Been Jonesing for a JEM....

[quiksilver]

I'm a big fan of the JEM. Prices are usually pretty high, but they are some really nice guitars. It's too bad you don't want a 7VWH, because there are lots of those, and decent prices can sometimes be had - and if you get a pre-2004 7VWH, you get an Ebony board.

P.S. Sweet pic, Rupe.

[thetroy]

I've always wanted a white one with the ebony board. The crazy color ones are great but I will never pay what people want for them...

[Robert Burns]

The only thing i dont really like about the JEM's is the wide neck... its
tough to get used to, when i mostly play 1 5/8"s... I love my 94' USA
custom as it's a 1 9/16'ths ? Just a pure shred machine with a 15mm
neck thickness at the first fret! Ungodly quick...

[Robert Burns]

My FP...not a huge IBZ Fan but a relatively good guitar

*** Must resist...posting pics..... trying... tough.... whew..i think i
might make it!

[Newc]

I'm a big fan of the JEM. Prices are usually pretty high, but they are some really nice guitars. It's too bad you don't want a 7VWH, because there are lots of those, and decent prices can sometimes be had - and if you get a pre-2004 7VWH, you get an Ebony board.

P.S. Sweet pic, Rupe.

I'm not a huge fan of ebony, actually. It has the same tonal characteristic as maple, but the dye most manufacturers use to blacken the boards comes off on my fingers (like with both my Jackson Custom Shops).

Besides, maple can be seen a mile away

I'm actually eyeing a pink JEM on Ebay, but it's got a "S" curve in the neck, and upon closer inspection it does look rather faded (difference between the headstock and under the truss rod cover).

I'm sure the curve can be fixed - somehow.

Or I could get an original FP for $1700 BIN, but that's rosewood with the vine, which doesn't really grab me as much as the maple with pyramids.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just gear-drunk from all the crap I've bought in the last 2 weeks - 2 NASLs, a V, and a bass

[Rupe]

Actually, ebony is probably the worse tone wood for a fretboard...it is similar to maple but typically much harsher sounding. That said, this is really only noticeable when using more organic tones...high gain tends to homogenize any subtleties from tone woods. Ebony looks great but sounds pretty bad. There's a reason that elite builders like Anderson and Suhr won't use the stuff.

[Newc]

Yeah, ebony has far too much spank. I found myself diong more Country-style licks on Big Red due to the extreme spank coming off the ebony. Figuring this to be an atrocity, I sold it. Same for JCF-01.

[xbolt]

Actually, ebony is probably the worse tone wood for a fretboard...it is similar to maple but typically much harsher sounding. That said, this is really only noticeable when using more organic tones...high gain tends to homogenize any subtleties from tone woods. Ebony looks great but sounds pretty bad. There's a reason that elite builders like Anderson and Suhr won't use the stuff.

I don't think my LP Customs, Nightswans, Dean Cadillac, Stagemaster, etc sound pretty bad...

In fact I actually prefer ebony over any FB woods, mainly with a mahogany and mahogany/maple cap bodies. I do agree that it may be overkill on brighter maple or ash bodies...ie. A maple body kami with ebony and a screamin demon might not add up to a versatile/balanced guitar.

Ebony is obviously harder to work with and can at the best of times be
tempermental or subject to cracking under high environmental variability.
I tend to believe that builders use what may sound good to them but will often be swayed by what is easier to obtain or works with.
I mean I find is hard to believe that basswood is really the best sounding wood that Suhr could find...which he uses extensively almost exclusively on his low end guitars.

[Axewielder]

Ebony = worst tone wood?

[VACharvel]

Yeah, Randy Rhoads and his Les Paul Custom sucked...along with Vivian Campbell from Dio with his Nightswan....horrible

I think, much like bridges, pickups, strings..tone is subjective....each to their own...but I don't think ebony is any better or worse than others for tone...if it was such a horrible material..it would have been put out of use long ago...

[Rupe]

All I'm saying is the worst of the bunch to my ears as well as that of many others. I have a LP Custom and It's one of my favorite guitars...but I'll bet that I would like it better if it had a rosewood fretboard.

Like I said before, if you use a ton of gain, you won't notice the difference. For those who let a cranked single channel amp do the heavy lifting by working the power tubes, if you can't hear the harsh artifacts that an ebony board frequently imparts (much more so than any other common fingerboard wood) then you've got a dead ear.

Randy is my all time favorite player but he's not exactly known for having a sweet tone so thanks for backing up my point with your example

And Vivian Campbell didn't play a Nightswan in Dio...he started playing one in the middle of the Whitesnake tour

[Newc]

There's good basswood and there's bad basswood, and the market was flooded with bad basswood guitars in the 80s and 90s. Thus, basswood got its reputation.

As I understand it, almost all the Charvel Model models were basswood? At least the ones people go nuts over, with the exception of the neckthroughs.

The body wood of electric guitars are not as influential on the amplified tone as on an acoustic guitar's acoustic tone.

Note that an electric guitar's acoustic tone has very little to do with its amplified tone, and when speaking about solidbody electrics, amplified tone is the only tone to consider.

Like Rupe said - hiding under tons of gain like Randy did (an MXR Dist+ into a Marshall = hiding under tons of gain), you may as well be playing a stick with strings on it because none of the wood affects the tone.

Body wood density will affect sustain, but not how the pickups translate string vibration into electrical impulses.

Fretboard wood determines how much of the string's vibration is dissipated. Dense woods like ebony and maple have a tighter hold on the fretwire than rosewood or similar soft woods, and thus when the string is plucked and fretted, the fretwire passes the vibration to the board, which then kicks it back into the fretwire, and that kicks back against the string, which causes the string's oscillation pattern to overload and you get a harsh tone.

[Bengal65]

Ebony = worst tone wood?

+1 You guy's are killing me!

[åron]

+1 You guy's are killing me!

+1... The bits about the material of a guitar having little effect on high gain tones was particularly laughable. Much of the other stuff you guys said stinks so much of the asses from which it came, I can't bear to rehash it or comment.

[xbolt]

"I guess" I should re-think my whole setup...

The assumtion that my pedal driven/cascading pre-amps which I obviously use exclusively with my crap ebony laminted necks as opposed to the more advanced and "learn-ed" (thats learned Pepe...learned) route has caused me to miss said artifacts only unearthed when using the more desireable powertube guild of tones. This explains my not having reached "Nirvana" like the blessed few.

Anyways, it's official
I'm off to the ear doctor so we'll see what he says...
But he's "my" ear doctor so he may not concurr with your ear doctor...
I'm also gonna challenge my wood Yogi cuz it "wood" seem he steered me wrong too

All in good fun guys...I will agree that this thread has officially lost it's way...