00:00Hey, what's up guys? I'm Diamond Rowe and this is My Guitars and Me.
00:15I am currently holding my brand new, well it's kind of brand new, Jackson Signature Series, the Diamond Rowe DR-12.
00:24That was a big thing for me when we started talking about doing the Signature Model.
00:28Obviously, it was a really easy decision that it needed to be a single cut.
00:34I've been playing them since I was 12 and it's like the only guitar shape that I feel like when I look at myself with it, it fits me.
00:41I'm like, so it had to be that. But one thing I told them is I really wanted to do a brand new headstock.
00:46They didn't give me any pushback on it and they were like, sure, why not?
00:49So we came up with this headstock, which is really awesome. I love it.
00:54So that was something new and like only on these guitars, unique to these guitars.
00:59So I think that's something that also stands out, makes them stand out, is super cool.
01:03I think more so when I was a kid than even now, but a lot of like your guitar heroes or favorite guitar players had a signature.
01:15So there was always like a guitar that you related that person to, like you said, whether it was Slash or Zach Wild or Dimebag or, you know, Monkey and Head or whatever.
01:24You knew, like when you think of them, you think of their guitar.
01:27So I wanted it to kind of be the same for me. There's two ways they look at it.
01:31Some some players are like, I'm going to make a guitar and I'm going to put all the craziest stuff on it that I've never even had on any guitar because this is my chance, you know.
01:39And then other players are like, I want it to just be the most accurate representation of me and like what I play and what I've always played.
01:48And that's kind of what I went with with this guitar.
01:50So it's really like a lot of the specs of this guitar, what I've played since I was probably 12 years old, the headstock or like the scale length of this guitar being a little bit longer than most single cut scale lengths, 25 and a half.
02:05Like the Fender scale length instead of 24 and three quarters.
02:08But yeah, I'm not like a super flashy person.
02:14My name is Diamond, but I'm not like a super flashy person.
02:17So I wanted it to be like still kind of dark and like ominous a little bit, but something that someone could walk into a guitar store and be like, oh, that's Diamond's guitar.
02:25Even if they don't know who Diamond is, oh, that's just a really, really cool looking guitar.
02:28So I think we accomplished that.
02:30I was back and forth when we were deciding the scale length of this guitar.
02:39I was back and forth between if I wanted to go with the regular 24 and three quarters or if I wanted to try the new 25 and a half, which a lot of other guitars that I've played or that I like just play at home with or track demos with or whatever, 25 and a half.
02:54Jackson was like, you know what, just we'll send you one, 25 and a half.
02:59Let us know what you think.
03:00Play around with it.
03:02And it just started feeling really comfortable and really cool.
03:06I play with Evertoons.
03:07So that kind of negates the whole like, oh, you need a baritone thing.
03:13I love the playability of a six string.
03:15So I've never been like, oh, I need to go seven or anything like that.
03:18Love the playability of it.
03:24I play pretty small strings for drop A.
03:32I play 11 through 54s.
03:34So most people are like, oh, but with Evertoon, tension is good.
03:39It feels great.
03:39And I just feel like I have a lot more room, you know.
03:41Now when I go back to 24 and three quarters, I'm like, oh, this feels so short, you know.
03:46So it's been really cool.
03:47It took a while to get acquainted with it for me.
03:50Like I'll slide down to the 22nd fret or something.
03:53And I like, I would miss it for a while because, you know, but it's good now.
03:57It feels really comfortable.
03:58And I just, I love the way it sounds and the way it feels.
04:00So.
04:00So getting down to the high frets on this one is, it's really easy.
04:17I do a lot of like the ominous, creepy tones that I kind of hang out down here the entire
04:23set or like the entire record.
04:25So we put like a really deep like cut here in the lip.
04:30So like even getting down to the 22nd, 23rd, 24th fret, it's like seamless.
04:35You know what I mean?
04:36It doesn't have like that high heel like a lot of single cuts do where you kind of are
04:42like wrapping your hand around.
04:43So it feels really natural to do it on this guitar because we did that.
04:47And we also on the back added a cut here.
04:51So there's really nothing in the way.
04:56Honestly, the first adjustment I made when we were putting the specs together for this
04:59guitar was to get rid of the tone knobs.
05:01It was like the very first thing I told them because in all the years I've been playing
05:05since I was a child, I don't remember ever adjusting a tone knob for literally anything.
05:10So I'm like, you know what?
05:11Clearly I'm not going to miss it.
05:13So I just did two volume knobs.
05:14I rarely use my neck pickup, rarely.
05:17So honestly, a lot of times I use my toggle switch as just like a kill switch live and
05:22I keep my volume of my bridge pickup up.
05:25And that's how we go.
05:27That's how we rock.
05:27Yeah.
05:28I gravitated towards playing what my favorite bands played.
05:41Because when you're 11, when I was 11, I didn't know anything about, you know, different pickups,
05:46active, passive, string gauges, nothing like that.
05:49It was just like, oh, Kirk Hammett plays EMGs, you know, so that's what I want to play.
05:54Um, so I, my first guitars had them in there and I feel like it just became a part of my
06:00sound.
06:01You know what I mean?
06:01It just, whenever I play EMGs, it just, it's that metal sound that everyone knows.
06:07And some people like that about them and some people don't, they feel like it might take
06:11away some of like the, you know, uniqueness of their playing or like the, you know, whatever.
06:17I don't, I love them.
06:19I plug and play EMGs.
06:20I'm like, yeah, that's what I need.
06:22So when we were talking about pickups as well for the signature, 81, 85 was, was it, there
06:28was no like back and forth or like, let's play with some different voicings or anything.
06:31I'm like, nah, it's just what I've been playing for so long.
06:34So that, that was kind of an easy pick, but it definitely came from, like you said, my love
06:40of, I would say Metallica was the start, but also at that time, so many bands and so many
06:47of my favorite artists played the 81 and the 85, Zach Wilde, I think that's his set, 81,
06:5285.
06:52So that's how I picked them from the beginning.
06:56So this is kind of my European touring pedal board here.
07:09My Digitech Whammy has become a huge staple in my, in my rig, in my playing on every song
07:16you hear it most of the time.
07:18I also have like the, the ricochet on this pedal board, which is just Whammy 2.0, but it's,
07:25I keep it at one octave instead of two.
07:27So I have like my one octave option and my two octave option.
07:30Um, and I just have a freeze and then the alpha woof pedal here, which is just for noise, like
07:36in between songs, like I'll hit it for like just some weird noise effects or whatever.
07:41You know, it just literally adds a little bit of noise there.
07:47Um, and yeah, then I have like what we call my freak tone, which everybody hears everywhere,
07:52but.
07:57I think what was really cool is when we were kind of coming in to the sound that we have
08:02now, kind of like what people would say that new metal influence, um, it was kind of about
08:09figuring out what my presence was as a lead player in that style of music.
08:14Not because we were like, okay, let's be a new metal influence band, but because like
08:18our sound was just naturally gravitating in that direction.
08:21And what was really cool is like, I can sit and play with textures and tones and sounds
08:26and stuff all day long.
08:28Like, you know, it's just, it's fun to me.
08:29So I can, when we're demoing out new songs or whatever, I can sit in front of the computer
08:34and just mess around with like sounds or weird effects and just come up with things that
08:38thicken up the, you know, thicken up the song or whatever.
08:42Um, and a lot of that probably did come from my influence of like Korn and stuff like that.
08:47Um, but yeah, so like the Digitech Whammy two octave up, it stays that way and it's on
08:51the entire set.
08:52I use it for pretty much every set, most solos, most, you know, choruses have some, some, a
08:59little bit of that in there.
09:00Yeah.
09:01So this guitar, this is my second, uh, custom shop that Jackson sent me.
09:18It's basically a copy of the signature except black and gold.
09:24And it has like the little kill switch button there, which is very cool.
09:29Um, once again, obviously I'm all about noise.
09:33So that's part of that.
09:35I don't think it was intentional.
09:36It has a little bit of a thicker neck on it than that one.
09:39Um, but that's also really cool.
09:41It's, it's kind of like a traditional LP style, like thick fifties neck, kind of that's
09:46what it feels like to me, but what's really cool is a lot of what I've noticed about this
09:52guitar is we do a lot of courses that are like just big open chords, you know, and this
10:01one has a, just naturally, I guess, because I don't know, you know, every guitar has a
10:07little bit of a difference to it.
10:09This one has a lot of low end to it.
10:10So I tend to use this one a good bit on songs that have like really deep or like need really
10:16like ballsy choruses.
10:17Um, other than that, it's pretty much similar to my signature has the Everton bridge has
10:22the same 25 and a half scale length.
10:25It's just black and gold.
10:26It has this cool.
10:27I forgot the color of it.
10:29Um, but it's like this black sparkle.
10:32You can kind of see it in the light.
10:34Um, but yeah, it has a satin neck on both, both have my production models don't have a
10:39satin neck, but both of my custom shops do have a satin neck on it, which is awesome.
10:44Um, loom and lay pickups, everything is pretty much the exact same as that one.
10:50Just different color in the kill switch.
10:52Hey, what's up?
11:10This is Diamond from Tetrarch and thanks for watching My Guitars and Me.
11:22my Guitars and Me.
11:28Tiago, I'm sorry, but it's not for the fact that we are going to die in the game in
11:30the game.
11:32So I'm just gonna stop laughing and ask you guys if you can do that.
Comments