NAMM 2024: Jackson has unveiled its first Idea Collection launch of the yr – remodeling for of its traditional electrical guitar designs for a run of restricted version pace machines which have a Customized Store vibe with out the Customized Store worth.
For the intense participant on the lookout for a severe metallic guitar, the Idea Collection Rhoads, Soloist, King Kelly and eight-string Dinky supply one thing acquainted however totally different to the common Jackson lineup. We may consider this vary as a high-end remix of those traditional Jackson archetypes, with off-menu specs, a top-tier construct, and color choices that embrace black or black, with satin or gloss finishes.
The color is simply one of many working themes to this yr’s Idea Collection. You’ll discover 12” to 16” compound radius fingerboards, massive fats jumbo stainless-steel frets, speedy neck profiles, and Luminlay side-dot markers. Neck heels have all however been sculpted out of existence.
Graphite rods make these necks road-worthy, apocalypse prepared. They every are available a a Jackson Foam Core guitar case. Higher-fret entry is a given. And whereas all this may give the sequence a way of continuity, a way of objective too, every of those guitars is radically totally different.
The Idea Collection 2024 includes a King Kelly, with super-aggressive contouring on its barely off-set Explorer by means of the trying glass; a Rhoads RR24 FR H with a single-pickup and a trick up its sleeve; there’s a 27-fret Soloist; and rounding out the gathering have a monster eight-string Dinky with a hard-tail Hipshot bridge.
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The King Kelly [pictured above] has a neck-through maple neck, alder physique wings, an ebony fingerboard inlayed with pearloid sharkfins and seating 24 extra-jumbo frets.
It’s is supplied with a pair of Naked Knuckle Aftermath humbuckers, that are managed by a three-way pickup selector and quantity and tone pots. There’s a Floyd Rose Collection 1000 vibrato in your divebombing pleasure, and it arrives in Satin Black, priced £2,099 / $2,199.
With its gold {hardware} and white pinstripes, the Rhoads RR24 FR H, is probably the most brightly feathered of the 2024 Idea Collection, however it presents the uneven metallic traditional as a stripped down single-pickup shredder, with an energetic EMG 81 humbucker on the bridge managed by a single quantity management.
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However there’s extra. Pull up on that gold knurled metallic dial and you’ll activate an EMG Activator onboard enhance, packing as much as 20dB of onboard enhance. Sure, it’s the stuff desires are fabricated from.
Elsewhere, it’s the traditional Rhoads; maple neck-through alder construct, ebony fingerboard, pearloid sharkfin inlays, Floyd 1000 Collection vibrato, a six-in-line headstock. The Idea Collection Rhoads RR24 FR H is priced £1,909 / $1,999.
Now for the Superstrats. First up, it’s a hot-rodded tackle Jackson’s venerable neck-through S-style, the Soloist. Every thing seems so as right here, Seymour Duncan Sizzling Rails on the neck, a Distortion TB-6 on the bridge place, and a Floyd 1000 Collection as a result of it could be impolite to not.
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However look nearer at that ebony fingerboard – and no, we don’t imply on the Day-glo twelfth fret sharkfin, matching the pickup bobbins. Take a look at the frets. Rely ‘em out.
That’s proper, this fretboard goes to 27, so you will get proper up there and fret notes that solely the canine companion in your life will right here. Very cool. It, too, is priced £1,909 / $1,999.
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Lastly, for these gigs the place you play riffs which can be so heavy you must bend the knee and maintain the again straight – y’know, simply in case – there’s an eight-string Dinky, which is something however dinky.
It has the immediately recognisable arch-topped basswood physique. The maple neck has been strengthened with a strip of wenge – there’s graphite too for good measure. And since these 8-string guitars demand a sure one thing from the pickups, Jackson has gone for a pair of Fishman Fluence Trendy humbuckers right here, with their multi-voiced efficiency simply the kind of factor you want when working within the progressive metallic house, i.e. “brutal aggression and passive punch in the identical guitar”. Good. It’s priced at £1,959 / $1,899.
The Idea Collection needs to be accessible to pre-order at most retailers, delivery April 2024. For extra particulars see Jackson.
