Jump to content

NGD Jackson Soloist


ashasha

Recommended Posts

  • Members

I got it two days ago and have been trying to get past the new factor before I posted it here. It's been a while since I owned something like this and I'm in a bit of a love/hate thing with it right now.

 

First off this was bought from Music123 as a used item marked as Mint. They aren't kidding when they say mint. It was absolutely spotless, not one single fingerprint or speck of dust on it. I have no idea what the deal was with it, but I got it for an extremely good price and they are a pleasure to do business with. I've given up on the other guys selling out of the same warehouse, the customer service is what sets these guys apart. I don't want to get into the details, but they sweetened the deal up for me even more which I appreciate a lot.

 

So here are some lousy pictures:

 

IMG_1739.jpg

 

IMG_1743.jpg

 

IMG_1746.jpg

 

It was listed as black, but it's actually a metal flake finish. Not a real plus to be honest because it just looks dusty to me, but it's flawless.

 

The neck is actually a bit on the wide side which is taking some getting used to with the longer scale compared to my main guitars. I like the neck a lot though. The frets are fantastic as they should be. If you look at them close they are shaped perfectly and they're all just about the exact same size so it wasn't like they had to cheat it when they leveled it. The frets are frickin humongous too; I'm used to medium to even small so this is new territory for me.

 

It's a neck thru (my first one) and the neck joint is what really sold me on this. I don't spend all day in the upper register, but I appreciate good design ideas and this one impressed me.

 

It's a real floyd rose if that matters to anyone here. I had an old Charvel years ago that had a Jackson licensed one that had issues with the blades so I was a little worried. The trem works like it should, very solid, a nice big block on it and it's got he best quiver or whatever you call it when you slap it. I like it.

 

The neck and middle pickups are some SD single coil sized rail looking things. I expected them to be useless, but they are actually pretty decent even though I don't think that I'll be spending much time with them. They get a little stratty in the 2 and 4, but it's not exact.

 

The bridge pickup is an SD JB. This is the single source of the hate side so far. It's my first JB and I'm having a hell of a time dialing in a good tone with it. I enjoy playing overdriven tones that are nice and fat with a lot of harmonic overtones. I suppose I bought this because I wanted to get something that was tighter, but this thing is ridiculous. It's very mid heavy and sounds like crap warm. I got some tips from some guys here and basically you have to drive this thing to the point of peeling paint on the walls to get it to sound good. So yeah, it's not as bad now, but it's a two trick pony, clean it's not horrible, but warm it's craptastic and overdriven it's fun.

 

Here's a quick sound clip. Nothing special, just some dorking around using Waves GTR (it's so hard to dial in that I couldn't even get it to sound good with Guitar Rig 3 which is my go to). I absolutely hate being recorded so just deal with the mistakes and shit. :lol: And I'm still working on getting a good tone with it.

 

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=671869&songID=8966655

 

Only thing that I had to do was lower the action just a touch, lower the middle pickup to balance the levels and raise the bridge pickup a bit to help it sound less sucky.

 

The jury is still out on the JB, but the rest of the guitar is really great so far. I'm not real sold on the color, but that's just being nitpicky, I don't look at myself in the mirror playing and it's a player.

 

 

EDIT: Forgot to say that it's a Soloist SL3 and it's MIJ.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

HNGD!


Soloists are great playing axes. I like my JB in my all-mahogany soloist, but yours is maple/alder, right? I can imagine that pickup being pretty harsh in one of those.

 

Son of a bitch....I thought that this all mahogany as well, but looking at the site it's alder. They have maple caps with the transparent finishes which this is not.

 

That explains a hell of a lot. :lol: I couldn't figure out why anyone would want this pickup if it sounds like this, but I bet that it's just a case of a bad match.

 

Now I just got to figure out what I want to swap it for....:idea:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I couldn't figure out why anyone would want this pickup if it sounds like this, but I bet that it's just a case of a bad match

 

 

Jackson's love affair with the JB has always been a mystery. I own quite a few Jacksons, many factory-equipped with JBs, and only one model - the DK2M Dinky - sounded good with the JBs. Oddly enough, that's an alder body with maple veneer, and the JBs sound just fine. In an alder/maple KV2, the JB sounded like canned ass. Same in an older basswood Dinky XL.

 

I really like the Full Shred in the bridge position of my Soloist Pro. It's MUCH tighter than the JB, without the weird midrange spike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Jackson's love affair with the JB has always been a mystery. I own quite a few Jacksons, many factory-equipped with JBs, and only one model - the DK2M Dinky - sounded good with the JBs. Oddly enough, that's an alder body with maple veneer, and the JBs sound just fine. In an alder/maple KV2, the JB sounded like canned ass. Same in an older basswood Dinky XL.


I really like the Full Shred in the bridge position of my Soloist Pro. It's MUCH tighter than the JB, without the weird midrange spike.

I went to their website and didn't find any clips of the Full Shred, but the Distortion sounded pretty good. I have to say that their clips are pretty good, because as soon as I heard the JB I recognized it. :lol: There were a few that sounded pretty good.

 

Looks like the neck on this one is rock maple and the body is solid alder. It doesn't sound that bright unplugged though, I suppose that it doesn't translate acoustically the same way, but either way that midrange hump is going to have to go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Happy NGD!

 

I love my Soloist as well, it's a USA SL2 from the mid to late 1990s:

 

SL2-DIAG-MD.jpg

 

The pickups on my guitar are Kent Armstrong humbuckers - I was going to swap them out when I first got the guitar but ended up liking them so much I kept them.

 

After a while, most other guitars seem bulky and awkward by comparison.

 

I also added a GK3 to drive my VG99 so I can sound like a bloody orchestra if I want with the SL driving my regular rig and

then the VG doing its thing and then I can midi-out to synthesizers. The stable neck thru design is perfect for that duty.

 

Enjoy your new guitar!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Happy NGD!


I love my Soloist as well, it's a USA SL2 from the mid to late 1990s:



The pickups on my guitar are Kent Armstrong humbuckers - I was going to swap them out when I first got the guitar but ended up liking them so much I kept them.


After a while, most other guitars seem bulky and awkward by comparison.


I also added a GK3 to drive my VG99 so I can sound like a bloody orchestra if I want with the SL driving my regular rig and

then the VG doing its thing and then I can midi-out to synthesizers. The stable neck thru design is perfect for that duty.


Enjoy your new guitar!

Armstrongs huh? Would you say that they are more vintage flavored?

 

That GK3 pickup is fun isn't it? I still have one of the original VG-8's and one of the early Roland Ready strats when they were MIA and not MIM. I haven't used it in years, but I can't seem to part with it.

 

I did a project a few years ago on a Samick UM3 where I took the GK pickup apart and mounted it internally. Worked great. I still have some of the parts for the connector and mount if you are interested; I have no use for them.

 

 

I ran the cable under the rear pickup ring and I mounted to micro switches into the ring and wired them to the board to replace the switches on the external interface.

 

12150005.jpg

 

Installed1.jpg

 

Here's the basic design of the guts. The hardest part was wiring the 13 pin jack and making a mount for it. After that it went pretty quickly.

 

 

Board-and-jack1.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...