Jackson has lost a few artists to ESP over the last few years… well basically since they were bought by Fender. This shows some artists still have faith in the Jackson brand. The guitar, which Mark Morton helped design really is run of the mill though. If you look on Jackson’s site, all of the unique features are in the aesthetics. You’ll see though that it has all of the standard metal guitar features including Seymour Duncan pickups, jumbo frets, and neck-through-body design.

Set aside the amazing finish and unique body design. The thing that stands out at me is both the bridge and neck position have the same pickup. To be hones the first thing I would do after buying this guitar would be swap out one of the pickups with a different Seymour Duncan to increase the range of sound. On the other hand, this IS a signature guitar… if you are going to buy it my guess is you are trying replicate Morton’s sound. Either that or you are like me and are having strong sexual feelings towards the guitar due to it’s stunning finish.

Feature Summary

• Body: Chambered Mahogany with Quilt Maple Top
• Neck: Neck-Thru-Body Mahogany with Pultruded Graphite Rods for Stability
• Tuning Machines: Pearloid Buttoned Sperzel® Locking Tuners
• Fingerboard: Ebony
• No. of Frets: 22 Jumbo Frets
• Bridge Pickup: Seymour Duncan® ‘59™ Humbucking Pickup
• Neck Pickup: Seymour Duncan® ‘59™ Humbucking Pickup
• Controls: Volume 1. (Neck Pickup), Volume 2. (Bridge Pickup), Tone 1. (Neck Pickup), Tone 2. (Bridge Pickup)
• Bridge: Schaller® 456 Fully Adjustable Bridge with Anchored Tailpiece
• Pickup Switching: 3-Position Toggle Pickup Selector and 2 Mini-Toggle Coil Splitter Switches
• Hardware: Chrome
• Strings: GHS Boomers, (.010 to .046)
• Scale Length: 24.75”

Morton uses three different guitars. His main guitar is a Jackson MM1 Mark Morton Signature. His second and third are a Jackson Swee-tone Archtop and a Jackson RR5 Rhoads. Each guitar has a Seymour Duncan Invader pickup in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan Jazz in the neck. GHS Boomer 10 – 46 gauge strings are strung on the guitars and tuned in either a drop-d (D-A-D-G-B-E) or a double drop-d (D-A-D-G-B-D).

From Guitar to Amp

• Jackson Custom MM1 Mark Morton Signature
• Sennheiser EW100 Wireless Unit
• Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner
• Whirlwind Selector

From this point on the guitar signal is split into two channels. Each channel goes through the compressor, a noise gate, and into the Mesa/Boogie heads.

• DBX 266XL Dual Compressor
• 2 Mesa/Boogie Mark IV Heads
• Rocktron Hush Super C Two-channel Noise Gate via the FX loop of the Mesa/Boogie heads
• 9 Mesa Rectifier Straight-front traditional 4×12 cabs with Celestion Vintage 30’s

I think the idea for splitting the sound between two heads is really sweet. I would love to have a chance to play around with something like that one day.

The design of the guitar plays on the black pinstripe on white look that the Jackson RR1 Rhoads has, but with a more stylized look. The shark fin points on the body are straighter and slightly curved as opposed to the true edges on the RR.

Like the more expensive Jackson RR models the Alexi ESP is designed with neck-through-body construction for maximum sustain. The body is made of alder and the neck is made with maple with an ebony fingerboard. The 24 XJ frets are decorated with custom saw tooth inlays.

For a $4000 suggested retail guitar I am a little shocked by this: the guitar only has one EMG HZ-4 Pickup in the bridge position and one volume control. For the minimalists it may be great but to me that just seems like a rip. Alexi being another avid tremolo user his guitar has an original Floyd Rose tremolo bridge.

Feature Summary

• Alder Body/Maple Neck/Ebony Fingerboard
• Neck-thru-body construction
• 4 XJ Frets/Saw blade Pearl Inlays
• 1 EMG-HZ H-4 Pickup in the Bridge
• Original Floyd Rose Tremolo

This is probably the least impressive guitar I have looked at this week. It is basically a Jackson RR1 with one less pickup. Besides its rad paint job it doesn’t have much going for it.

That raps up my 7 day look at metal guitars. You can check out all of the previous posts here:

1. Guitar Reviews: March Metal Madness
2. Fender Stratocaster Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Guitar
3. ESP KH-2 Kirk Hammett Signature Guitar
4. ESP Ninja 600 Michael Amott Signature Guitar
5. Gibson Les Paul Zakk Wylde CAMO Signature Guitar
6. Jackson RR1 Randy Rhoads Signature Guitar
7. Dean USA Razorback Tribute Dimebag Darrell Signature Guitar
8. ESP Alexi Laiho Signature Guitar