JPX7 w/Roasted Neck, Black Sugar, and Bare Knuckle Pickups

[Benji Peterson]

Hey guys! Well I received my guitar back from the Axe Palace in Massachusetts. The install looks clean and all the soldering is of good quality. Nick was helpful in helping me select which pickups to order but communication after that was less than desirable. They decided not to install the included set of Elixir nanoweb strings but instead something else. I don't know what they did with my strings but I'm not too happy about that. Anyway, aside from those problems I'm happy with the install and the pickups. These are the Bare Knuckle Ceramic Warpig set w/Battleworn covers. I think it's about the meanest looking JP on the planet!!! I'll get some sound clips up in the next few days or so but I'm very happy with the selection. The pickups really deliver the djentness which was the whole purpose of buying this guitar and doing the install but I took it to a jam session today and was VERY surprised at the versatility of the pickups. The term that best describes the tone is 'wide open'. They're so incredibly neutral and seem to not have any tonal persuasion. They're very articulate as well and respond brilliantly to dynamics. I still love the CL/LF set but this is a happy alternative. I covered some SRV, Atlanta Rhythm Section, ZZ Top, Jame's Gang, Journey, etc. and with every track was very satisfied with the performance. The guitar is far more versatile than I'd ever hoped for while still being specialized in the area that was of priority.

Before:


After:








-benny

 

[ohdamnitsdevin]

amazing

 

[Dr.Strangenote]

Intriguing! any chance to hear this bad boy?

 

[Tollywood]

Looks really cool, Ben. Black Sugar Roasted goodness...

 

[mbeck]

it looks killer!!

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

Very cool, I'm looking forward to hearing some clips!

 

[shredder]

Looks amazing! I love black sugar + Roasted! That will be my next finish combo but with a 6 string for sure!

 

[Benji Peterson]

I was working on putting together some sound clips this afternoon but I don't think I'll have them posted until tomorrow or so. I'll probably throw them up on soundcloud and drop the links here. I want to try to represent them in a variety of ways with some different patch examples via the axe fx II. I'm thinking I'll cover some petrucci-esque, rock, stratty, clean, and djenty tones. It'll take a while to pull all that together but I'm thinking of some side by side comparisons to my JPXII 7 which has the CL/LF combo.
Does that sound good to everyone or would you prefer to hear just the JPX with bare knuckles? I ask because the guitars have differences beyond pickups (woods, chambering, etc.) so it wouldn't exactly be a neutral comparison.