Modern Transformations
The American Series Virtuoso stays true to the Jackson’s “super strat” lineage but adds useful improvements. The truss rod adjustment wheel is heel-mounted for easy access, and the guitar comes with Dunlop strap locks. A Floyd Rose 1500 Series double-locking vibrato is reinforced by Gotoh MG-T locking tuners. So, you can whammy away to your heart’s content without worrying about staying in tune, which was the case over the course of my very enthusiastic testing. And thanks to a recessed cavity, that Floyd Rose has crazy range. I was able to pull up a tritone on the open 6th string.
A feature many Floyd Rose users will appreciate is the Allen wrench holder attached to the back of the headstock, which lets you store the Allen keys (for the bridge and locking nut) in a convenient, easy-to-access place. I’ve often put my Floyd Rose-equipped guitars back in the closet when I couldn’t locate the Allen key to tune them, so I can attest to the value of this thoughtful little detail.
In satin black finish, our test instrument looks understated but deadly. Like most Jacksons, the American Series Virtuoso is built with an alder body. The bolt-on, 5-piece, caramelized maple/maple neck features graphite reinforcement rods to ensure stability. The ebony fretboard is home to 24 frets, features beautifully rolled edges, and Jackson’s 12-16" compound radius, which, in my view, is close to perfect. Full chords are easy to grip down at the more curvaceous end of the fretboard, low on the neck, and technical, speedy lines are easier to play as you move up the neck. It’s a pleasure to navigate, particularly if you use classical fretting technique rather than an angled blues grip with the thumb on top of the neck. Needless to say, you won’t be fretting out on deep bends, either.Sweet and Savage
The American Series Virtuoso’s electronics are straightforward. There’s a pair of Seymour Duncan pickups (a JB TB-4 in the bridge and a 59 SH-1N in the neck,) a 5-way pickup selector switch, and volume and tone knobs. Though many shred-oriented players and builders gravitate toward active pickups, the Duncans give the American Series Virtuoso warmth that many modern metal guitars with active pickups lack. There’s a distinct midrange focus, which makes it ideal for hair metal, but the guitar’s quick attack also makes modern styles like djent and math rock feel natural. Pinch harmonics are easy to coax from the guitar. Sustain is excellent. And low-register, palm-muted low riffs sound super beefy.
“You definitely don’t need a lot of pedals to generate a lot of different sounds with the American Series Virtuoso in hand.”
The switching array opens up a lot of possibilities, too. Position 2 is made up of the bridge pickup’s outer coil and neck pickup’s inner coil, while position 4 is comprised of the bridge’s inner coil and neck’s outer coil. They are the most articulate of the five settings. Positions 1, 3, and 5 are more traditional humbucker settings. Moving between these settings feels organic and fluid. Volume levels are pretty even between pickup positions, but tone variations are many and distinct. There’s good dynamic range as well. For example, using a mild overdrive sound on the bridge humbucker made low-register, single-note riffs sound gnarly and aggressive. The adjacent position 2, however, was practically clean when I played the same riff with a slightly lighter attack. You definitely don’t need a lot of pedals to generate a lot of different sounds with the American Series Virtuosos in hand.
Smooth Riding
Our American Series Virtuoso arrived with a great, low-action setup. Sweep-picked arpeggios and slippery legato lines were easy to execute, and the Virtuoso felt fantastic across the whole length of the neck. Sometimes on 24-fret guitars, notes don’t ring true in the very extreme upper area of the fretboard, making it hard to use the top notes for much more than quickly and dramatically capping off a phrase. On the American Series Virtuoso, though, the notes in the uppermost register still sound pronounced and full. That inspired me to spend a lot of time in the C# minor pentatonic-box shape, starting an octave up at the 21st fret. I could play typical rock-guitar licks up in that area, and each note rang out perfectly clear. Access to that area of the fretboard is also excellent, thanks to the guitar’s contoured “handshake” heel, which makes it even more appealing to explore the complete range of the two-octave fretboard.
The Verdict
Over the decades, Jackson has maintained its place at the top of the shred-guitar pecking order. And for many old-school shredders, nothing tops a straightforward Jackson “super strat”—a role that the American Series Virtuoso fills with attitude and ease. But the Virtuoso is not a strictly retro instrument. The refinements in playability reflect design evolutions that have, no doubt, made Jackson aficionados of modern metal shred gods like Periphery’s Misha Mansoor and Arch Enemy’s Jeff Loomis. But whatever style of metal shred you align with, the American Series Virtuoso’s tonal versatility and inviting playability will get your fingers flying
Name: Darren Morley Smith
Hometown: Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
Guitar: Marigold Yellow Flying V
I went into my local music store fully intending to buy an Explorer. I spent some time, tried one out, liked it, and thought that it was possibly “the one.” Next to it was a Flying V. I saw that no one was watching, so I figured, what the heck, I’ll try one out. Instantly I knew it was mine. It fit me like a glove, and it sounded like I’d been playing it my whole life. Always a mod man, it wasn’t long before I started personalizing this Flying V. I love the sound and tone of Allen Collins from Lynyrd Skynyrd and am a fan of classic rock, so I modified the stock V into my own personal guitar. It took over a year, but here’s what I did:
I stripped off all the original polyurethane. It took a lot of sandpaper and a heat gun. I found out the body isn’t solid Korina—it was only a veneer. So, I peeled off the veneer and started the process of dying the body. I wanted to be as authentic to vintage guitars as it could be. I sourced an aniline dye like was used in the 1950s. This color is yellow marigold. I did several treatments to get it to the honey yellow that you see. Instead of paint, I used charcoal to color the edges and the tail piece. Next, it was time for the finish. No poly, no nitro: This is eight very thin coats of Tung oil. It took six months for it to off-gas and completely harden. Now it buffs out to a beautiful semi-gloss/matte finish.
The pickguard and jack plate are handmade by me, out of a thin 1/8" sliced piece of solid maple. You can see around the knobs that it transitions from a beautiful bird’s-eye maple to an amazing flame as you look towards the neck. It was a very slow and delicate process. Because the maple pickguard is so thin and brittle, I had to go very slowly using a hacksaw and sanding block to get it to the right shape and sand it smooth. I made a thin black outline with a paint pen. My own little nod to the Randy Rhoads Concorde.
The hardware and electronics were gutted. The only remaining original parts are the tuning pegs and frets. All pots have been upgraded to CTS. The tone pot is equipped with a paper-in-oil capacitor, just like from the ’50s. The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Antiquity P-90, and the neck pickup is a mysterious DiMarzio that I’ve been carrying around in a toolbox for 35 years. The center knob was changed to a gold one simply because I lost the original. I think it adds a bit of flair and uniqueness. The bridge is a gold-plated roller bridge, giving it incredible sustain and tone.
Once assembled, it’s now my beautiful Marigold Yellow Flying V. It rocks just as hard as anything from the classic ’70s and is as smooth as any blues guitar player could ever want. Now I have my perfect guitar, and am proud to be “that guy playing the Flying V.”