Hey all,
I just picked this up at the Marin Guitar Show. I've been waiting 9 months for it, and I'm over the moon. I just had to share :)

The body wood is burled maple, on an aluminium frame. Neck is birdseye maple and wenge, and the fretboard is birdseye maple. It plays beautifully, though the scalloping will take a little getting used to:

Dang It looks like its alive!!!

Yeah - guess it's a love it or hate it sort of thing. Me, I love it. And it plays *so* well - far better than my others.

That's a wicked looking thing! I like it! I'm sitting around moping waiting for my delayed ESP E-II.

Thanks :).

I know how that feels - I originally expected this back in January. It's totally worth the wait, though - I'm sure yours will be too. ESPs are really nice.

Man... that Spalt is awesome! I have been humming and hawing over ordering one... looks cool, I can't wait to hear you post some stuff! How much was that if you don't mind me asking? How was the purchase process?

Awesome! Loved the playing, cool tones man. Really dug 'Panama'.

Thanks man. I was very nervous playing it - only had it an hour or so - and you can hear that clearly in the vid. Also, the scalloping was giving me some problems with chords and tuning. I'm getting used to it now, and extremely happy with how it plays and sounds.

lol Yeah, I have a YJM strat that I play a lot, full scallops too, and it's a bit of getting used to for sure, lol plus I'm sort of a heavy handed player which doesn't help much hahaha

Yeah, really cool axe.

lol The more I look at your guitar, the more I want one.

You should go for it. I'm *really* happy with it.

(Quietly: No thread-hijack, but I got my ESP/E-II the other day. Best guitar I've ever played. I've not played a lot of high-end guitars besides Ibanez Universe and that flowery-Jem.)

Let's see a vid of it then!

This one's for you, Cliff:

http://tinypic.com/r/6ny0l3/5

That's the only 30 seconds I managed to pull off without missing that much beat. Lamb of God riff first, some intermission-kinda-riff, and my favorite Meshuggah-riff at the end. I don't perform solos. I just practice for the day I will! Doing this video, I found my old AmpliTube-settings on the Mac is not what I want with the new guitar (the preset sounds a bit hollow), so I've got to sit down and figure out some new settings.

I record video on Windows and sound on Mac. I click start record video and then start record audio, so piecing together the two gets done manually in Windows. Thus it's out of sync until I find a webcam that works hasslefree on Mac.

Hey Tom - that sounds great! I particularly liked the last riff - is that a Mesa Rectifier emulation?

The software is basically a program that contains amplifiers, pedals, effects, and all that. Then people piece and chain these together to create different tones. I there's actually a Mesa Rectifier preset in there as well, but there's hundreds and hundreds of presets. You can configure the different stompboxes, cabinets, and what not. Literally tons of settings, so it's all Greek to a gear-newbie like myself. I download presets and try them out. I am very picky with the type of sound I want, and lots of the settings are too extreme/processed for my liking, but when I find a good foundation, I'll sit and twist and turn knobs and stuff in there. I spent something like a day cluelessly twisting the knobs to get a decent sound out of my Ibanez, and using the same setting did not turn out nearly as brutal on the ESP/E-II. It's called Amplitube 3 and there's lots of links on YouTube -- I was not allowed to post links in this thread: "Your posts contains to many links. A maximum of 0 links is allowed.".

I connect the guitar to the computer via the Apogee Jam piece of hardware from guitar to USB.

The aluminum must give it good sustain. I remember Kramer used to have a guitar with a Aluminum Neck/Headstock, I thought it looked very unique.

Yep, it certainly does have good sustain. A couple of my others are not so great on the 12-15th frets on the E and B strings, but this one is fine there. I think in part that's just down to better fretwork (I have my action pretty low).

There's also the Jackson Roswell Rhoads, whose body is made out of aluminium. They're pretty rare (and pricey).

Hi
I bought a new guitar Jackson Kelly KEXTMG and it arrived yesterday and I am having one problem. So this guitar sounds off on the high E 24th fret. I am not sure if it is the intonation problem or the 24th fret is off or may be it is just my ears. I am going to have the return the guitar if the fret is off and that is going to suck because I am going to trade my other two guitars at guitar center tomorrow and i won't have a guitar to practice for few days. Please advise.

Disclaimer: I'm no expert :).

Have you looked it with a tuner to see how far out it is? My ears aren't the greatest, but it didn't seem to me like there was too much difference between the harmonic at the 24th fret and the fretted note at the 24th. It does sound like it's not articulating very well, however. From my limited understanding, if the harmonic and fretted note at the 12th note match, that's about as good as you can get intonation wise.

A couple of avenues to explore. You could try jcfonline.com, which is a forum dedicated to Jackson and Charvels. It's a very active forum with lots of knowledgeable members. I'd definitely ask advice there. It may be someone has the same guitar and it's a known issue.
Also, if you're going to guitar center, don't they all have set-up services? It might be worth asking them to take a look.

Quote: diegopaudyal wrote in post #19

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Hi
I bought a new guitar Jackson Kelly KEXTMG and it arrived yesterday and I am having one problem. So this guitar sounds off on the high E 24th fret. I am not sure if it is the intonation problem or the 24th fret is off or may be it is just my ears. I am going to have the return the guitar if the fret is off and that is going to suck because I am going to trade my other two guitars at guitar center tomorrow and i won't have a guitar to practice for few days. Please advise.

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Fretted note sound much higher to me if the intonation is fine at the twelfth fret cant see changing the intonation solving it but allways worth a try. you sure you not pressing too hard on the fretted note?

Yeah i guess that's the problem with Chinese guitars. btw i like this guitar more than the js1000 I have. It is very comfortable to play while standing and sitting. My picking hand starts hurting if i play js1000 for 5 minutes but I can play this guitar for hours without any pain. I guess that is because of the body shape. I am not fretting too hard on the fretted note. I will take this guitar to guitar center as well today.

Thank you guys.

So much for my sense of pitch. I guess that explains why my bends are so bad :).

I agree with Ursin about the Japanese and American guitars. All the low-end Jacksons I've tried at GC have been pretty poor, but the Japanese ones are great value for money. If you can return yours, it might be worth looking on Ebay or craigslist for a used Japanese model at about the same price point.