Jackson Excl ProPlus Warrior WR HT7

Bei der Suche nach einer extreme-shaped 7 Saiter Gitarre, bin ich auf die Jackson Excel ProPlus Warrior gestoßen. Als jahrelanger Jackson Fan hatte mich die Gitarre direkt gepackt. Kurzer Hand bei Thomann bestellt, wenig später kam sie auch schon bei mir zuhause an. Wie von Thomann gewohnt erfolgte die Lieferung einwandfrei.

Die Gitarre selbst kommt mit einem Gigbag. Das ist eine nett gemeinte Zugabe, aber für den längeren Transport auf Touren eignen sich andere Bags / Cases deutlich besser.

Nun zur Gitarre selbst: Die Verarbeitung ist top. Da gibt's nichts auszusetzen. Sauber verarbeitete Bünde und absolute cleanes Finish mit tollen Übergängen. Die Saitenlage ist ab Werk auch gut eingestellt. Ich selbst spiele die Gitarre in G# Standard, also nochmal drei Halbtöne tiefer. Dazu verwende ich .70 bis .10er Saiten von Ernie Ball. Diese sind dank Looking-Mechaniken und Fixed Bridge auch im Handumdrehen aufgezogen. Nach kurzem Setup hält die Gitarre auch diese Stimmung sehr stabil. Besonders angenehm finde ich hier die 26.5" Mensur. Hier bekommt man super Komfort mit einer insgesamt etwas längeren Mensur als bei den gewöhnlichen Gitarren. Das hals Profil ist super flach, wie man es von Jackson kennt, und ermöglicht damit super Bespielbarkeit - gerade auch in den hohen Lagen. Das taugt mir persönlich tatsächlich etwas mehr als 27" dieser Tage.

Beim Sound braucht sie die Jackson Warrior ebenfalls nicht zu verstecken. Die beiden Seymour Duncans klingen sehr druckvoll und bleiben dennoch Brilliant. Damit können sie mit Bare Knuckle und Co. locker mithalten.

Die Warrior Shape an sich muss man natürlich mögen. Optisch ein absoluter Hingucker. Aber auch sehr angenehm im Sitzen wie im Stehen zu Beispielen. Das meiste Gewicht steckt tatsächlich im Hals bei dieser Konstruktion. Daher rate ich zu einem vernünftigen Gurt, damit sie nicht in die Kopflastigkeit verfällt. An sich aber ein sehr akzeptables Gewicht, so dass man keine Rückenprobleme bei einer längeren Show bekommt.

Ich bin voll zufrieden und würde mir die Gitarre wieder bestellen. Mit all den Features und dieser Qualität für diesen Preis unschlagbar.

As someone who prefers playing in classical position, ever since I decided to ditch Superstrats for good I knew I had to look for something a bit more ergonomic. This is the only 7-string baritone scale model with decent specs I could find at a reasonable price.

Let's talk about the good things first: I feel like giving 5 stars to the sound just for the fact that the pickups (especially the bridge pickup) are ridiculously noiseless. Even with high gain tones I can leave the noise gate off and still barely hear any hiss. I'm not entirely sure if it's because of the pickups themselves (the Nazgûl is VERY high output, which usually translates to better signal-to-noise ratio) or rather the fact that all metal parts seem to be properly grounded.

Of course, the sound itself might not be up to everyone's taste. I myself find the Nazgûl a bit "screamy" under high gain, with the upper harmonics taking over the fundamental especially on the lowest string, thus losing clarity. But you can just EQ the midrange before hitting the amp and you'll be able to tame them. The fact that it's also closer to the bridge than most Jackson models makes it an absolute chug machine. The neck pickup is an entirely different beast, lower output and excellent for lead playing of course. Nothing bad to say about it, except one thing I'll talk about later.

The features are right up my alley: baritone scale, excellent upper fret access thanks to the neck through construction and deep carve, reverse headstock, stainless steel frets, fixed bridge, single volume knob, and most importantly the shape. If you favor the classical position, this guitar is much more comfortable than any Superstrat will ever be. When resting between your legs, it doesn't dive at all and allows you to focus on playing instead of fighting the laws of physics. I still use a footstool for maximum balance, but if you sit pretty low you probably won't need one. When you play in regular position or standing up it has some neck dive, probably because of the huge headstock, but to be fair I have yet to try a guitar that doesn't.

The killswitch button is nice to have and doesn't get in your way at all. At first I was skeptical of the spoke wheel truss rod adjustment, but because the strings are much more flexible towards the center it's actually much easier to adjust neck relief without having to slack them off.

Something about the nut seemed weird at first, as if the slots had been filed at the wrong place. But then I realized that they simply decided to go for equal distance between the CENTERS of the strings, instead of equal spacing. Odd choice, but I have yet to encounter a situation where it actually interferes with my playing.

Now on to the first problem: while I had no issues with how the stock tuners felt, two of the locking pins got stripped at the first string change. I couldn't lock the strings in place with enough force to prevent them from slipping out before the pins jumped back a couple turns or so. Not being able to get replacements from Jackson themselves, I had to resort to Schaller M6 135's, which luckily fit right in.

On top of that, the neck pickup had a bent mounting bracket, and to compensate for that the hole was drilled about 1 mm closer to the center of the body. And what if I wanted to swap it out? The holes wouldn't have lined up. What should have been done was fixing the bracket with some light hammering before mounting it. It was an easy solution. Instead I had to do that myself, then fill the hole on the body with a toothpick and drill it in the correct place.

This is not something I expect from a 1200€ guitar. Issues like these should be identified and corrected immediately at the factory, not left up to the customer to solve. It's a shame, because otherwise the quality is really good, which is why I ultimately decided to keep it (that and the fact that I would've had to wait another 3 months to get a new one). To the support team's credit, they kindly offered me a discount on a future order.

Maybe you'll be more lucky if you get one from the next run. As for mine, what matters now is that what needed to be fixed is fixed.