Jackson X Series Soloist Arch Top SLAT8 Multi-Scale - Gloss Black Reviews

I've lost count on the number of guitars I've owned in my life, but it's enough to know what I like. I like this guitar. Prior to buying this guitar I was splitting playing time (mostly) between two 7 strings: an Ibanez RG and a Schecter A7. Both of them tuned to A with Floyd Rose tremolo and both with EMG 808s. The vast majority of my playing is old school death metal and I've spent years getting my tone solid for low chug and zero mud.

This guitar, out of the box with the stock .064s was brutal. Zero mud and plenty of audible chop. I'll be swapping these strings out for some .084s shortly just to see how far I can push the envelope, but it sounds so good already, it's possible I'll circle right back to these.

The action is money. Down low, there is a slight bit of buzz when banging away on the 8th string, but nothing that affects recordable sound. Up high (above the 12th fret) the action is slightly higher, but still very tight. The wide flat neck was the only thing that I had to get accustomed to. When compared to my Ibanez or silky smooth Schecter, it initially felt a little slow but, once I changed my hand position a little (trying to over compensate for the multi-scale fret design at bit too much initially) it all started to come together. After about an hour of playing, I stopped noticing the neck design or the fret differences altogether.

The EMGs are exactly what I wanted. Back in the day (early 90s), finding 808s was way more complicated than it is today. We had to carve up our guitars and hide batteries and all that. This guitar has a nice little battery compartment ala 1980's Casio keyboard and they sound amazing. Whether nasty crunch or clean, the sound .. out of the box .. is hard to beat.

This is my new favorite guitar (even over my 90 Ibanez Jem777) and, if you don't consider the cost, the single best guitar purchase I've made since discovering the Schecter A7. If you DO consider the cost .. it's maybe the best purchase of my life.

Stop waiting. Stop comparing and grinding your brain over every last detail. This is the one.

This is a solid 8 string, similar to an Ibanez prestige build (at least to me). I'm not a huge Jackson Guitars fan, not that they don't make great guitars, I just prefer other manufacturers. This guitar honestly surprised me at how good it is, I was kind of expecting a little less quality. The neck is very thin (from the thumb side to the frets side) and easy to fret. I don't really notice that the frets are fanned when I'm playing it, it's easy to transition between playing my other guitars and this guitar. The pickups are EMGs which are good enough for me since most of my guitars have them. I know a lot of people prefer other pickup setups, but for a stock model, they do great in my opinion. It came playable right out of the box, but I am still messing around with the action as I prefer to have as low action with least fret buzz as possible, but that's just personal preference. The strings that come on it seem a little bigger than my other 8 string, I'm used to 10s, so heads up on that, seems like a hybrid set. The volume and tone knobs roll smoothly and they're a little harder to turn than some of my other guitars which helps keep me from accidentally turning the volume down, which I find myself doing sometimes with other guitars.

Now for my complaints:

Why did Jackson leave extra fretboard AFTER the nut? It looks goofy and unfinished on the head stock like that. I get that the nut is fanned, but aesthetically it just looks like they didn't finish designing the neck with the fanned nut concept with that leftover fretboard behind the nut.

Why does the neck and headstock have white binding, but the body doesn't? I think that is kind of silly.

And that's it. This is the only 8 string on the market at the moment that I would buy, which I think is ridiculous since Ibanez, ESP, etc all could make a guitar just like this, they have in the past, and sell tons. A simple black 8 string with EMGs under or near a grand. That's as basic as it gets. But apparently Jackson is the only manufacturer with some common sense to sell this at the moment.

Anyway, this guitar is great and Sweetwater goes through incredible lengths offering their support if you have any questions. They sent a little bag of candy with the guitar too, lol.

I love everything about this guitar, but the tone/sustain of the pickups is not the greatest, so 4.5 stars. BUT it still sounds good and plays incredible. Well worth the money! If I was playing metal I might not even have mentioned the tone. Jackson is doing some great work! It needed only the slightest adjustment of the saddles out of the box. I highly recommend this guitar. peace/\/\/

This is my second 8 string, first multi-scale, and I hate it. It was an impulse buy from the guitar I really wanted not being in stock. As such, I didn't check several things that were disappointing. The lack of dots on the fretboard make long runs difficult, I didn't expect the feel for multi-scale to throw me off to the point where I almost have to look to be able to play - and even then it's disorienting above the 12th fret trying to figure out where things are. It feels like I'm playing in cursive and isn't kind to my wrist/play style.

The fretboard does not play well either, particularly as compared to an Ibanez RG8. Sliding sucks, the board feels sticky and something I didn't consider is when sliding down to the 1st fret on the 8th string - the nut's sharp corner will cut your finger. It's painful to djent, how do you let that happen?! I had this setup at SW but the guitar just doesn't play well - again the Ibanez RG8 for $400 plays infinitely better and less than half the price. The tone is not that great on this guitar either, and I also didn't realize these are active pickups that need a 9 volt. My personal pref is all those guitars are garbage - for the price point I'm just super disappointed.

The ONLY pro I can see or think of, is that the hardware wasn't loose.