I Heart Guitar

It was so great to see Jake E Lee receive his flowers at Ozzy Osbourne’s Back To The Beginning show last year. Jake has always been one of the greats but has never really chased the spotlight or acclaim that is owed to him. But on that day, Nuno Bettencourt led the crowd in welcoming this guitar hero with the thunderous applause that he deserves. It was fricken great.

Charvel has recognised Jake’s influence for a few years now with an official signature model but now there’s a new entry to the Jake Charvel canon in the form of this beautiful blueburst beauty based on a classic guitar from Jake’s past. That guitar was a Fender Stratocaster modified by Grover Jackson in 1985 and you can see Grover being reunited with it here: 

The body of the Pro-Mod signature guitar is made of Alder (the custom shop version is Poplar) with a gorgeously subtle blue burst finish which you might not even quite make out as a burst in certain light. It has a hardtail bridge like the original. Although the USA Custom Shop version has a matching blue headstock, the Pro-Mod has an unpainted one, highlighted by fancy-lookin’ pearl-button tuners.

The neck is Maple with a Rosewood fingerboard, 12-16” compound radius, Jumbo frets and rolled fingerboard edges with a hand-rubbed Satin Urethane finish on the back. Scale length is 25.5” and there are 22 frets to get your noodle on with.

Oh and the truss rod adjustment is at the base of the neck, which is such a perfect, unobtrusive system that I’m always glad to see on my tech bench. No truss rod cover screws to lose, no taking the neck off, and it just looks more elegant than a headstock-mounted truss rod nut. 

The electronics are rather fun. We have the mighty Seymour Duncan TB-4 JB Model in the bridge position and a pair of slanted Dimarzio SDS-1 single coils in the middle and neck slots, with just a volume control and a 5-way pickup selector switch. 

Custom switching gives us the following options: Position 1. Bridge Pickup, Position 2. Bridge Outer Coil and Middle Pickup, Position 3. Middle Pickup, Position 4. Middle and Neck Pickup, Position 5. Neck Pickup. I like that the humbucker splits to one coil in the second position. It’s kinda beautiful seeing Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio living together in harmony, y’know? West Coast and East Coast coming together in the name of tone. Yay guitars. 

The JB is of course Seymour Duncan’s flagship humbucker and it’s been a part of some of the greatest guitar tones in history. The magic of the JB lays in its ability to sit perfectly in a band mix. It can sound a little boxy and weird on its own so a lot of players don’t quite get what the fuss is about when they first play one in a store or something. But get it into a band situation or even just playing along to music at home and you’ll hear exactly what’s made it so revered for so long. 

As for the DiMarzio SDS-1, this is no standard single coil. Jake needs something that can keep up with the JB, and that’s no easy feat for a traditional single coil pickup. But the SDS-1 is voiced like a P-90 Soapbar, and its adjustable pole pieces don’t pull has hard as regular rod magnets, meaning you can raise these pickups closer to the strings for higher output.

DiMarzio also voices these pickups with smoother treble and fuller low end, both of which help them sit nicely with the JB. And the combined JB/SDS-1 setting in that second position is pretty damn girthy. 

The neck is very playable. I’m someone who likes to get stupidly fast on occasion and I certainly don’t feel restrained on this neck. The frets are nice and chunky, bends can get utterly ridiculous and the rolled fingerboard edges are a pleasure to play. I found myself meandering around the neck just enjoying the ability to effortlessly slide between positions. 

We had this guitar in stock at the shop I work at recently but it just sold. To be totally honest, this model feels like such a perfect fit for me and my playing style and tonal preferences that I’m sad it’s gone, even though the buyer is a great guy who will give the guitar a loving home. It’s certainly on my wish list. You’ve gotta try one if you get the chance.

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