Jackson Adrian Smith - 30 Day Report:

Inspector #20

Inspector #20

Ambassador of Tone
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Nice guitar. Excellent neck. Did not like having to remove the neck to remove the pickguard and having to remove the neck to adjust truss rod, but both are manageable. It took about 18-21 days for the neck to settle and the frets start buzzing. It required 1/2 turn of the double-acting truss rod @ standard tuning to get .010" relief at the 6th fret.

Action is set to my usual SOP of .070" on both sides.

The 2004 vintage GFS Double-Slug (13.9kΩ) has an emphasis on mids and top end that works well with the EMG equipped Schceter C1 on recordings.

The 2004 Vintage GFS 10kΩ Tru-Coil (Hum Canceling) in the Middle is bright and clear and well balanced to the bridge with zero wolf-tones.

Guitar just seems so 'plain white wrapper' to me.

Jackson GFS Pickups.jpg

What about random red pinstripes to match the pickguard????

The 2004 Vintage 7kΩ Tru-Coil (Hum canceling) is full and woody, but maintains perfect volume balance when the 5-way switch is moved through its range of motion.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
SO, do I understand that you swapped out the Jackson pups for GFS ones? UMM It is your guitar, BUT I would not like the pinstripes.
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Yes....The Jackson Humbucker - basically a DiMarzio Super Distortion, is has a lot of high-end emphasis and is thin sounding. The Jackson single coils are weak, have vintage stagger and create hellacious wolf-tones....
 
I am trying to envision how they sound. Awhile back when you first mentioned them a few years ago, my mind thought one thing. Now it is thinking my ears would hear and describe it differently. Do they primarily happen on open strings, single note, chords or what? Neck or Bridge pup primarily or both?
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
I am trying to envision how they sound. Awhile back when you first mentioned them a few years ago, my mind thought one thing. Now it is thinking my ears would hear and describe it differently. Do they primarily happen on open strings, single note, chords or what? Neck or Bridge pup primarily or both?
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Perfect Example right here!!!!




The trouble is, when you lower the pickup enough to make the condition go away, the output between pickups is imbalanced. HUGE problem on staggered 'vintage style' single coils and almost every Strat you play will have horrible imbalance to compensate.

Imbalance and wolf-tones are NOT a problem with the non-staggered Tru-Coils...
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
I didn't know there was a place or places where anyone ever made comments or conclusions about this particular model.
You are gonna make me wish I had gotten that beast off Adrian before you did.

BTW, can you make us some clips of examples of these wolftones, then repeat the same riffs with pups/setups in the same guitar with them gone?
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The pickguard came out the same day I got the guitar from Adrian....
 
Robert Herndon said:
Perfect Example right here!!!!




The trouble is, when you lower the pickup enough to make the condition go away, the output between pickups is imbalanced. HUGE problem on staggered 'vintage style' single coils and almost every Strat you play will have horrible imbalance to compensate.

Imbalance and wolf-tones are NOT a problem with the non-staggered Tru-Coils...
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Oh yeah, This reminds me of a time years ago when my blind friend told me one has to be careful on setup like string and pickup heights as pickup magnets can pull strings flat or sharp etc. I can see where distance away from strings like this guy does can make or take away wolf tones.
 
Robert Herndon said:
Perfect Example right here!!!!




The trouble is, when you lower the pickup enough to make the condition go away, the output between pickups is imbalanced. HUGE problem on staggered 'vintage style' single coils and almost every Strat you play will have horrible imbalance to compensate.

Imbalance and wolf-tones are NOT a problem with the non-staggered Tru-Coils...
Click to expand...

This is what I really dislike about traditional Strat pickups, with polepiece magnets. The last Strat I had ended up with Seymour Duncan Rails that have the magnets on the bottom and dual coils like a humbucker. Cured the problem and sounded sooo much better in the process.
 
I really don't understand why the "vintage stagger" is persisted with on guitars without the 7.25" radius neck that it is suited to. Fender, even on some higher end guitars persists with the vintage stagger poles when a more suitable stagger would obviously make for a better mouse trap. My select Strat is a prime example. 9.5 ~ 14" compound radius neck, pickups wound specifically for the select series & they use the vintage stagger poles. They need to be set quite low to avoid wolftones on the D & G strings especially. As the pickups have fibreboard flatwork Ive been tempted to press the poles down through the pickups but am worried I'd F them up. Cheers
 
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