We have been looking forward to showing this one.
Every so often, a guitar shows up that really impresses us at the shop. You open the case, turn it a few degrees under the light, and the whole thing changes on you. That is what these Jackson Righteous Run Custom Soloists do.
We spec'd this run with Jackson Custom Shop in three color-shift finishes: Red to Blue Shift, Purple to Green Shift, and Green to Gold Shift. The idea was pretty simple. Take the kind of paint you notice on a serious sports car as it rolls by, then put that same sense of movement on a Jackson Soloist that is already built for speed.
That is the fun part. This is not a subtle guitar. It's not pretending to be.
Each one is $5,200, each one is a Jackson Custom Shop build, and each one qualifies for our complimentary PLEK service.
The finish is the first thing you notice
You know those high-end car finishes that do not really reveal themselves until the car moves? It looks blue, then purple, then something else entirely once the light hits the quarter panel. That was the lane for this run.
The Soloist shape makes that idea feel natural. It already has that long, low, forward-leaning look. Add a color-shift finish and the whole guitar starts to feel like it is in motion even when it is sitting on a stand.
Red to Blue is the loudest of the three. It has the most immediate "wait, what color is that?" reaction. Purple to Green is probably the most exotic. If you are picturing the supercar paint reference, that one gets there fast. Green to Gold is warmer and a little sneakier. It feels more restrained until the light catches it, then it opens up.
Photos hardly capture the subtlety in each color. Videos only start to show you what it could be. To really see how they shift and shine you need to see them in person.
It still has to be a real Soloist
The finish gets the first reaction, but the guitar underneath is the reason this run makes sense.
This is a neck-through Jackson Custom Shop Soloist with an alder body, quartersawn maple Speed Neck, ebony fingerboard, 12"-16" compound radius, 25.5" scale, and Floyd Rose hardware. It has an R3 locking nut, a double-locking Floyd Rose tremolo, and a very direct control layout: one 500K volume, no tone pot, and a 3-way toggle.
That is the kind of setup we like on a guitar like this. You are not fighting extra controls or trying to make the guitar into five different things. It has a lane. Plug it in, push it, use the Floyd, and let the guitar do what a Soloist is supposed to do.
The neck is a big part of it. The compound-radius ebony board feels comfortable down low and flatter up top, so rhythm work does not feel stiff and lead lines do not feel boxed in. The stainless jumbo frets help too. Everything about it is pointed toward speed, but not in a flimsy way. It still feels like a Custom Shop instrument, not a toy with wild paint.
The pickup pairing is part of why we like it
The pickups are both made by Bare Knuckle, “The Mule” in the neck and “Holy Diver” in the bridge.
That pairing gives the guitar more range than you might expect from the way it looks. A guitar like this could easily be all bridge pickup, all gain, all the time. That would be fun for about ten minutes, but it would also make the guitar smaller than it needs to be.
The Mule keeps the neck position open and musical. It is the pickup you would want for cleaner passages, singing neck leads, and anything where you want the note to bloom a little instead of just bark.
The Holy Diver is the push. It has the right attitude for hard rock, metal, fusion, and technical playing without turning everything into mush. You still hear the note. You still get the attack. It just hits harder.
That is a good match for this guitar. Fast does not have to mean thin. Aggressive does not have to mean blurry.
The three finishes
The cool thing is that all three colors share the same basic recipe, so you are not choosing between different builds. You are choosing the one that feels like you.
Red to Blue Shift is the bold one. It is the most dramatic pass-by color in the group, and it probably makes the quickest first impression.
Purple to Green Shift is the exotic one. If this whole run started with the idea of sports-car paint, Purple to Green is the finish that says it most clearly.
Green to Gold Shift is the small-batch oddball, and it has the warmest personality of the three.
If you are torn between them, I would start with your gut. Do you want the loudest visual hit? Red to Blue. Do you want the most exotic shift? Purple to Green. Do you want the one that feels a little more unusual inside the run? Green to Gold.
After that, look at the individual serial details. We show the actual weight, nut width, 1st-fret depth, 12th-fret depth, and reference number for each guitar. With a Custom Shop run like this, those little differences are worth checking.
The setup matters
This is the part that is easy to skip over, but you should not skip it on a Floyd-equipped Custom Shop guitar.
Every guitar over $3,000 at Righteous includes complimentary PLEK service, and these are well over that line. We run Georgia's only PLEK station here in the shop, and we have PLEK'd more than 5,000 guitars at this point.
That matters because a locking tremolo guitar is a system. The strings, nut, bridge, action, tuning, and your playing style all talk to each other. When that system is right, the guitar feels fast in a way that specs alone do not explain. When it is wrong, you feel it immediately.
Each Righteous Run Soloist includes a Custom Shop hardshell case. You also get 72-hour returns, same-day shipping before 1 PM EST Tuesday-Friday, and the usual "call us before you buy" option if you want another set of eyes on a serial.
Who we think this is for
This is for the player who wants the guitar to feel alive before it even gets plugged in.
If you love Jacksons, Floyds, Bare Knuckles, fast necks, and finishes that make people stop mid-sentence, this run is going to make sense pretty quickly. It is flashy, but it is not empty flash. The build underneath can carry the finish.
If you do not like locking trems, be honest with yourself. This probably is not the one. Same if you want a tone knob, a hardtail, or a more traditional vintage-output thing. There are plenty of guitars for that. This one is more specific.
That is what we like about it.
It has a point of view. It is fast, loud visually, cleanly spec'd, and a little ridiculous in the right way. The finish makes you look twice. The neck and hardware make you want to keep playing.
Come see it move
Pictures help, but this is one of those finishes that makes the most sense in person. If you are near Roswell, book a showroom appointment and come see the colors move under real light.
If you are deciding from a distance, call us at (678) 735-3115, email info@righteousguitars.com, or send us a message. We can walk through the serials with you and help compare the details.
You can also browse the full Jackson selection at Righteous if you want to see where this run sits next to the rest of the lineup.
This isn't a quiet guitar. It wasn't meant to be. It feels like a Custom Shop Soloist built for somebody who still gets excited when the right guitar catches the light from across the room.
