Jackson American Series Virtuoso Electric Guitar - Satin Black Reviews

I bought this when they first came out, got it in September of 23. Full disclosure, I had Sweetwater plek this guitar and set it up with D'addario NYXL .010-.046 and install Floyd Rose noiseless trem springs. The NYXL's are just fabulous on this giutar it's a perfect match, and Sweetwaters guitar workshop always does fantastic work. When I first saw these I was wondering where the sharkfin inlays were, but the designers at Jackson knew what they were doing, it looks awesome with that streaked ebony board, which by the way is a great tight grained ebony board, I love it. This quickly became my number one guitar and at the time I had an mj series solist (fantastic guitar as well) but this guitar was just so much better. This is by far the most comfortable guitar I've ever played, the neck is insanely good, the finish is so smooth and it's so easy to play. It's a thin neck for sure but in a good way, easy chording and easy solos. I love the matte finish as well, very comfortable. What really blew me away was how versatile this guitar is, the bridge is perfect for the heavy stuff but this thing cleans up very nicely. The 5 position switch gives you plenty of options, position 4 sounds like a strat. If you are in to recording you're going to love the versatility, one guitar to rule them all so to say. Compared to the mj solist this guitar is a little brighter and more snappy and I mean that in a good way, I suppose thats due to the bolt on neck, I'm not sure but I couldn't be happier. The neck is extremely stable as well, I live in a very dry climate and have not had to adjust it yet, it's still set up the way Sweetwater sent it. This thing will do anything from Pantera to Chris Isaak. I honestly have nothing negative to say about it, fantastic instument all around, plays great, sounds amazing, it's comfortable, and it looks cool too.
Now for the less important stuff. My guitar was flawless in the fit and finish category, no defects whatsoever. It's loaded with high end features, I appreciate the locking tuners even if you don't need them, I'd rather be playing than changing strings any time. The case is just ok but at least you get something, At this price point I'm surprised it came with one. Just add a little padding around the body and it works just fine for short trips. I'll eventually buy a hard case for it. The Floyd 1500 has been great, it's always in tune. I'm not a tremelo expert but I've had the gotoh 1996, I have an edge zero and now the Floyd 1500. They all work the same to me, they do their job well. Personally I like the feel of the Floyd the best, my hand sits just right for palm muting feels more natural to me. It comes with Dunlop strap locks as well and they work great. Just in case Jackson reads these reviews, I would love to see a Virtuoso version of the new American soloist with the emg's. I can guarantee you'd sell at least one, make it in matte white with the matte black headstock and the carmalized neck, that would be beautiful. Anyway, bit of a long review but this guitar is worth it. This is a fantastic instrument all around and I feel lucky to own one, it's a keeper for sure I will never get rid of this guitar. Big Thanks to Darcee my sales engineer, the guitar workshop and everyone at Sweetwater, and a great big thank you to Jackson for bringing us this gem at this price point. I'll wait patiently for the matte white virtuoso with emg's.

My Jackson Virtuoso has practically an identical neck shape as my old Charvel, which has the best (= fastest and most comfortable to play) guitar neck I've ever played! This is the main reason why I gave it 5 stars. Perhaps with the exception of the necks of my EBMM JP16 and Custom Shop Jackson (CSJ), no guitar necks I've ever played were very similar to the favorite and a couple of times refretted neck of my old Charvel. [Of course, the neck shape's preference is a very subjective entity and some players may hate this neck shape. :)]

For succinctly describing various Virtuoso's good, bad and ugly features (from my standpoint), I will compare 3 very similar guitars, i.e., my CSJ, Virtuoso and Charvel (see the first picture). BTW, all 3 guitars have the same SD JB TB-4 (bridge) and '59 SH-1N (neck) pickups.

The good:
1) The Virtuoso neck's shape is very exceptional as if being designed to be a copy of my Charvel's neck, and it plays with an extremely low action without buzzing (perhaps being factory-PLEK'd?).
2) Its Gotoh locking tuners are one of the best tuners around (my CSJ and Charvel do not have locking tuners).
3) Its Luminlay side markers provide good guidance even on the darkest stages – see the first picture. My CSJ and Charvel do not have Luminlay inlays.
4) The classic tried and true combo of JB & '59 pickups and a 5-way pickup selector generate both great humbucking and believable single-coil sounds. My CSJ and Charvel have 3-way toggle switches and can produce only humbucking sounds.

The bad:
In contrast to the original Floyd Rose with fat brass tremolo sustain blocks present in my CSJ and Charvel, the Virtuoso has a cheaper and inferior Floyd Rose 1500, with a relatively thin metal tremolo block (see the left side in the second picture), and a push-in tremolo arm (in the middle of the right side in the second picture, showing also the CSJ and Charvel tremolo arms), "controlled" with a plastic inner ring and a tension screw (not very easy to set it up so that it would be neither too loose nor too tight).

The ugly:
While my CSJ and Charvel have strong and well-protective factory hardshell cases, the Virtuoso sells with a flimsy, nasty, inadequate, soft and ridiculous case (see the third picture), with a strange insert (polystyrene wrapped in a plastic foil – see the right side in the third picture) obviously meant to prevent the guitar hopelessly free-floating in the case (and getting damaged) during any transport. Without this ghastly, feeble insert, the provided Jackson case is completely useless.