- 3 months ago
It's been a busy year of releases for Fender's family of brands, so we swung by the joint Jackson, Gretsch and Charvel booth at Guitar Summit 2025 to get hands-on with $420 CVTs, affordable White Falcons, high-end American Series Rhoads V and more...
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00:00Everyone from guitar world here we are at guitar summit 2025 with Tris at the
00:04great stands. Tris we want some new synchromatic guitars to pick out here what was the thinking
00:09behind this? So the synchromatics are a new range for us and what we kind of really wanted to do
00:15was to sort of plug the gap between electromatic and pro so the japanese stuff that we make which
00:22is amazing quality but is not necessarily a portal for a lot of tuple so this kind of plugs the gap
00:27now for the first time you can get a falcon for under two grand under three grand in some
00:35in some situations that it's the ubiquitous old-school brech it's the music great guitar exactly it's
00:41like everybody wants everybody loves a white falcon so i guess from like a build perspective
00:46what were the biggest challenges in like bringing the white falcon and a build to such an affordable
00:52price point that there's never been yeah i mean that's that's kind of the thing is the the white
00:55falcon is has always been in such high regard yeah um that you know we if we were going to do it
01:02at a more affordable price point we wanted to make sure that it it meets everybody's expectations
01:07unfortunately the fact the factory that we use have the capabilities to make really high quality
01:12really consistent in guitars so they yeah they are fantastic they look the parts as well
01:18um so they've even got you know like little jewels on the uh on the knobs uh ebony fingerboards they
01:25come with hard cases as well it's a proper professional bit of kit but is more affordable
01:30for a lot of people and you're in nashville in the synchromatic range always have to have or
01:35an orange stained nashville is absolutely has to happen so yes so he's like a brian zetzer isn't it
01:41yeah i mean this this is these two are kind of i think what a lot of people think of when they think of
01:46a great deficit what they kind of picture um and this is also i was kind of saying you know we know
01:53where our heritage is so if we're going to release a new a new range we want to give people something
01:57that they're familiar with um and it doesn't get any more familiar than these two really speaking of
02:03heritage you've also brought back the corvette yeah so they're uh come back under the cvt uh
02:10other cvt name they are um affordable bolt-on was light very light and very aggressive um pickups
02:21amazing workhorses um yeah we're really really excited about these we've had um we've had a lot
02:27of requests to have that platform give back and then we brought it back in uh three different finishes
02:33so that's the vintage white um and then there's the witchwood green uh which is arguably been one of
02:40the most popular most popular finishes um which is great super 70s that sort of dark green fade
02:48because i remember i reviewed the jack antonoff print test which was kind of quasi brought it back
02:53right was it from that bill the signature guitars that people started asking for the corvette or was it
02:58always in the plan it was it was kind of always in the plan um and that was one of the reasons that
03:03we brought the um the jack antonoff one is because we knew that there was a bit of a demand for that
03:08kind of thing so yeah these are the twin sixes twin six handbuckers and they are pretty high output
03:14so again lots of tonal flexibility um if you want to be super aggressive you can do that if you want to
03:20be bluesy jazzy do anything but these are great sort of desert rock guitar guitars and obviously we do
03:29a bass version as well um which is great uh but it is 32 inch scale okay so it's slightly longer than
03:38our um jack club bases that we do which are 30.3 okay this just gives people another option and what
03:46are the prices for the the cvts uh these i believe off the top of my head are um roughly about 450 ish
03:58and this is obviously a model that was kind of introduced in the like kind of 60s is that right
04:05are there any other models from gretchen's history that you're either working or you'd like to see come
04:10back or i mean yeah you know this is the everybody has their sort of favorites and you can if you go
04:16through the the old gretchen catalogs there's some really crazy stuff there's a lot of potential there
04:20yeah exactly so you know we're just um we're going to do them one by one and just sort of see see what
04:26the market wants or players one yeah um and then just try and follow those trends but we're always
04:32looking for you know new directions to go into and obviously gretchen's got such a storied history
04:38yeah of releasing different models that there's a lot of stuff that we can dig into probably these
04:42two years speaking of storied history got some jacks over here as well gonna move it through
04:48along down here yes the dark side these are the pro origins right where it came out okay what was
04:53the thinking behind these well so the the pro origins are kind of like a throwback uh mid-80s
04:59guitar again there's been a lot of r&d gone into these the neck especially yes it was super super thin
05:05and so so much so that i believe the channel had to be cut on the underside of the fingerboard
05:12oh wow to allow for the for the truss rod so it didn't structurally compromise the net itself so
05:19that's how we've managed to get the neck super super thin and there's also the j90c and the j90n
05:26pickups in there which will be familiar to a lot of people from back in the 80s the very high output
05:31ceramic humbucker which some people out there might kind of go but the old ones were a different size
05:36than they they were just the covers were slightly different size so these are standard humbucker
05:40size they sound incredible and they've got uh top mounted floyd 1000s they're made in our um
05:46ensenado facility nice um and they are great they're double humbucker single humbucker version that's got a
05:52rose with fingerboard on it right number of pickups there yeah am i right in thinking so these pickups
05:59are inspired by like original the original j90s yeah j90s so how was that process like did you have
06:05to reverse engineer the originals or if i like yeah right pretty much it was it was really kind of
06:11trying to capture that um you know that original sort of sound obviously after all that time some
06:17of the magnets yeah but yeah so we're trying to recreate like what what would these have been
06:22back in the day okay what would they have sounded like and try to recapture that
06:26i mean we can only single pick up guitars as well because they seem to be everywhere at the moment
06:30do you find that these kind of setups are more popular with players the fines with jackson or is
06:36they still a pretty even split yeah it's very much a mixture which is why we've you know we've given
06:42that the um two humbucker versions as well um it's yeah it's not called quite an even not quite an even
06:48split but there's definitely a portion of of players who love that i'm like i'm one of them yeah but
06:55but but yeah we'll all there's usually a need for a for a neck pickup you can't not do it
06:59shout out to the uh rick rayon the our yes i mean that finish the master is insane yeah it's um
07:07we did do a normal production non-signature dk24 in shell pink and this is rick's new uh signatures
07:16made in uh in ensenada in our mexican factory so again more affordable he did previously have his uh
07:22mj model which was really popular but um not necessarily affordable for for some people so
07:28this is a lot more affordable obviously the finish comes off and it instantly looks better uh just
07:35because that's just the way that uh that like that things work um but yeah they're great his um custom
07:41uh chavelle pickups in there nice reverse headstock it's just a really already unique yeah it's
07:50is really really cool and this is a new finish for us uh it's called scorched earth it's kind of like a
07:57texture matte yeah that's in yeah exactly that so it's um it's kind of very similar to
08:02sort of like the finishing you kind of get on like the flatbed of of a pickup truck type thing so it's
08:07kind of it's very very hard wearing um very it's not a relic very easy no no no exactly exactly so
08:14it's um yeah we're gonna look like rick graham's guitar in a few months is it and not in five minutes
08:19right i love the color match that's yes that's another another big thing and and the carved neck
08:24heel um as well as is something which is uh you don't get on the on the pro mod version so the promo
08:31plus has that and also come with gig bags but that yeah that car feel is super super comfortable
08:37especially if you end up on the dusty end of the fingerboard roasted maple neck uh lumen
08:42lace side dots as well nice and ebony fingerboards and then we've got uh floyd version for the version
08:49that's uh the blue burst i mean that's just floyd 1500s uh with the stainless steel screw
08:56absolutely five-way switch as well yeah and are these kind of to be considered like top of the top
09:03shavel it's ours for you or are they kind of whether they sit in your they sit above pro mods
09:08and basically below mj okay um but yeah they're made in ensenado um at our mexican factory so they
09:17just have a few little upgrades which i put them just above above pro mod nice all right so i'm going
09:23to take the back to the jackie stuff now i think probably one of the biggest releases that jackson's done
09:27would it be fair to say is the american series roads stuff how long has that been in the works
09:33because you've got the soloist the virtuoso this is the third one we've added right yeah how long has
09:38this been in the work yeah it's it's it's been a it's been a couple of years now um we we started
09:44off the american series with the sl3s yeah um a couple of years ago and we've just kind of added
09:50things to the line um so we also have now again the sl2s and the sl2mgs which have the emg pickups the
09:57both the virtuosos um and this is quite a big step for us because it's the first time you can get
10:03a road usa production model um because previously to that the solos and the virtuosos you know they're
10:10both superstracts um so this is quite a big move for us um a hardtail version so that's got a half
10:16sharp hardtail and then we've got the floyd 1500s for the floyd versions uh ebony fingerboards and
10:24another new thing which we haven't done previously on any of these soloists or the virtuosos is now
10:28we've added the uh the corona color uh corona usa mark in the air yeah so that's that's just us kind
10:38of again just reiterating this is an american-made uh guitar made in south california because i can
10:45imagine a lot of people have been asking for that for quite a while right that's yeah it's we've had
10:50lots of requests for um for the roads over the years since we've had two years now basic of
10:55syrup so they're like when are you going to do the road it's like well here it is now nice and they
10:59are great it's an interest in the american series like as a project because i feel like there's quite
11:04a lot of different directions you could take it are there talks of like other models being introduced
11:09later in the line or you can consolidate what you've got in yeah we've you know we're always looking to the
11:14future with the the american series something that we that we want to continue to expand okay um so
11:19yeah we're always always working on stuff and we're trying to just add more add more to the lines so
11:25who knows what happens next and a quick word on these last three here what's going on so they're more
11:31metal looking and they're not more male than the uh jackson pro plus pure metals it does what it says on
11:38the tin um so these are uh all gloss black very tasteful cream binding uh fisherman fluence moderns
11:47uh just again one humbucker yeah uh floyd 1000s it is just a very very simple very very mean very
11:56aggressive machine with a metal guitar and that's the warrior uh possibly my favorite shape in the entire
12:02world it's it's super super comfortable to play standing up sitting down as soon as you're looking
12:09at it you'd probably think it's a bit bit angular right then you have it you know a lot of the older
12:14the next tube there as well so hey i i can never stop going on about this the shape it's you know it's
12:20it's based off of the off of the jackson headstock itself so it's basically four jackson headstocks that
12:25are placed in set and yeah yeah and um especially if you play classical position on the left leg it's
12:32super super comfortable it's kind of sticks up at a 45 degree angle you can always do it
12:35hands-free so you don't have to worry about a neck dive or anything like that
12:39um but yeah and it really looks the part we've also then got the uh king b and we've done a uh
12:49which has got this exactly the same spec as well stainless steel frets the other the big thing uh for
12:55these so you just kind of have to pick your pick your flavor really um and then the concert
13:01bass at the end um which has a two vans active eq um my colleague michael absolutely adores this
13:13guitar he uses the live um it's a really really great piece of kit so we had to do one for the base
13:22cool quite a lot uh going on in jackson then all that stuff always always yeah nice one cool
13:31so
13:44um
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