Words by Bruce Andreasen
Jackson’s American Series is back in town, and it has delivered a Soloist titled the SL2 DX. This one ditched the overused actives and went back to the reliability and durability of passives in guitar, with the same characteristics it has always had. It is just a little slicker this time around!
I open the zipper on the soft-shell hard case gig bag and the SL2 DX greets me with a Satin Black finish and Floyd Rose bridge, which is exactly the guitar I would have picked if they had have asked me. It seems Fender Australia somehow knows me, or this was just a complete coincidence. The guitar also comes in Lemon Ice if you have opted for the Hipshot Hardtail model, or Satin Porsche Grey & Snow White if you are a Floyd-Rose dive-bombing freak.
The satin is slick without feeling cheap, the binding is dead straight and pretty much non-existent, and the alder body attached seamlessly neck-through-body to the maple neck scream death to all but metal! The guitar is reasonably light but still heavy enough that you know it is there and can take complete control over it.
This thing is superfast due to Jackson’s legendary Speed Neck carve, and the oiled satin finish is so smooth that your hand glides effortlessly up and down the neck at lightning speed. You will get down it quicker than you down your next Crown and Coke. The jumbo stainless frets in the rolled ebony fretboard make it too easy to nail every note, and the action is about as low as you can go! Luminlay® side dots line the neck, which makes your fret position super easy to see when the lighting guy shuts your lights off right at the solo.
The SL2 DX if fitted with a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge, and ’59 in the neck, with a 5-way switch so that you can play with the “tone”. I just left it on the bridge and the tone and volume at max while dropping some dive bombs on the Floyd Rose and reliving my heyday. Hesitantly, though, I did switch it to the neck pick-up and dropped some leads that were super smooth but still nice and bitey. Both pick-ups have some serious grunt even on a clean tone, so before you get into that pretty business, you might want to dial your amp EQ back a touch.
Anyone who plays, or has played a Floyd Rose, is aware of the double locking system, which keeps your strings in tune even after the heaviest of dive bombs. The guitar was transported interstate for me, and it arrived perfectly in tune. I was shocked, but then I discovered that the guitar is also fitted with Gotoh® MG-T locking tuners, which leave no room for string movement whatsoever. Another little added bonus is that there is a holder on the back of the head for your Allen keys, which means they are always easy to find when you snap a string on stage in full shred.
You can stop reading now and go shred! Oh wait, you will need to go and pick one of these up from your local retailer first. These guys are not cheap though, coming in at around 4k, but God damn it is worth it. This is a high-level guitar for high-level shredders, and those trying to be high-level shredders!
Did I mention this guitar comes with a free set of strap locks? I did not? Well, now you know. For all the spec guys, here they are below!
Specifications:
- Alder body
- Through-body three-piece maple neck with graphite reinforcement • 12″-16″ compound radius rolled ebony fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets and inverse mother of pearl shark fin inlays
- Seymour Duncan® JB/59 pickups
- Five-way blade pickup switch, single volume control and single tone control • Floyd Rose® 1500 Series double-locking tremolo bridge system
- Luminlay® side dots
- Heel-mount truss rod adjustment wheel.
- Dunlop® dual-locking strap buttons
- Gotoh® MG-T locking tuners
- Jackson Foam-Core case included.
