I'm in love with my X guitars. I have several. I get the fast feel and playability of the expensive USA Jackson (multi-thousands) without going broke. I'm not going to pretend that it's a perfect top notch guitar, but ... at some point, with how great they play, it doesn't even matter to me, I'm proud of my Xs.
I have the kext and its great I love it after putting some work in it and swapping out the pickups for some dave mystaine thrash factors I plan on getting this one soon or the jeff loomis
I always look at the things I can't change on a guitar. How does the neck feel, how is the finish, etc. Things like pickups and pots I quite often end up changing anyway because I think it's fun.
@@countzero5150 no for reals I have about 5 guitars now and uts the feel i care about more than anything I know I love mice slim necks and pointy shapes lol
I've got an X series Dinky and an X series Soloist. Two of my favorite guitars in my collection. The Dinky came with Fishman Fluence Modern pickups, which are great. The Soloist came with white Jackson pickups, that were kinda garbage. I put a Nazgul/Sentient set, which are freaking awesome!
I got 2 of these used for a great deal and I’m very happy with them. Both came with upgraded pickups but I locked the trems bc I didn’t want to deal with the nightmare of trying to keep a floyd rose special in tune. Might be looking into upgrading to a gotoh or higher end floyd in the future though
You may wanna spend some time refining your Floyd maintenance skill, I have a js series Rhoads with the stock trem and I don't have any issue keeping it in tune
@@Ayyem93 that's the main factor for people hating on any Floyd. They have no idea how to set it up. My experience has shown me that a Floyd can stay in tune better than most bridges. Mine is set up to float which I think is the best. Also you can really stretch the strings efficiently while pulling up on the bar. Then they really kinda settle in.
I struggled with the floyd on my kelly for a long time, almost gave up on it... then one day it all somehow came together and it's pretty sweet. One of my biggest problems was that I was trying to put on heavier strings and down tune. She just wouldnt have it. Once I caved and put on regular strings and tuned to Eb, life became so much easier...
Thanks for the comment. I recorded the unboxing music with the guitar that was unboxed. I appreciate the suggestion. I will plan a sound demo for a near future video.
I wanted to get a Kelly earlier this year but I went with a Rhoads because Thomann didn't have any Kellys in my price range (€350-€400) in stock at the time and I didn't want to wait for one. What I got isn't the same quality as the guitar in this video but I'm not a professional musician and playing is just a hobby and it's fine for what it does.
Thanks for watching the video. I think all the Jackson price points are decent instruments. when I was a kid in the 80s, affordable guitars were usually unplayable guitars but in the 2020s nearly everything is made on CNCs so the quality is good across the pricing spectrum.
Good review, thank you. I have 3 copies of these from the X Kelly series, I think it's quite an expensive product, but the Jackson brand values itself for its reputation, too expensive. The instruments, apart from their price, are excellent, well-made, without defects from Indonesia. High output humbucekrs are Belcat ceramic made in Korea, resistance around 13K which means they are really hot (its not popular but some of us very like that). Floyd Rose might already be from the FR1000 series, but you can always change that yourself in a while. The wood is very good and you can hear that it plays through the varnish directly from the body of the guitar, today on the market it is worth attention and very good for the sound. They have been my favorite guitars for a time because they are comfortable to play on them, better than other renowned brands in my opinion. After all, I decided to use kelly`s now and I'm glad it was worth it.
I checked out your channel and subscribed. Thanks for giving the pickup details. I was going to do a future pickup rebuild/rewind on the KEX pickups but when I played it through my tube amps (Especially the Marshall 2555x) they are the most responsive pickups of any of my fleet which are mostly Gibsons, so I am going to keep the stock pickups. I am going to rebuild the Floyd when time permits. The Floyd "Special" is not my favorite but it is better the Floyd "Licensed" Jackson used to use in the 90s and early 2ks.
@@noisetoys1210 😀i dont know what happened to my comment its invisible so i write again. To improve your FR system you dont need to throw away the bridge, the best improvement is you can change only saddles and screws for stainles steel or titanium one, I did with Kaish Music parts. Not expensive worth the price it works as hell , true!! Check on my FB
Thanks, Floyd Rose sells parts to upgrade from zinc castings on their website as well. I was going to include that in this video but I needed to move on to shooting the next video and call this one done.
I got a used X soloist. It had some wiring issues, but I worked them out myself. It worked great... until I broke the middle pickup trying to set it lower into the body. Derp. Decided to just swap them all for a trio of Hot rails.
Hot rails usually sound great through tube amps. I did not swap out the stock Jackson pickups. they turned out to sound pretty good through the Marshalls I have.
I have one of these guitars. I did have to make a serious adjustment. The Nut on the Bass E string was too high. the cut was wrong. I had to sand it down to get the correct string height at the first fret. If it was sold to someone who doesn't work on guitars it would have been a disaster to play or a pricey fix if taken to a luthier. Once i got the locknut height adjusted right the guitar is awesome. Right now the stock pickups are fine. I do have a set of white SD JB/Jazz I might try later. But over all a great guitar. I would agree with your rating
I’ve got one of these showing up tomorrow and I plan to throw in a white JB/Jazz as well. I’ve always pondered the process of fixing a locking nut though, you actually sanded down the metal that the string lays on right? Not the wood underneath the nut? Asking because I realized I might have to do this to one of my guitars and apparently maybe the Kelly as well
You will find sanding or grinding the lock nut metal very labor intensive and maybe produce some undesired results such as the plating peeling off afterward. Adjusting the wood underneath would be a better bet.
@@noisetoys1210 ahh okay true true. I’m happy I asked because now that you said that I don’t even know why I’d consider going for the nut first. I was worried about taking too much material under the nut somehow but forgot that’s what shims are for
@@noisetoys1210 Yeah i did the wood. I have had to do it before on another guitar. Trying to sand down the lock nut would be a nightmare. I could tell it was the way they cut the neck for the nut. It was a pretty easy fix. Just little at a time and keep checking.
I subscribed. You deserve more subscribers. I have several guitars with proprietary pick ups, Jacksons entry level pickups are very decent and very usable, I like them. I can not say that for any of the other brands.
I have the cracked mirror x series Kelly and it's a great guitar in all the ways that count but I feel that for the price, they could have put better pickups in it. It's the same price as an rr3 pro and they manage to put duncan distortion pickups in that.
@@noisetoys1210 they're not the worst, I've even liked the jackson Belcat pickups in other guitars. I just think for the price it's not unreasonable to expect something from dimarzio or seymour duncan.
After going through the pickup phase of growth in my guitar journey, I found that pick ups definitely sound different but the tonal variations can be achieved with the dial on the amp most of the time. If a pup is dark you simply add treble, low output you turn it up or raise the pup, adjust presence or gain, etc.... What I don't like is when I can't remove enough of something from a sound like treble. I didn't care for fishman because at drum volumes through a half stack the top end sounded to trebly and harsh. Kinda like if someone says this speaker is better because it sounds brighter only to find out thats not always necessarily a good thing when you crank up. So you compensate if you can with the dials to get what you want. Worse case buy a EQ pedal it can give you the sound of almost any type of pup. 200 or 300 dollars will be better spent on a EQ or towards a better amp. Speakers sounding different is kinda like pickups. It definitely matters but you can adjust around subjective short comings of the product. I just played through a generic tv speaker from the 90s and was getting great tones with the speaker laying in a random cardboard box on the floor. I was going to blow the speaker for fun but then I was like damn I might need to keep this shit.
I have a few JS series and a pro, looking for another good deal on a pro. I have no complaints at all with any of them. I have never tried any of the intermediate series Jacksons.
@@noisetoys1210 Agreed. Jackson has great deals on all levels, however, so does ESP/LTD, Fender/Squier and a bunch of other brands. But, in my opinion Jackson is the best deal. Seems the X series is the place to start if you want a set neck.
@@tankdarla637 Jackson also will proudly say "Jackson" on the headstock so kids can proudly play almost the same guitars their heroes play no matter the price range. Huge plus in my opinion
The only thing I don't like about Jackson guitars in general is I always get a buzzing note at the 15th fret on the 1st string. I've had all different levels from a JS32KE to a Performer PS4 to several Soloists and they all have the same problem.
I had only one Seymour Duncan Invader laying around and I was going to install that on my Ibanez Xiphos but a friend of mine gave me an EMG 81-85 set for half of the market price and we installed those on my Ibanez, still want to install that Invader into another guitar so I started looking for a guitar for my budget of $500 and found a Jackson Kelly KEX with a little body damage and an LTD Alexi-200, which one I should go with? I really can't decide, If I get the Jackson I'm also open to neck pickup suggestions to go with my Seymour Duncan Invader... Thanks
I also wonder, most Kellys like KEXMG models have the beveled edges but this model doesn't, does that make it feel big? The Jackson Kelly looks smaller than a Gibson Explorer to me but I can compare exactly
I am 6'3" and the guitar feels ok to me. I have the KEX hung up in my office right next to an Explorer and the KEX body is slightly smaller but not by very much. I like them both for different reasons. The KEX looks a little more aggressive than the Explorer does. I hope that helps.
@@noisetoys1210 Thanks, '58 style Explorer is few cms shorter than my Ibanez Xiphos so I think Kelly is not that big (Which is what I want) I'm still going to try both guitars will try to find a store that sells one of them but still thanks thats good to know, Kelly being a neck-thru makes it kinda better than the Alexi-200 to me, I like to use 12 to 24th fret a lot
It is identical to my Gibson Explorer. Several brands are putting the strap button behind the neck instead of in the same relative location that a Strat or Les Paul would have it in and the guitar neck does not want to dive as badly, but the whole front of the guitar wants to point toward ground when you have it on a strap just like the Explorer and Firebird Studio do.
My JS 32 Kelly was superbly balanced. My Rhoads Vs are neck heavy, especially the pro series, however , like noise toys mentioned, maybe the strap buttons are placed well because its not an issue with a strap for me...
I did perform the repair myself. With the pickup removed from the guitar, The pole was pressed out from the bottom while unscrewing the pole at the same time. Once out, the threaded hole of the pickup bobbin was cleaned with denatured alcohol. I used a strand of copper wire held in place by ultra-thin CA glue inside the threaded hole which allowed the pole screw to grab on to the remaining threads.
The three spring set up they use is good the way it is. Only using two springs and stretching them just makes the tremolo a little bouncier and a lot of players don't like the trem to behave that way.
I'm in love with my X guitars. I have several. I get the fast feel and playability of the expensive USA Jackson (multi-thousands) without going broke. I'm not going to pretend that it's a perfect top notch guitar, but ... at some point, with how great they play, it doesn't even matter to me, I'm proud of my Xs.
I'm with you on that. I bought a few other X Jacksons and they are consistent.
I have the kext and its great I love it after putting some work in it and swapping out the pickups for some dave mystaine thrash factors I plan on getting this one soon or the jeff loomis
Nice. Thanks for the comment.
I always look at the things I can't change on a guitar. How does the neck feel, how is the finish, etc. Things like pickups and pots I quite often end up changing anyway because I think it's fun.
@@countzero5150 no for reals I have about 5 guitars now and uts the feel i care about more than anything I know I love mice slim necks and pointy shapes lol
I've got an X series Dinky and an X series Soloist. Two of my favorite guitars in my collection. The Dinky came with Fishman Fluence Modern pickups, which are great. The Soloist came with white Jackson pickups, that were kinda garbage. I put a Nazgul/Sentient set, which are freaking awesome!
Awesome. Thanks for the comment. I will have to check out those pickups.
I got 2 of these used for a great deal and I’m very happy with them. Both came with upgraded pickups but I locked the trems bc I didn’t want to deal with the nightmare of trying to keep a floyd rose special in tune. Might be looking into upgrading to a gotoh or higher end floyd in the future though
Great guitar if you can get it for a decent price but deserves higher quality hardware.
You may wanna spend some time refining your Floyd maintenance skill, I have a js series Rhoads with the stock trem and I don't have any issue keeping it in tune
@@Ayyem93 that's the main factor for people hating on any Floyd. They have no idea how to set it up. My experience has shown me that a Floyd can stay in tune better than most bridges. Mine is set up to float which I think is the best. Also you can really stretch the strings efficiently while pulling up on the bar. Then they really kinda settle in.
I struggled with the floyd on my kelly for a long time, almost gave up on it... then one day it all somehow came together and it's pretty sweet. One of my biggest problems was that I was trying to put on heavier strings and down tune. She just wouldnt have it. Once I caved and put on regular strings and tuned to Eb, life became so much easier...
Excellent review! Honest and through. The unboxing music was cool. Very Def Lep- ish..
Thank you very much for the kind compliment. I really appreciate it.
True.
it sounds exactly like Def Leppard.
Hope u can do a Sound Demo For this beauty
Thanks for the comment. I recorded the unboxing music with the guitar that was unboxed. I appreciate the suggestion. I will plan a sound demo for a near future video.
I wanted to get a Kelly earlier this year but I went with a Rhoads because Thomann didn't have any Kellys in my price range (€350-€400) in stock at the time and I didn't want to wait for one. What I got isn't the same quality as the guitar in this video but I'm not a professional musician and playing is just a hobby and it's fine for what it does.
Thanks for watching the video. I think all the Jackson price points are decent instruments. when I was a kid in the 80s, affordable guitars were usually unplayable guitars but in the 2020s nearly everything is made on CNCs so the quality is good across the pricing spectrum.
I have a KEX Q in green and it's perfect..i beat on it every day and it's the mosy amazing guitar ever owned!!
Good review, thank you. I have 3 copies of these from the X Kelly series, I think it's quite an expensive product, but the Jackson brand values itself for its reputation, too expensive. The instruments, apart from their price, are excellent, well-made, without defects from Indonesia. High output humbucekrs are Belcat ceramic made in Korea, resistance around 13K which means they are really hot (its not popular but some of us very like that). Floyd Rose might already be from the FR1000 series, but you can always change that yourself in a while. The wood is very good and you can hear that it plays through the varnish directly from the body of the guitar, today on the market it is worth attention and very good for the sound. They have been my favorite guitars for a time because they are comfortable to play on them, better than other renowned brands in my opinion. After all, I decided to use kelly`s now and I'm glad it was worth it.
Thanks for the comment.
I checked out your channel and subscribed. Thanks for giving the pickup details. I was going to do a future pickup rebuild/rewind on the KEX pickups but when I played it through my tube amps (Especially the Marshall 2555x) they are the most responsive pickups of any of my fleet which are mostly Gibsons, so I am going to keep the stock pickups. I am going to rebuild the Floyd when time permits. The Floyd "Special" is not my favorite but it is better the Floyd "Licensed" Jackson used to use in the 90s and early 2ks.
@@noisetoys1210 😀i dont know what happened to my comment its invisible so i write again. To improve your FR system you dont need to throw away the bridge, the best improvement is you can change only saddles and screws for stainles steel or titanium one, I did with Kaish Music parts. Not expensive worth the price it works as hell , true!! Check on my FB
Thanks, Floyd Rose sells parts to upgrade from zinc castings on their website as well. I was going to include that in this video but I needed to move on to shooting the next video and call this one done.
@@noisetoys1210 not the same for sure , zinc alloy is absolute for sure less stable and softer than stainless saddles, much much better
I got a used X soloist. It had some wiring issues, but I worked them out myself. It worked great... until I broke the middle pickup trying to set it lower into the body. Derp. Decided to just swap them all for a trio of Hot rails.
Hot rails usually sound great through tube amps. I did not swap out the stock Jackson pickups. they turned out to sound pretty good through the Marshalls I have.
Sounded great ! 🤘🏽
Thanks, I appreciate the comment
IMHO Jackson IS THE BEST FOREVER. ;)
I have one of these guitars. I did have to make a serious adjustment. The Nut on the Bass E string was too high. the cut was wrong. I had to sand it down to get the correct string height at the first fret. If it was sold to someone who doesn't work on guitars it would have been a disaster to play or a pricey fix if taken to a luthier. Once i got the locknut height adjusted right the guitar is awesome. Right now the stock pickups are fine. I do have a set of white SD JB/Jazz I might try later. But over all a great guitar. I would agree with your rating
I’ve got one of these showing up tomorrow and I plan to throw in a white JB/Jazz as well. I’ve always pondered the process of fixing a locking nut though, you actually sanded down the metal that the string lays on right? Not the wood underneath the nut? Asking because I realized I might have to do this to one of my guitars and apparently maybe the Kelly as well
You will find sanding or grinding the lock nut metal very labor intensive and maybe produce some undesired results such as the plating peeling off afterward. Adjusting the wood underneath would be a better bet.
@@noisetoys1210 ahh okay true true. I’m happy I asked because now that you said that I don’t even know why I’d consider going for the nut first. I was worried about taking too much material under the nut somehow but forgot that’s what shims are for
@@noisetoys1210 Yeah i did the wood. I have had to do it before on another guitar. Trying to sand down the lock nut would be a nightmare. I could tell it was the way they cut the neck for the nut. It was a pretty easy fix. Just little at a time and keep checking.
Got myself a PS1 JS22 JS32 & might get a Kelly soon.
Awesome, the Kelly has become one of my favorites.
Hey your next review should be of a Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555X. What do ya say?
I certainly will and everyone should check out Black Mountain Project. Thanks.
The binding is daz white
I subscribed. You deserve more subscribers. I have several guitars with proprietary pick ups, Jacksons entry level pickups are very decent and very usable, I like them. I can not say that for any of the other brands.
Well Thank you very much I appreciate it. I have more videos planned but not ready to post yet.
I subscribed to yours.
@@noisetoys1210 lol, i use my channel to experiment lol
@@noisetoys1210 Do it!
I did.
I have the cracked mirror x series Kelly and it's a great guitar in all the ways that count but I feel that for the price, they could have put better pickups in it. It's the same price as an rr3 pro and they manage to put duncan distortion pickups in that.
Thanks for the comment. I have mixed feelings about the pickups myself.
@@noisetoys1210 they're not the worst, I've even liked the jackson Belcat pickups in other guitars. I just think for the price it's not unreasonable to expect something from dimarzio or seymour duncan.
I whole heartedly agree with you.
After going through the pickup phase of growth in my guitar journey, I found that pick ups definitely sound different but the tonal variations can be achieved with the dial on the amp most of the time. If a pup is dark you simply add treble, low output you turn it up or raise the pup, adjust presence or gain, etc.... What I don't like is when I can't remove enough of something from a sound like treble. I didn't care for fishman because at drum volumes through a half stack the top end sounded to trebly and harsh. Kinda like if someone says this speaker is better because it sounds brighter only to find out thats not always necessarily a good thing when you crank up. So you compensate if you can with the dials to get what you want. Worse case buy a EQ pedal it can give you the sound of almost any type of pup. 200 or 300 dollars will be better spent on a EQ or towards a better amp. Speakers sounding different is kinda like pickups. It definitely matters but you can adjust around subjective short comings of the product. I just played through a generic tv speaker from the 90s and was getting great tones with the speaker laying in a random cardboard box on the floor. I was going to blow the speaker for fun but then I was like damn I might need to keep this shit.
@@countzero5150the iron label Ibanez are around the same price and they all have awesome dimarzio pickups
I have a few JS series and a pro, looking for another good deal on a pro. I have no complaints at all with any of them. I have never tried any of the intermediate series Jacksons.
For a guitar under $1000 the KEX isn't a bad deal.
@@noisetoys1210 Agreed. Jackson has great deals on all levels, however, so does ESP/LTD, Fender/Squier and a bunch of other brands. But, in my opinion Jackson is the best deal. Seems the X series is the place to start if you want a set neck.
@@tankdarla637 Jackson also will proudly say "Jackson" on the headstock so kids can proudly play almost the same guitars their heroes play no matter the price range. Huge plus in my opinion
Great review. You have a new subscriber. Thank you.
Thanks for the sub and I appreciate the comment. You have a sub too.
The only thing I don't like about Jackson guitars in general is I always get a buzzing note at the 15th fret on the 1st string. I've had all different levels from a JS32KE to a Performer PS4 to several Soloists and they all have the same problem.
I know what's wrong with this guitar. The fretboard color is too light, you need to ebonize/darken the fretboard for that black to really pop.
Great Idea.
I had only one Seymour Duncan Invader laying around and I was going to install that on my Ibanez Xiphos but a friend of mine gave me an EMG 81-85 set for half of the market price and we installed those on my Ibanez, still want to install that Invader into another guitar so I started looking for a guitar for my budget of $500 and found a Jackson Kelly KEX with a little body damage and an LTD Alexi-200, which one I should go with? I really can't decide, If I get the Jackson I'm also open to neck pickup suggestions to go with my Seymour Duncan Invader... Thanks
I also wonder, most Kellys like KEXMG models have the beveled edges but this model doesn't, does that make it feel big? The Jackson Kelly looks smaller than a Gibson Explorer to me but I can compare exactly
Play the guitars before you decide. I have a fair size collection of guitars and my favorites turned out to be unexpected.
I am 6'3" and the guitar feels ok to me. I have the KEX hung up in my office right next to an Explorer and the KEX body is slightly smaller but not by very much. I like them both for different reasons. The KEX looks a little more aggressive than the Explorer does. I hope that helps.
@@noisetoys1210 Thanks, '58 style Explorer is few cms shorter than my Ibanez Xiphos so I think Kelly is not that big (Which is what I want) I'm still going to try both guitars will try to find a store that sells one of them but still thanks thats good to know, Kelly being a neck-thru makes it kinda better than the Alexi-200 to me, I like to use 12 to 24th fret a lot
I like 24 frets and neck through as well. Let me know what end up getting.
What was the neck dive like?
It is identical to my Gibson Explorer. Several brands are putting the strap button behind the neck instead of in the same relative location that a Strat or Les Paul would have it in and the guitar neck does not want to dive as badly, but the whole front of the guitar wants to point toward ground when you have it on a strap just like the Explorer and Firebird Studio do.
My JS 32 Kelly was superbly balanced. My Rhoads Vs are neck heavy, especially the pro series, however , like noise toys mentioned, maybe the strap buttons are placed well because its not an issue with a strap for me...
How was the repair on the pickup done? Did you do it yourself?
I did perform the repair myself. With the pickup removed from the guitar, The pole was pressed out from the bottom while unscrewing the pole at the same time. Once out, the threaded hole of the pickup bobbin was cleaned with denatured alcohol. I used a strand of copper wire held in place by ultra-thin CA glue inside the threaded hole which allowed the pole screw to grab on to the remaining threads.
@@noisetoys1210 thank you so much for the explation man and keep up the good work!
Thank you, I appreciate the encouragement.
Cool video
Thank you.
What is that music please ?
The music is original from an unreleased album I had written copyrighted and originally recorded in 1999-2000.
I prefer three springs in my Floyd Rose bridge.
The three spring set up they use is good the way it is. Only using two springs and stretching them just makes the tremolo a little bouncier and a lot of players don't like the trem to behave that way.
Put an original Floyd on it, it's good to go.
Yes indeed
I had one. Everything was fine, except the nut was totally out of place and ruined the guitar. Too bad for all the wasted wood
That is a shame.
The MF-1 I bought is garbage, everything about it sucks. 600 wasted dollars so no more Jacksons for me.
Cab you elaborate? What was wrong with it?