NAMM Preview: Jeff Loomis Talks About the Changes in his Schecter JL-7 Guitar

I play seven-string guitars, and whenever I was out shopping for a new axe there were two components that ruined so many potential guitars–ones I could have otherwise fallen in love with. Now, a lot of this is personal preference, but I can’t help feel like my tastes fall in with the majority of players because I keep noticing new models are ditching my dual albatrosses: Floyd Rose bridges and EMG 707 pickups.

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Case in point: the new 2014 Jeff Loomis JL-7 signature guitar from Schecter. Jeff is eighty-sixing those two ingredients for a hipshot bridge and EMG 57/66 pickups, the latter of which are showing up quite a lot lately, and with good cause. Since their release about a year ago there’s been a lot of buzz about how they retain the best aspects of actives and passives. My two cents: I think they’re among the absolute best pickups on the market today.

A few other revisions to the Schecter Loomis JL-7 are swamp ash instead of regular ash, swapped volume knob and pickup selector positions, better 24th fret access, a new neck design and more. But don’t take it from me. Get your info straight from the man himself in the video below.

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Chris Alfano has written about music and toured in bands since print magazines and mp3.com were popular. Once in high-school he hacked a friend's QBasic stick figure fighting game to add a chiptune metal soundtrack. Random attractive people still give him high-fives about that.

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  • 707 are one of the worst pickups ever, so compressed.

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