Garry recently played at Monkeyfest 2011 and holds a place in a band alongside one of Tom Quayle’s students (fear)

Garry’s review:

This will be a fair bit of reading, but if you’re serious about buying one of Jaden’s guitars, it would be worth your while, to get some idea of what to expect.

I came across Jaden Rose guitars when a friend and fellow guitarist purchased a second hand Jaden Rose from eBay several years ago. Not long after he got it, he brought it along to a clinic we both attended. It was the prototype of the Original Series! I tried it out, and i was impressed with how solid it felt, really solid, as if you’d be hard pressed to break it even if you tried. Sometime soon after that day, Guitar Buyer had a 2 page feature, putting Jaden Rose in the public eye. I remember thinking the two models in the magazine looked pretty damn sweet, and the overview hinted that they were quite special. I’m always on the lookout for fantastic guitars, and since those 2 events, I always kept Jaden Rose in the back of my mind as someone to look at more closely in the future!

Some 12 months down the line, and several magazine reviews later, which were all pretty impressive I might add, I got to meet Jaden at a guitar clinic in Wiltshire. We got chatting afterward about general guitar stuff, and about how he goes about his building. It was insightful to me, as I’m always really interested to hear all of that geeky, guitar related stuff. I got to play several of Jaden’s guitars that day too, and I was mighty impressed! The first thing that blew me away was the incredible resonance. The strings moved in a way I hadn’t really seen before, those guitars just felt really connected and balanced. It was a brief encounter, and only unplugged, but it was an encounter I wasn’t going to forget in a hurry. Even now, i can still see those strings vibrating as clear as day in my mind.

After chatting to Jaden that day, I knew i liked him as a person, as well as someone who could build me a great guitar. He seemed at the time (and has never proven any differently since) to be very down to earth and easy to chat too, not overly opinionated or in a narrow mind-set about the way things should be done. This was awesome to me. I think if you’re in a business where your customers’ needs are very personal to them, it’s very important to be flexible, and listen to their individual needs, and work around that. After all, it’s a lot of money! Thankfully, Jaden is top notch in this respect.

So I finally saved up some moola, and not long before that, Jaden had released the “Series Two”, a stripped down, no frills guitar, based on the Original Series shape. Built on a small scale production line to save money, and sacrificing such things as top quality pickups in favour of cheaper pickups, and a solid slab of body wood, rather than fancy carved figured wood. Ultimately it made for a solid guitar that gets the job done, without all the costly and frankly unnecessary extras.

I spoke to Jaden shortly after to discuss what I could get, he offered to send me a 7 string series 2 for a small fee on a short term loan, so I could see how I liked it. A few days later, the guitar arrived, I spent a week with it, and I made up my mind, I was going to have two Series 2 guitars. A 6 string and a 7 string. I placed an order, colours chosen, fingerboard wood chosen, awesome, job done…..

…Not so fast! After a day or so I couldn’t help thinking I’d like to go to Jaden’s workshop and try out some of the stuff he already had in stock first. I spoke to him on the phone and we both agreed I wouldn’t be happy until I’d been and tried some. So we to put that order on hold, and arranged a date I could go to the workshop and put some guitars through their paces.

Off I went, a 3 hour drive, but well worth it! I arrived to a cup of coffee, and Jaden up to his armpits in a mini (car). Unfortunately for me that day, Jaden had a Rosewood Original Series model which I absolutely loved, there was something extremely sexy about that guitar, and it felt great too. Sadly for little old me, it was just out of my price range, but this did make it clear, that what I really wanted was an Original Series. (I’m a bells and whistles kind of guy!) So off home I went, no idea whatsoever of what I wanted in terms of wood or pickups at that time, I just knew I wanted an Original Series guitar.

Once I was home, I spent a few days bombarding poor Jaden with questions and suggestions, trying to find a balance between what I wanted and what I could really afford. And after a lot of huffing and puffing, we came to the conclusion that the flagship model was most suitable. The Wenge top model, which I might add, you haven’t really seen, until you’ve seen it in the flesh. Pictures just don’t do Wenge justice.

8 long weeks from that day I waited, while Jaden set about the guitar. There was an unexpected and fantastic thing I found during the build, Jaden was e-mailing me (I hadn’t asked) updates, with pictures every week, at the very least. The body, the neck, the polishing, after the fretwork, various stages of the process. This makes for a great little history to go with the guitar, seeing it during various stages of the build. Another thing I liked was Jaden asked me specific questions when he got to certain points in the build, giving me options, and asking what type of strap buttons I wanted, was I sure I wanted the tuners I had chosen, things like that, and it just makes you feel like he’s really thinking about what you’ve asked for, and taking his time before jumping in and doing something before running it by you as a customer first, really top class service. 8 weeks later it was finished. I went to collect the guitar, and we went through a setup to suit me, voilà! It was finally all mine after what seemed like an eternity. A very happy day.

The guitar itself then…

The brief play I had at Jaden’s had me itching to play more all the way home. That was a long old drive. Eventually, and late at night I arrived home. Why is it always late at night on a NGD?! Anyway, I plucked the beastie from the case, sat down, plugged in and rocked out for a good while! Astounded by how easy it was to play. And the girth and definition from the DiMarzio Tone zone which I had opted for in the bridge, phew, just awesome!

The neck is fantastic. A 5 piece Wenge and Bubinga laminate, that has a sort of shallow D profile, with a slightly flat back and more pronounced shoulders, something that I instantly liked about my friends prototype when I tried it all that time ago. Smooth, a friendly handful, fast, but enough to play any style comfortably, a nigh on perfect neck carve in my opinion. The fingerboard is a lovely piece of Macassar ebony, finished off with Jescar EVO gold frets, which are incredible. Smooth, really hard wearing and they suit this guitar so well. If I could mark Jaden out of 10 for his fret work, I’d give him an 11!!! Sublime, absolutely smooth as you like, no matter how hard you look. Another nice touch of Jaden’s necks, is the way he incorporates the nut slot into the fingerboard, I really like that.

The body is another faultless and beautiful piece of work, a lovely 2 piece mahogany back with some pleasant grain, and a slab of book matched (I guess??) Wenge, which gives the most striking grain when cut along a certain axis. Huge contrasting grain lines look amazing as they swirl all over the top of the guitar, and the oiled finish makes it feel amazing too! Really nice contouring on the top too. Aggressive horns, with aggressive contouring again, make the guitars intent pretty obvious. The headstock is also topped with a piece of Wenge.

The hardware, standard cosmo black Gotoh all round please. It looks class, it’s solid and reliable, and it just suits this guitar really well I think! DiMarzio electronics too which feel and respond nicely.

All in all, this guitar was everything I hoped for and more. Its playability is immense. The tone is awesome, the notes ring out clearly with real intent. I always think a great guitar inspires you to pick it up and play it. I would say since I’ve had it, my practice hours have doubled, my enthusiasm has doubled, and my ability as a player has increased significantly because of that! It’s a world class guitar, one of the best I own. And it’s not like it’s up against any old competition, I already own some 20 odd guitars, some of them are highly regarded and well coveted guitars. Jaden Rose simply makes serious instruments, to an immaculate standard, all the while being a great bloke, and a pleasure to do business with from start to finish! Not a single bit of regret! I’d be a less happy, lesser able guitarist, if it wasn’t for Jaden.

Garry Brown (Voodoorider)

Read the article:

This new multiscale features:

27.5 – 25.5″ scale
24 frets
Swamp ash body
Quartersawn bubinga neck with body matched headstock
Hipshot locking tuners
Jaden Rose Guitars manufactured bridge featuring graphtech saddles
Custom spec pickups
Custom Tusq nut

The Fanned Fred will be available to order from early Jan 2012 – to reserve yours, please contact us.

got what is probably the last coat on the myrtle top

then while it was drying, i coloured an S2

and the back of a wenge top original series

while the stains dried, I get on with sanding some necks, starting at 80

and all the way through to over 4000, the results speak for themselves, no wax or compound on our boards

and so the process repeats for another ebony board

rosewood before

and after

and the first time I used this – Pistachio

which turns out like a matt maple, with stripes

then the S2 and OS get their first coats of oil

and thats it, working on a new 8 string bridge over the weekend ! expect to see it soon.

another coat of oil for the wenge / black limba guitar and its starts to shine a little

the myrtle gets another coat too, im tempted to keep going on this one until its crazy shiny… but maybe not

and the first coat goes on Flo’s guitar

I get some necks prepped with truss rod routes

and get a few carved out before the end of the day

the fan 8 proto #2 gets a rub down and a first coat of oil

lovely jubbly – friday night now and the RWC final to look forward to on sunday.