here's what you have to do with a jem...

swap out the middle single coil and pop in a seymour duncan hot rails and you'll have the lamborghini of metal guitars. i have the old desert yellow jem and to this day i have not found a guitar that matches it's playability or tone.

wow. I have a Carvin Bolt Plus, and when I walked into my local music store, I instantly loved this guitar the first time I saw it. Everything on the guitar is a callout for you to play it. I would DEFINATLY reccomend this guitar for the developing guitarist who wants a guitar that is well rounded.

As a JEM owner, I will tell you the 7VWH with Evolution pickups gets quite harsh. The 7VWH is one of the brightest guitars I've ever played, and this is almost always inappropriate for electric guitar music. The Breed pickups are smoother yet still articulate. If you're in the market for a JEM, I'd try the smoother wood (basswood) and darker pickups of the 77V. Highly recommended.

After searching for a quality instrument that would meet my needs as a developing guitarist, I literally tried every guitar I could get my hands on. I tried a les paul, ES-335, 70's strat, tele, numerous jacksons, and some lower end ibanez rg's. Of all these instruments, I loved the slim, thin, fast necks of the Ibanez guitars, and decided to purchase one. Ironically, I had never played the JEM77V before I ordered it, but I was confident in its quality. When it arrived, I was blown away by how great of a guitar it was. Firstly, it is arguably the most beautiful instrument ever to grace my hands, and it plays like a dream. The factory action was nice and low, and hardly needed any adjustment. I was at first skeptical about the quality of the basswood body, but after playing it, I enjoyed it's excellent low and mid end response. It is also a very light guitar, and the handle makes me feel like Steve Vai himself. The only complaints I have is how hard the guitar is to tune, other than that, it stays in tune wonderfully. The edge pro bridge is also kind of confusing. The DiMarzio breeds could also be upgraded with duncans, evos, or even EMG's. Do yourself a favor and order one.

I got this guitar, it came out in October, I was one of the first people to get one. It's amazing, the neck is so perfect, the body has an insane amount of sustain, great pick-ups, its sounds amazing clean and distorted. The mirrored pick guard does get dirty very easy but its really easy to clean.