi Laiho played in the early days of his band Children of Bodom. When the band was becoming huge their frontman Alexi Laiho used a Black 24 fret Jackson RR with a single EMG in the bridge and paint on the bevels. Everyone wanted a guitar like that but you could only order one through the infamous Jackson Custom shop, and if you did that you would probably end up waiting 50 years to get it. Finally Jackson deicded to put out the guitar but only after Alexi Laihos personal guitar got stolen and he switched to ESP guitars. This model is pretty much a copy of that guitar but with a cool maple fretboard. Jacksons do not often come out with maple fretboards so this guitar was instantly special.

UTILIZATION

This guitar has the level of playability as any other 24 fret Randy Rhodes Jackson model. With the RR shape the upper frets are not as easy to reach as they are on most Jacksons but overall the playability is good. The maple fretboard is nice and bright and feels good under your fingers. The neck through design means there is no heel so that is good too. Jacksons at these levels come with compound radius necks. The neck radius moves from 12 to 16 as you go further up the neck. This means that on the higher frets the radius is flatter making it easy to bend but on the low frets its more curved making chords more comfortable. The Floyd Rose on this guitar is of a good quality and will stay in tune when properly setup.

SOUNDS

The maple fretboard adds a brighter crisper top end to the sound of the guitar. EMG makes some of the best pickups for metal. Many players around the world have used these pickups for years. They are active so they need a battery to run. They have a built in preamp which boosts the signal from the strings. The 81 gives you a nice high end gain. The maple fretboard puts the sound over the top. The tone on the guitar cuts like crazy. You can get an awesome metal tone for modern metal music with this pickup. The sound is tight and punchy. With just the 81 in the bridge the guitar is not that great for clean tones. If you want to make the guitar sound even better with the EMG pickup you can do the 18v mod. With the 18v mod you run the pickup on two 9v batteries instead of one. This gives the guitar a more natural sound overall. It increases the pickups headroom and gives you a more organic tone.

OVERALL OPINION

The maple fretboard guitars Jackson is starting to put out are instant classics. The pale maple fretboards with the black sharkfin inlays give a unique look to the guitar and the maple gives the guitar crazy tone. When the first maple fretboard Jacksons came out people freaked out at how awesome they looked. Because of their popularity these guitars hold their value well. If you are a guy who wants a nice shred guitar thats a metal shape but need a maple fretboard you do not have many options but one of them is here.