Hey guys, I've been tied up for a while but want to just give a quick update.

So, I've been through quite a 'search' shall we say trying to find a JTV that I was satisfied with. I was falling off the edge of the fretboard when i did my high e pull off scale pattern licks.

I am pretty aggressive on them, and tried to lighten up a bit. i couldn't seem to do it well enough to be able to accept the 'limitation'. The first thing i said when i played the JTV-69 was "it will probably be okay for most players..but not for me, because i milk that part of a guitar".

I tried 4 JTV-69's , 3 59's, and an 89. All Korean ones. I must say that i found the neck on the 69 to be quite good otherwise. It let me get into a good zone where my improvising was "flowing" quite fluidly. But i kept feeling distracted by the frets being so close to the edge and it interupted my flow to the point where i could not settle with it.

In a different way, i loved the 89 neck. i still want one. It was a scale/shred dream. But that damm high e string was too close for me, I fell off too much. Again, i play those areas hard..downward pull off, chicken pickin drone scale nitro stuff lol

I have now ended up with a JTV-69US. At first when i played it, i thought...no way!..I'm still feeling like I'm too close to the edge of the fretboard. As i gave it a chance, i realised i was able to lighten up just a hair on my touch and could stay safely on the fretboard. The neck feels very much like the Korean size, but the guitar is lighter and seems a bit higher quality overall. The electronics are identical.

So as i was testing out the guitar, i felt literally sucked in to another level of that "flow" I was talking about while improvising. I own a PRS Singlecut, which is an incredible piece of work, and i have had those type of flow moments on it.

This JTV-69 US guitar is of the same caliber, but in a different way. It is really a 'player's guitar' in the sense of a player that goes deep will be able to appreciate it fully.

This guitar becomes part of my hand, and not only removes limitations of my fingers physically, allowing me to do whatever i am thinking...but also enhances my creativity because it feels so good. It's hard to put all this flowery talk in words obviously..but i'm telling you, at this level of playing, it becomes spiritual, and only the finest guitars i've ever played can be spoken of in this context.

So I guess those fretboard edge strings are made to be that close to the edge, by James Tyler's exact specs. Too bad some frets on the Korean necks were not paid closer attention to, it gave these necks a bad rap..because it is a crucial part of the whole package...and needs to be very accurate.