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Key Features
Change your tone from Country twang to rich, dark midnight Jazz chords and that elusive 'in-between quack-tone' in just the flick of a switch with the Jerry Donahue Fret King and its custom-wired five-way switch.
Product Ref: 26974
The Fret King Black Label JD has single coil pickups custom wound to Jerry's exact standard and it also has a five way switch wired and tuned to his specific requirements. The Fret King JD meets his vision of a single guitar which really can sound like all of the most immediately unmistakable solid-body sounds of the last 5 decades.
The two-piece, centre-jointed body is constructed from Alder with a bound Ash top. The custom-profiled Canadian Maple neck with Maple fingerboard provides a smooth playing style, perfect for Jerry Donahue's signature string-bending style.
Pickup Selections
The JD cranks out five of the blazingest tones associated with the most popular solid-body guitars today. Position One yields a rich and sparkling tone, with the unmistakable soaring, majestic blues tones of the 60's and 70's. Switch to Position Two and you'll hear the special tonal quality usually heard from a full-body Jazz guitar. Position Three produces an enhanced, contemporary version of the customary middle-position timbre on a classic two-pickup guitar thanks to the parallel wiring placement. By combining both pickups with a capacitor and resistor in a controlled degree of reverse phase, Position Four, you can find the popular in-between 'quack tone' of three-pickup guitars. By playing the guitar in Position Five, an updated stock-style bridge pickup, you can capture that amazing gutsy lead sound found on the very best traditional two-pickup guitars.
"Overall build and playability, not to mention the custom sounds onboard, make the JD punch well above its weight in terms or price. It looks like Fret-King is really aiming for the stars."
- Guitarist Magazine
"Great build quality and a wealth of tones - all of which are highly useable - demonstrate that this Fret-King is a real player's guitar."
- Play Music Magazine
"You'd be missing the chance of owning a fabulous, versatile guitar at a great price if you don't try one!"
- iGuitar Magazine
Jerry Donahue is one the modern luminaries of the string benders, and one of the founding members of the legendary Hellecasters. Jerry is a player whose outstanding talent has seen him feature with artists as distinctive as Robert Plant, Johnny Hallyday, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, The Yardbirds and many more.
With all this in mind it's unsurprising that Jerry knows a thing or two about tone, and when the opportunity to cooperate with Fret King and Trev Wilkinson to create a guitar he could be 100 happy with arose, the gauntlet was thrown down Jerry jumped at the chance. The Fret King 'JD' is the result of that challenge and it encompasses everything Jerry Donohue required of a hard wearing classic styled electric guitar.
Body & Bridge:
Neck:
Pickups & Hardware: