Price Paid: £ 949 (used)
Description: This is axe comes with two Dimarzio Breed Humbuckers and a Dimarzio Sigle coil, a double locking lo-pro-edge tremolo arm. It has an American basswood body and a silky smooth maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. It also has the amazing flower and vine inlay found on the other Steve Vai models
Tone:
Comments: This guitar has a beautiful tone when it comes to playing metal or hard rock as the pickups offer an excellent bass and treble response allowing you to get the perfect sound for those crunching, muted chords. As I was playing through a 5150 half stack I didn't get much in the way of versatility of tones as I was playing it with balls out death-metal distortion but through an amp with a little less gain (Marshall JCM 800) the pickups offered a nice robust clean sound with a little distortion to give it a warmer and not so twangy clean tone.
Quality:
Comments: This guitar is beautifully made from the basswood body to the maple neck. Although the body is a little heavy it offers lots of resonance giving the guitar very high levels of sustain. The bolt-on maple neck is soooo smooth and is a pleasure to play as even with slightly damp hands, my hands did not stick to the neck enabling me to play fast and comfortably without really breaking my stride. I noticed a little lax file work around the higher regions of the neck and on the body as it joins the neck which made it fell a little 'sharper' and not so rounded as it is lower down, but to be honest it didn't really make playing much more difficult. I also had the same problem around the handle that is cut into the body. As for the initial setup of this guitar, it is perfect for those who want to play hard rock as the tremolo stays in tune after obscene amounts of use and abuse and the pickups offer the wellbalanced tone required. I personally outfitted it with a pair of EMG 81's as I play Death-metal and the change in sound was immediate and very much to my liking.
Overall:
Pros: For me this guitar is perfect as it looks beautiful, plays beautiful and sounds amazing. What it lacks in versatility it makes up for in sheer playing pleasure. The JEM is an absolute jem.
Cons: The lax file work lets this guitar down so much as it annoys me how a small piece of laziness on the manufacturers part stopped this guitar from perfection. It is also quite expensive for a bolt on neck guitar.

Submitted by:
Daniel Knight
Playing Experience:
one to two years
Musical Tastes:
heavy metal

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