NAMM 2016: Charvel and Jackson Guitars
CHARVEL GUITARS
A tour of the new Charvel guitar lineup for 2016, including the Pro-Mod, So Cal, Hardtails, and brilliant new finishes.
TEXT OF VIDEO:
This is Peter Wichers with Charvel and Jackson at NAMM 2016 with Long and McQuade. I'm going to walk you through our Charvel section. This year we've made some upgrades to the Pro Mods and we're really excited about it. Let me start out here. As you can see, we have an addition to last year, where we have this lime green and this Pacific ocean. We've added some neon colours this year. We have the rocket red, neon pink, neon yellow, in addition to a lot of other finishes. Let me grab one of these guitars and talk you through some of the specs.
What we've done this year is we've changed the control layout for this guitar. Historically this guitar has normally just had a volume nob and a three way toggle. What we've done is in order to make this more ergonomic when you're playing, we've moved down the volume nob slightly and we've added a tone nob and a three-way blade. The reason for this is so that when you play this guitar, your pinky doesn't actually hit the volume nob. And for those people that are purists that really don't like a tone nob on a Charvel, I got good news for you. Because basically what we've done is we've added a no load tone nob, which means that it basically bypasses the capacitor in this one, so when it's at ten, it's as if you didn't have one. The reason we added a tone nob is because sometimes when you play cleans, you might not want to have the very very shrill sound, so you can basically just roll it off. What we've done as well since we switched to a three way blade ...
I'm going to talk you through the configuration with the pick ups. In the bridge position you're going to have the full bridge. When you go to the middle, you're going to have inner coils. We decided that not many people actually utilized those pick ups in the middle position, so we thought it was better to make something that's really useful. You do...the inner section right here, you got that kind of Petrucci [John Petrucci of Dream Theatre] like sound. You go to the upper position, you're going to get the full neck position. In addition to that, you can use it, or you don't have to. It's a push pull. So push pull … you're going to do the outer coil, you get to the middle position you're going to have outer coils for that out of phase Telecaster kind of sound. You go to the neck position, you're going to have the outer coil on this one as well. You can do a lot, you can get a lot of those Strat sounds out of this Charvel as well.
Another thing that's important to talk about is the addition of the thumb wheel. Now this has been something that a lot of people complained about, because in the past, historically you haven't been able to adjust the truss rod on the Charvels unless you took the neck off, untwist it and put it back on. We've added the thumb wheel in here, to this one this year. This is always equipped with the compound radius twelve to sixteen fingerboard. It's got the rolled edges, which makes it feel like butter. We've actually also added graphite reinforcement to this one to make this one even more stable for the weekend warrior. It's the perfect guitar to play, for professionals, or if you're just a weekend warrior basically.
Putting this one back, as you can see this is our San Dimas with Floyd and two Humbuckers. Comes in solid colors. We have trans finishes over here. We got four different ones, we got trans red, tobacco, trans black, and trans purple.
If we go down, I'm going to grab one of these guitars. I'm picking up the rocket red So-Cal right now. As you can see, what we've done is we've done this across all three platforms where we basically have changed the position and added a tone nob. Everyone gets the same options. Main difference with this guitar, previously we had input jack, like a strap jack on top of the body. Because of the fact that we're using a Recessed Floyd Rose, the Floyd sits further down on the body, and a lot of times people were, when they go to use the Floyd they want to go back and do dive bombs and so forth. They said that the cable basically sticks out and your arm gets stuck in it. We've actually switched it and put it on the side. Other than that, this one comes equipped with Seymour Duncan distortions, and the other two models come equipped with the JV and 59.
The other thing we did this year is we decided to make a refresh on the Hardtails as well. We've changed to a little bit of a more solid and more of a high mass Hardtail bridge, which is perfectly ergonomic and you don't get stuck...compared to the other one. The other thing in this one is what used to be a hum-sing, now it's a hum-hum. You're going to get the same features with the close splitting on this one … in addition to that, what we've done is we've added two other finishes. We have five finishes right now. We have the satin cobalt blue, we got the satin orange blaze, we have a trans option which is the trans blue burst, and as you can see over here we have a metallic black and a snow white, which now have a maple fingerboard. Which was not something we offered in the Hardtail version before.
JACKSON GUITARS
A tour of the Jackson guitars lineup at NAMM 2016, including the Christian Andreu Signature Rhodes, the Monarch, the Chris Broderick Signature, and more!
TEXT OF VIDEO:
This is Peter Wichers with Jackson and Charvel, here at NAMM 2016. I'm here with Long and McQuade and I'm going to walk you through some of the stuff that we are offering this year.
Starting over on this side, we have ... We already work with Joe [Gojira’s Joe Duplantier] over on the Charvel side. This year we are launching his band mate Christian Andreu’s new model. This is the ... his signature Rhoads. This one comes in two different price points. We have U.S.A version which is what you are seeing right here. We also have an import version. Basically on the U.S.A model, this an all mahogany body. With an all mahogany neck. For that great sustain. The differences between this one as well is that you have the Tune-o-matic bridge to compensate for the compound radius. We have the dragon outlined. The outlined dragon motive on the body. One volume knob.
The Gojira G. This one comes in satin black with a very subtle grey bevel. It's got a painted neck and the import model comes in satin black and is got mahogany body with a maple neck. That's the main difference on that one as well.
Last year we launched the Misha Mansoor Juggernaut model in six and seven. This year we are doing a limited edition eight string of the Juggernaut. This one will come with a certificate. This will be a limited run, it’s a thirty piece run. Main differences on this one compared to the other one, is that it's an alder body. The other solid finishes that he has is basswood. This one is a twenty seven scale length. Which is different from the other two that he has. He uses his bare knuckle pickups. The Signature, these are eight string. We got the Hipshot bridge, the Hipshot O-rings and these are going fast. It's a really cool guitar.
Over here is a new guitar for Jackson … that we've been working on for about two years … we dubbed this one the Monarch. What you're seeing right here is the Pro Series model. Couple things on this guitar, you have that mean looking horn cut right here. This has a three ply binding, an arch top and this one is actually a mahogany body with a maple cap.
You also have the outlined, reduced size sharkfins on this one. Pro Series comes with an ebony finger board. We have the Seymour Duncan blackout pickups. Two volumes, one tone. All the Pro Series have a matching head stock. Other common features are a compound radius and ... the necks, they're unfinished so it's a really comfortable guitar to play. You've got that signature Jackson neck that's the D-shaped, the speed neck.
This one will come in three different variations, I have ... Over here I'm going to grab this one, this is our X Series version. This one comes with the black binding on the body, neck and head stock. It also has a Rosewood finger board … it’s the same control configuration, body is all mahogany and these are all set neck. These aren't neck throughs like most of the Charvels because we felt like this is the kind of guitar that needs that tone that's a little bit different from a neck through guitar. This one will come in quicksilver and in satin black.
The other one we have over here is our JS model. The difference between this one is this one is not an arch top. It's a flat top. It's got a bevel on it and an arm contour, so it's really comfortable to play. These guitars are all 24 and 3/4 scale length. The difference between this one as well, other than being a flat top is that it has a volume, a tone and a three-way toggle.
On the back, as you can see right here, this is a bolt on but we still have the same shredders heel here and also that contoured heel so you can really get up there to the higher registers. The X series, also in addition to this, has a seven string model, which has a different scale length. It's actually 25 1/2 and it comes equipped with Seymour Duncan Sentient and Nazgul pickups.
Moving over here, we have a new Rhoades model this year. This one looks similar to the RRT-3, which is in ivory with the black pin stripes on it. But that one is a Tune-o-matic, with a string through body, this one is a Floyd Rose version of the guitar, so it's basically the same guitar but with a Floyd Rose bridge.
We have a couple more Artist models over here. We've been working closely with Chris Broderick, which we currently offer a six and a seven string model with a Floyd Rose. For this year we have worked closely with Chris on developing a Hardtail version of this guitar. As you can see right here, this isn't a normal Hardtail, these are actually individual saddles to separate the tones so you can get a clearer and more defined tone when you play this one.
This is not a string through body either, you actually load the string through the bridge in the back. Specs are the same as the Floyd Rose model, in addition to this one has ... this is a new finish, the trans blue, the trans blue finish comes on the two Hardtails, the six and seven. We have the big fat quilt maple top, mahogany wings, maple neck, matching head stock. You have the natural binding, which is basically, it's a pretty tricky concept where you have to mask off and then paint the binding. It's all natural. That's the same for the head stock and the neck and the body. This guitar comes in all the same finishes as the Floyd Rose version in addition with the trans blue version.
Over here we have our good friend Dave Ellefson, we've launched a new model this year. A U.S.A. model and an X Series model. The U.S.A. model will have all the premium features, you have ebony finger board. It's a neck through construction, if you look at the back it's a neck through construction on it's base. What we did differently on this one is we've carved out and made a bevel and we've added scallops to this body. Makes it look super mean and really cool. Specs are the same. We also changed the configuration for the knobs because before we felt like everything was clustered together quite a bit and this time we kind of spaced everything out so it streamlined ergonomically with the body.
This one will come in satin silver and in satin black. The main difference is the satin silver has a black binding on the body. The satin black will have a silver binding. The X Series model is very similar, but it is a bolt-on version of the same guitar. This one will come in a satin black and a quicksilver finish. Main difference is basically you're going to be looking at a rosewood finger board but most of the specs are the same.
