Custom Select Orders

[Aso]

Have filled out the Custom Select order form. Hoping someone who has done a Custom Select can provide some clarity. I have one question: the logo type leaves me questioning what exactly to do. I want the Abalone Overlay. Being an "overlay" does that mean I also select a logo color that the Abalone is then placed over it? Or is the Abalone itself the logo?

The abalone is the logo and you don't have to choose a color.

[shreddermon]

+1

[CaptNasty]

Thanks again.

I am ready to hand my order sheet over and see what happens.

[JonSick]

I dunno. In my mind, custom select is just as much a custom shop as a full on custom shop.

I mean, given Jackson's reluctance to make any shapes other than their standard lineup, that pretty much mitigates someone saying "I want a starfish shaped bass" unless I suppose you're a big artist. I.e. Megadeth big.

My custom shop was ordered before custom select was a thing. Yet I can spec exactly the same guitar by custom select.

As far as I can see, it's like Jackson made 10 "blank" King Vs for example and ten different customers want this pickup config, this bridge, this inlay, this headstock orientation, etc.

A "Master Built" kinda comes from the same sort of original blank albeit maybe a step behind, for example if you want a 7 string?

But either way, given that you can spec any two custom select completely differently and it's made in the USA Custom Shop, that to me says custom shop. And even "master built" guitars from most companies will have CNC involved.

[xenophobe]

People don't call prefab housing custom houses even though you can pick options. You can order a car from a dealer with the options you want but it's not a custom car. I think people in craft/trade industries understand this better.

Custom Select is like USA Select+, not "masterbuild" lite.

Also, unlike in the past... Custom Select and Custom Shop guitars aren't even built in the same area. Custom Selects are built in the main production area, the Custom Shop is off to the side and the difference lies in the skillset of the workers in their particular work area.

[neilli]

Custom Select is NOT Custom Shop. You can't get whatever you want, you need to pick and choose your options for a list with very limited wiggle room with anything else.

So kind of like full CS then eh?

[Axewielder]

I maintain that a custom shop guitar is a guitar built by "luthiers", while a production guitar is one built by "laborers".

[xenophobe]

So kind of like full CS then eh?

If that makes you feel better, sure! ;p

I maintain that a custom shop guitar is a guitar built by "luthiers", while a production guitar is one built by "laborers".

Custom Select are built by CNC machine operators, not luthiers. It's been confirmed the only reason there is Custom Select is because they modernized production for USA Select. I guess anyone who says Custom Select is Custom Shop would have to say that prior USA Selects were Custom Shop too. Many of them did receive Custom Shop logos, so they're all Custom Shop guitars because "masterbuilders" were actually involved with building them back in the Ontario days. So, all Ontario USA Selects are actually Masterbuilt Custom Shop guitars.

[shreddermon]

cork sniffer.jpg

[ilbianconero]

Just to complicate matters further:
If I ordered a guitar that wasn't totally from custom select menu (say using a different wood for body or a KV 22 fretter, etc), will it be masterbuilt?

[markD]

Yes

[neilli]

I fancy that to some extent, does it matter? If the guitar you get at the end of the process is built by naked martians running a 'jackson-san-dimas-cloining-machine', or made by a wizened old dude from California in his shed, sipping whiskey and listening to Lillian Axe, and you like the result...

Bottom line, Custom Select is very affordable for a custom spec'd guitar in 2017, even if it's created by selecting from more limited options and then those specs being pushing into a CNC machine. Master Built is great, but you're paying a premium for that hand worked touch / out-of-the-normal specs..

[ulijdavid]

There really isn't much difference between a CNC machine following a post processed tool path and a luthier/person pushing a piece of wood with an attached template through a pin router. The big difference is one uses servo/stepper motors and the other uses arms. Both are following a routine and template. I don't really see the down side to CNC produced products. Also a CNC - if programmed correctly - will not produce a 23 fret neck and ship it to customers.

"sipping whiskey and listening to Lillian Axe" - loved the old Lillian Axe albums!!!

[ilbianconero]

There really isn't much difference between a CNC machine following a post processed tool path and a luthier/person pushing a piece of wood with an attached template through a pin router. The big difference is one uses servo/stepper motors and the other uses arms. Both are following a routine and template. I don't really see the down side to CNC produced products. Also a CNC - if programmed correctly - will not produce a 23 fret neck and ship it to customers.

"sipping whiskey and listening to Lillian Axe" - loved the old Lillian Axe albums!!!

I've had apparently masterbuilt guitar where the fretboard width wasn't what I had asked for. You would think that shouldn't happen but it did. They gave me a discount and I kept it. Still a good guitar but I can't see custom select being worse.
I think it's the psychological aspect more than anything else.

If we're charged more for something, it will feel more exclusive.

[Mossezhoffen]

If it's the quality that concerns you I can from my experience say that the Custom Select is very reasonably priced compared
to many other companies guitar lines. I played a ESP USA M-III that is made very much like the Jackson Custom Shop.
Like CNC routing and hand finishing. Like every other "hand made" guitar company. Anyway while being a very awesome Bolt on superstrat. It cost 4000k. And it was a production guitar meaning
you can't customize it in anyway. If you want anything else you have to go full Custom Shop. And then you're in the same price range as Jackson Master build.

My Custom Select "CS" Soloist is 1000k cheaper and it has neck thru design. Bound neck and all the extra candy that the ESP doesn't have.
The quality is pretty much same. And that is very, very good. Best I've ever owned, actually.

I think the Custom select is great. You still get the same quality that was before and it covers 90 percent of all the basic stuff that everyone
always orders anyway. Before custom select there already was the Master build and the regular Custom Shop and this is more back to the old days as USA select
is now replaced with Custom Shop line.

These Custom Select guitars are not the same as USA select with just a "CS" logo and added price. They are still Custom Shop guitars made in the Custom Shop by the Custom Shop builders. Even if not " full" Custom they are superb guitars and that's what matters the most to me.

Something that you can depend on and won't ever let you down when touring or recording.