Jay Turser JT-1000

satin black

Sound was good. I really wasn't expecting too much as far as sound because of the price point, but the pups aren't that bad. I already have ordered from Bill and Becky(Bill lawrence /wilde) for some new pups. I can never leave anything stock.

Factory set-up.. Well I have to be honest, Who doesn't tweek a new guitar to their own personal preference. Sure it was a bit off but i would of played around with it anyway to dial it in. As far as fit and finish, this guitar is perfect. I cant find a single flaw

I think this guitar can and will stand up to the abuse i give my guitars. A reviewer said the neck is easily bent. Maybe he got one with softer wood or something but mine does not bend any more than my LP, mockingbird or any others in my collection.

Dunno yet

Before i bought this guitar I played a bunch of different guitars around 500$ and less. It came down to an Ibanez artist and this one. I have been playing for 20 plus years, I have built my own guitars for the past 10 years. I was actually thinking about designing a guitar for myself based on this guitar but for 250 bucks I figured I will put my faith in Mr. Jay Turser. I play Speed/black/death/viking metal with a splash of Blues. This fits me perfectly, and Im sure once I throw in the new pups, this baby will scream.

i just got this 2 days ago and its a very nice guitar. the pickups are passive, and the neck one sounds really good for a neck pickup. the bridge one with distortion is pretty twangy, however they both sound amazing clean. a very full mellow tone. and it sustains for days which is pretty typical of a solid body, neck through construction. the double cut away body is very deep and helps a lot when reaching for those top 24 frets. It does only have 1 tone and 1 volume and a 3 way selector. Thats all i need, but if you're picky, or like changing between a million tones, then you may not like it.

i play ambient metal usually, and it sounds great on it. it took some time playing with my amp (power block) and the distortion pedal (metalzone mt2) but it sounds good. Im not a fan of the stock strings, to thin, no tone, and buzz when tuned down to drop C. Im sure new strings would help the fullness of the tone of the bridge pickup.

ive read these other reviews about how crappy the bridge was, and the action is high. well mine was perfect. its right where i wanted it. The Finish is amazing, no blemishes, awesome agressive cut with a nice calm wood finish. I like its look because even tho i play in a metal band, i dont want to look like a douche up there with some warlock or something like im trying to over compensate, or prove that i'm metal or hardcore by the guitar that i have.

live, im sure it would be great. i havnt had a chance to do it yet tho. Yes it does have feedback when the volume is turned all the way up, but so will any good guitar. the hardware seems strong and could put up with some abuse. I would say the finish is nothign to worry about. thats one reason i got this guitar, is because even if u scratch or dent it, you cant see it that much in a clear coat all wood finish. I would depend on this guitar, and even tho its not a good idea, i would feel ok not having a backup.

never tried it.

i would buy this again, and have been recomending it to all my friends. I love everything about this guitar except the strings, which is no big deal. playing low may mean a few adjustments, but thats with any guitar. I am considering putting in my bill lawrence xl500 in it, just to give it a more metal sound. but other than that, i wouldn't touch this thing. oh, and maybe strap buttons but thats a personal preference.

Natural finish looks great. Made in China.Locking nut Floyd rose trem 24 fret. It has 1 tone 1 volume 3 way switch. Neck thru is great and provides great access to the upper frets.

I do like the way it sounds. I play through a line 6 spider 111 or a marshall mini stack. I may still change pickups.

Action is fast, neck is thin, I like the way it plays. Now I know there is no secret manufacture that has a $2000 guitar for $200 but for the money I don't think you can beat it. I have another Jay Turser, Gibson SG Standard, Fender Strat, and several hand made guitars with inlays. This one feels good in my hands, and after all isn't that what we're all looking for.

stays in tune good. I'm not sure ever giging without a backup is a good idea but this guitar seems as tough as any others

Not needed yet

I own 17 electric guitars some real nice some not so nice. This guitar feels good to me. I've only had it a couple weeks so I'm still in the puppy stage with it but I reach for it first now.

Gloss natural finish, dot inlay maple neck through ash body. Made in China. 24 frets, two passive black humbuckers, Floyd Rose knockoff tremelo (better than I expected), two chrome knobs, one black 3 way switch.

Sounds great! I usually play with a Electrix Mo-Fx, Q-Tron, spring reverb, and a Ratt pedal, or clean (touch of reverb). Read review that stated pickups were weak, either these are different pickups or perhaps, the difference is in the amps. Through my 100 watt Marshall it sounds great, clean or tube distorted. Clean or dirty. I played around with infinite feedback and the tremelo for 15 minutes giggling, much to the neighbors dismay, so the pickups are holding up their end with proper amplification.
Nice and quiet when clean, with a full range of humbucker tones, nice pickups. Read one review that stated the pickups were splitable, so maybe some push pull pots and some hot rod wiring could provide some Strat type tones. I'll just switch guitars, but it would be nice if you didn't have a Strat backup.

Factory setup sucked. The action was really high, so the bridge/tremelo needed lowered, the tremelo springs needed tightened to level the bridge and a slight bow in the neck adjusted out. This of course required retuning what seemed like a thousand times, due to the floating tremelo, but in the end it was worth it. The action is ultra low and the tremelo works great and stays in tune quite well with intense abuse. I like a Strat tremelo, but the Floyd Rose is worth the extra hassle in a lot of ways. The pickup height was fine.
The wood is all well matched, the finish flawless. Everything cosmetic wise is outstanding.

This is a killer guitar, it would work great live. The hardware is all functional and shiny. The finish highly durable. Strap buttons solid. I would depend on it. I wouldn't perform live with a Floyd Rose without a backup.

?

Been playing 35 years. I'm a gear packrat, got over 50, guitars and basses, from Gibson, Rickenbacker, Fender and all the knockoff companies. I've picked up several Jay Turser guitars the last couple years, I've been happy with all of them (some more than others) I love the 24 fret neck on this guitar, it's like my Dan Armstrong because of the 24 frets, but it's wider like a Gibson style neck so it provides easier access and playability on the higher notes, a combination of the bigger frets and deeper cutaways. I've got an Ibanez with a knockoff Floyd Rose tremelo, I like this one much more, very solid and highly plated. I like the body style and headstock as well, it grows on you, I have a couple of the 1000 bass guitars. My favorite feature has to be the neck thru body with natural finish, it is beautiful and classic looking. I'm already looking for another one, with different wood, pickups or color perhaps. I've been playing Strat's and Tele's the last couple of years, so this guitar is a pleasant change from the skinny frets and thin single coil and out of phase sounds. I would highly recommend getting one, but plan on having it professionally setup or spending some time tweaking it before you judge it, floating tremelo is a pain to get adjusted, but the ability to pull up and dive, along with convenience of the fine tuners, makes it very rewarding when properly setup. When I received mine it played terrible, after much adjustment, it is definately a keeper. The good news is, it has all the adjustments and they are easily accessible, it just takes some time. The truss rod cover plate can be removed with strings on and the provided allen wrenchs cover the neck, bridge and locking nut screws. The only unsupplied tool required is a phillips screwdriver for the cover screws and spring adjustment. Everything seemed very solid and well engineered for wide future adjustment, in case of string gauge change. The angled neck headstock is continuous wood, not spliced on pieces that will split off later, NICE. This guitar should last forever trouble free with minor adjustments to compensate for global warming. This is a killer ROCK guitar! You can play Jazz or Rockabilly on it, but it's definately a capable rock guitar, which some Jazz and Rockabilly guitars aren't. The string spacing is adequate for fingerpicking or crosspicking. The neck is fantastic and fast. Smooth as silk. All the frets very shiny. Plays like butter. I'm used to playing 10's and it has 9's, so I was overbending at first. For the money, this guitar is a steal, a rare bargain. Get one while you can.

I bought it new. This guitar was made in China, with 22 medium frets, 2 of both volume and tone knobs, 3-way selector switch, 2 open-coil humbuckers. The electronics are most likely passive. Bolt-on maple neck with rosewood fretboard. The body is a solid archtop made from "fine tonewoods," basswood is my best guess. Les Paul style archtop (gotta love the archtop). Tune-O-Matic bridge with stop tailpiece. Grover style tuners. Bought in a starter pack with amp, gig bag, truss rod allen key, strap, cable, picks and extra strings.

Sound is awesome with how I have it set up- read the next section... GET NEW STRINGS IMMEDIATELY. If you like classic Les Paul tone like sounds of Journey or Boston, you'll get it! I really like this guitar for bluesy/jazzy tones, even through the amp it comes with! My amp sucks for distortion, but using a multieffects pedal is the perfect accessory for this. ZOOM 505 II, baby, it has everything you want for $60 bucks, and the distortions are better than straight-cheap-amp! With a good amp/good effects pedal/good distortion pedal, this is a great lead guitar and rythym guitar.

As you turn the tone knobs down, the sound becomes dirtier and muffled. Personally, I don't normally care for this tone, so I keep them all the way up- NO HUM/BUZZ on any setting, as long as you have a good cable. GET A NEW CABLE, the stock one sucks bigtime- it buzzes and broke quickly.

The 3-way switch does change the sound, and each position has its charms. The treble postition is sharper- great for lead guitar. The middle position is a mellow tone that sort of bounces when you strum- great for rythym, and the rythym setting is deeper and darker. Good for Jazz or Blues rythyms. When playing lead guitar, this setting sings more on high notes, but dies out faster than the treble setting.

DISLIKES:

Straight outta the box the guitar looks beautiful and the finish is extremely shiny to this day. But on closer inspection there are inconsistencies in the finish, so if you care about looks you might be worried.

Out of the box, I'd rate this guitar low for this category. GET IT SET UP PROFESSIONALY, unless you wanna spend a lot of time setting it up yourself, like me.

Out of the box, the bridge was put on backwards! Come on! That's probably why I got it for cheaper than what it goes for on Samash or InstrumentPro. I knew this because the slot width in each adjustable section for each string were mismatched. Before reversing it and fixing the intonation, this caused stretching problems with all types of play.

It wouldn't stay in tune or play well out of the box. I thought it was the tuners, but thanks to getting a better ear for guitar, some skills, and the internet I made the guitar muuuuuuuch better. Read on.

The stock strings are disgusting. There were fret buzzes mainly on the A string at th 3rd and 11th fret, but in other places as well. The strings were just... crappy, and they wouldn't stay in tune along with this. I put on some Ernie Ball Power Slinky's and right off the bat it made the guitar play better, and sound WAY BETTER.

With the string change came problems. The higher gauge wrecked the intonation and the truss rod was too curved for the same reason, and this made tuning problems worse. Thanks to some tutorials on <www.fretnotguitarrepair.com> , I tweaked them both and lowered the action. It made a hell of a difference. Once I got the neck to be straight, IT STAYS IN TUNE BEAUTIFULLY FOR SOME REASON. One Big Tip: put graphite (use a sharp pencil for example) into the nut, and this helps with any tuning problems you'd have. AWESOME!

Before the "setup," open chords- especially the f chord got stretched and did not sound good. Now, I love it, because any chord I do from anywhere on the fretboard sounds extremely musical. Friggin' fun guitar.

Thanks to some setup, the guitar matured- this guitar definitely resembles the sound of a Les Paul for lead, just not as much sustain or fullness, thanks to a bolt-on neck and generic pickups. But I'm completely satisfied with it for 150!!!!

This is a starter instrument, so I don't think anyone besides myself would feel comfortable playing it on stage. Haha I would personally be proud to show this off live, but it's totally out of place.

I play it for hours a day, almost everyday, and it has never needed any repairs in it's almost-a-year lifetime. It hasn't gotten worse since I got it, that's a fact.

It dents easily, but nothing major. I have never dropped it, but I really feel that If I did so, it would get some major wounds, but be playable still. I hope I never drop this thing.

There's apparently a lifetime warranty on Jay Tursers, but I wouldn't know how to tell you how to use it.

GREAT WEBSITES: www.fretnotguitarrepair.com, musiciansfriend.com, zzounds.com- these will rock your socks!

I've been playing for almost a year, and I was impressed with the quality that I got for 150. I was expecting something to learn on, and definitely got more than that. I actually just bought another Jay Turser, the JT300, a strat copy, because I want those Strat sounds to be added to my arsenal for cheap, and felt that Jay Turser would give me what I wanted- again.

This guitar is BETTER THAN an EPIPHONE starter pack of similar design. This guitar poops on the Epiphone Special II Les Paul pack, with more sustain, better playability, and more durability- my cousin's input jack will not stay in place, and we can't get it to play well from everywhere on the fretboard. Believe me, because I've played my cousin's guitar, and he's played mine, and we both agree that mine is better. That pack costs $280!!! 130 dollars more than what I payed for!

If it doesn't sound good right out of the box, don't review the guitar as crappy, because that's just a lie!

I wish this guitar had a better pickguard- the one that's on it is good for pickguarding, but I've noticed that rubbing against it with your hand when you're picking causes a lot of static buildup and popping. Whether you're playing by yourself, recording, or jamming with friends, trying to avoid the pickgaurd and hearing those pops is ANNOYING. I'll take it off once it pisses me off enough

I believe all Jay Tursers are made in Korea. I purchased this silightly used off of ebay. This Particular model has been discontinued. Unfortunatly, I can't comment on the production date. The Pickup configuration is hum/hum with a 3 position toggle switch, one volume and one tone (pretty straight forward). The body is ash with a maple neck-through construction. Stock sprezel-like tuners with locking nut. The Floyd Rose licenced trem isn't the best, but it's better than some I've played!

The stock pickups were a little thin. They were usable, but only untill I could replace the bridge with a Kent Armstrong Ultra Dist. Aside from that, the sound was great. This is currently my main guitar. I run it into a Jekyl & Hyde dist pedal -> ISP Decimater Noise Reduct.-> Boss comp/sust. then into a Roland JC120 head and my Sunn 4/12. It sustains for years! And does it grind? Yes, it does. My only complaint in the sound dept is that occasional "hollow" sound you get from having a big hole dug out of the back for the springs (but I have this gripe with any guitar w/ a trem). My band plays a blend of traditional grind-core and melodic math-metal. The clean on this thing is amazing. And the distorted sound is perfect. I hate to say it, but this sounds better than my $600 guitar and it stays in tune better. It feeds back a bit but no more than any other axe, and it's nothing that a noise gate can't take care of (which is something every guitar player should invest in anyway)

The action is a little high. And the frets rattle if you lower it too much. But this is partially due to the heavy gauge strings we use (11 to 62). The blade edges on the Floyd Rose are staring to dent and dull, so I may have to replace the base plate at some point. As for the finish, gorgeous! Natural wood with a 5 piece neck. Smooth all over, no globs of stain or laquer anywhere (especialy by the heel). The whole instument has a surprisingly solid feel. It's a bit heavier, which is something I've noticed about Jay Turse guitars in general. But that's hardley not really a "problem".

I changed the strap buttons to Schaller strap locks. I play with it live all the time and it has yet to show any signs of wear. Like I said earlier, it stays in tune great. Even through the most brutal sets, my other guitarist always tunes to my Jay Turser after each song, because I'm still in tune! It's a solid axe...but I wouldn't gig without a backup, that's just common sense!

Never had to deal with the company. But, from what I've read, they're not the most sympathetic company. But like I said, I've never had to deal with them personaly.

I've been playing for about 11 years. My other guitars include a Fernandes Ravelle, a BC Rich Warlock, a Epiphone Les Paul and a Hondo, and I have to say, the JT-1000 blows them away! I own also another Jay Turser, as does the other guitarist in my band. We both agree that for the money, these guitars are with out a doubt the best in their class. They sound beautiful, they are reliable, and they cost pennies compared to the competition!!! If it were lost or stolen, I would definatly search for a new one...this is my main guitar right now, and I depend on it for all our shows!

Nice looking guitar, natural finish, floyd rose, neck thru body, thin frets, locking tuners.

lots of fret buzz with thicker strings 52-12. dull sound, needs better pick ups. Stays quiet with noise suppression.

Action is about what you would expect from a guitar under $400....not so good, bridge is terrible. The alignment of the bridge is crooked, and actually was drilled so bad that you can see the stud from the inside. Very poorly constructed inside, some screw holes were drilled twice, I guess they messed up the first time around, so there are extra screw holes for the backplate that you can only see when you take the plate off. Use very poor materials. Basically, it looks awesome on the outside, and thats why I got it, but I will be replacing ALL the hardware except the tuners.

neck is nice and thick, but also bends too easy, the finish seems good though. I will play this guitar live only after I replace the hardware, but I would never use it for my main guitar.

don't know

I have played pro for 4 years, meaning, I actually play for a living now...touring the US, and Europe. I have 13 years of playing experience. This is one of those guitars that just looked to good to pass up....Cheap, but looks good.... But, I would'nt buy it again. You get what you pay for. There is no secret guitar company that is pulling off awesome guitars for under $400. But, I knew that befoe I got this one. I own 6 guitars now. The Jay Turser is the cheapest, a Gibson Les Paul is the most expensive guitar I own... There is NO comparison. If you are just starting...go for it, but forget it if you are a seasoned player. Buy the time you spend all the money buying hardware, (and you will), you could have just bought a Ibanez or a LTD, or a zillion other major brands for the same price. If this guitar didn't look so cool, I would give it a overall rating of 2. 1 point for being a electric guitar, and 1 point for not getting shocked when I plugged it in.