Jackson KE2T Kelly

This is the hardtail version of the old Jackson Kelly model. The Kelly is like a more metaled up version of the Gibson Explorer. This guitar is more old school than most of the other modern Jacksons. This is one of the few models that still has a Poplar body. The guitar has a neck through neck with a maple neck and an ebony fretboard. The fretboard has 24 jumbo frets with the shark fin inlays. Since this is the KE2T the T stands for hard tail and this guitar replaces the floyd rose with a tune-o-matic bridge with a string through tailpiece. The pickups are a set of very versatile Seymour Duncans. The neck pickup is a Duncan Jazz while the bridge pickup is a JB. The controls are basic shred controls with a master volume and master tone with a 3 way toggle.

UTILIZATION

These guitars play great like all Jacksons. The Explorer shape already played very well but now it has the Jackson shred edge to it. The shape naturally gives excellent balance and the upper fret access is pretty good. The necks on Jackson guitars are some of the best out their. They usually have a thin flat shape with a compound radius fretboard. I wish more companies would offer a compound radius fretboard. With the compound radius board the radius of the fretboard gets flatter as you move up the neck. Down by the nut the radius is 12 inches this means you have a more rounded more comfortable feel down where you are most likely to be playing chords. Up towards the neck pickup the radius is 16 inches which is super flat. This lets you have a nice action down there and you can bend notes forever without fretting out like you would if you tried to bend notes on a round radius neck.

SOUNDS

The pickup set in this guitar is what Jackson likes to use when they arent putting in active pickups. This guitar has the JB in the bridge and the Jazz in the neck set. This is a great pickup set that is used in a ton of guitars. These pickups are nice because unlike active pickups these passives really help bring out the natural tone of the guitar. The JB in the bridge has a nice crunchy PAFy sound that has been super hot rodded. This pickup is pretty hot. Its output is like 16k so it can really push an amp. This is what you want in a bridge pickup on a modern guitar. The Jazz in the neck is super smooth but no too smooth. They took a 59 and gave it a little extra high end bite to keep it from becoming muddy. This means you get more clarity on your leads so you can solo with even more drive in your sound.

OVERALL OPINION

If you are like me and are not a fan of tremolos this Kelly is for you. Most Jacksons come with Floyd Rose but they always have one variant with a T in its name and that is the hard tail version. This guitar has all the same features as the normal Kelly but with the reliability and the simplicity of a hardtail bridge. Plus it makes the guitar sound better. If you are looking for a USA Jackson with a hardtail bridge this is one of the few out there.