Who builds Jackson???

[groverj3]

My impression was also that the master builders (Mike Shannon, Dave Nichols, Pat McGarry, and Joe Williams) used to do all the "custom shop" stuff, while there were other employees that built the USA Select Series. On occasion you'd find a hang tag that indicated a master builder had their hands on your USA Select though (assuming if they had down time or something).

Now, essentially there aren't really any more USA Select models making their way to dealers, because those other "non-master builders" are making custom select guitars based on the USA Select base models instead.

I could be wrong though.

[groverj3]

When was it that the new X series moved from India to Indonesia?

I had a white SLX that was definitely built in India. Is the general consensus that the quality has gone up since they moved those to Indonesia? I remember it playing well, but there were some obvious cosmetic problems.

[wrldeatr7]

I think production moved from India to Indonesia around 2010-2011 or so. No consensus on quality. India used to make both the JS Series and X-Series. So when people talk about Indian Jacksons good chance they have experience with the JS, which by virtue of being affordable are never considered good enough no matter where they are made. The Indian X-Series are very good guitars.

The move to Indonesia hasn't been smooth. The JS Series went to China. The X-Series to Indonesia. Initially most were made by Wildwood and the Kelly by Cort. Then little by little the other models also went to Cort so that maybe since 2 years ago all X-Series are made by Cort. Wildwood also used to make all Pro-models but those eventually went to Samick.
Wildwood X-Series guitars were nice. They used a great looking dark rosewood. Cort in turn uses that aweful uneven yellow rosewood. Some of the recent reviews of Cort guitars are positive but I do recall at first they were more critical.

[xenophobe]

Now, essentially there aren't really any more USA Select models making their way to dealers, because those other "non-master builders" are making custom select guitars based on the USA Select base models instead.

I could be wrong though.

USA Select standard production was modernized with CNC a number of years ago, which is why Custom Selects are now possible. This has already been confirmed.

[groverj3]

USA Select standard production was modernized with CNC a number of years ago, which is why Custom Selects are now possible. This has already been confirmed.

Gotcha. I'm assuming that still a lot of the work is by hand though, unless they're doing more than just cutting rough body shapes, etc. with CNC. Personally, I'm a fan of more automation for guitar building. I mean, if set-up properly shouldn't a CNC machine be more accurate than doing stuff by hand?

[groverj3]

I think production moved from India to Indonesia around 2010-2011 or so. No consensus on quality. India used to make both the JS Series and X-Series. So when people talk about Indian Jacksons good chance they have experience with the JS, which by virtue of being affordable are never considered good enough no matter where they are made. The Indian X-Series are very good guitars.

The move to Indonesia hasn't been smooth. The JS Series went to China. The X-Series to Indonesia. Initially most were made by Wildwood and the Kelly by Cort. Then little by little the other models also went to Cort so that maybe since 2 years ago all X-Series are made by Cort. Wildwood also used to make all Pro-models but those eventually went to Samick.
Wildwood X-Series guitars were nice. They used a great looking dark rosewood. Cort in turn uses that aweful uneven yellow rosewood. Some of the recent reviews of Cort guitars are positive but I do recall at first they were more critical.

Interesting. I made the mistake of buying both an early re-launch Indian SLX and an early pro-series relaunch SL2Q. The Indian SLX played just fine, but the neck binding had chips in the clear coat near the higher frets, probably due to fret-end smoothing at the factory, and the SL2Q had several issues: frets were not properly sized and installed and began making the binding bulge and crack, neck was the wrong width at the nut (shipped with an R1 nut). That being said, they both played fine but perhaps all the factory switching was to iron out such QC issues. I haven't seen comparable issues on the newer ones.

[xenophobe]

Gotcha. I'm assuming that still a lot of the work is by hand though, unless they're doing more than just cutting rough body shapes, etc. with CNC. Personally, I'm a fan of more automation for guitar building. I mean, if set-up properly shouldn't a CNC machine be more accurate than doing stuff by hand?

Well, the basic stuff like gluing wood together, yeah, that's done by hand. But they build up a blank and insert into a CNC machine. Search youtube for Kiesel vids, you'll see how most of the shaping is done by machine.

They'll be more accurate than something done by unskilled workers, but master luthiers don't need a CNC to build amazing guitars. I personally like the feel of a hand shaped neck.

[wilkinsi]

Imagine someone sells their Jackson guitar(s) when they realise who built them

[Startingline]

It doesn't seem to be manufacturer/brand specific. I have 2 Jacksons from 2 different manufacturers. A DKAM=CW-China WMI and an SDX=NH-India Harmony