Jackson Pro Randy Rhoads RR5

I bought this beast at the local "Guitar Center." I paid around $1000 with tax.

The SOUND! I'm a big Randy Rhoads fan and WOW! This guitar is good for Heavy Metal and Rock music. Also it has a very thin neck which gives me a better reach and makes it easier to play faster. Finally the nice gold plated hard-ware

The odd shape makes it very difficult if not impossible to play while sitting down. thats about it.

When I first purchased it one of the volume knobs came undone. Which was easy to fix. Other than that everything is perfect.

Overall: I recommend this guitar to anyone. It is fun to play those screaming guitar solo's with this axe!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The RR5 is a good midlevel guitar in the RR line. Randy Rhodes was an iconic guitar player for many people and the RR series of guitars is a lasting tribute to him. The RR5 is pretty close to what he last played. It has some high end features of the RR1 with some simple features that increase simplicity and reliabilty. The RR5 has an alder body with a neck though maple neck. The guitar is a hard tail so you get 6 normal tuners up top and a tune-o-matic bridge. The bridge has a string through stop tail that increases sustain. The pickups are a classic set of Seymour Duncans. The bridge pickup is a Duncan JB with a Duncan Jazz in the neck position. The controls are pretty typical with two volumes and a master tone with a 3 way toggle.

UTILIZATION

The playability is pretty good and is increased by the hard tail setup. Upper fret access is pretty decent. Only having 22 frets helps this because the V shape is pretty broad and with 24 frets they may get hard to reach. The rosewood fretboard feels good under your fingers. The neck through design means there is no heel so that is good too. Jacksons at these levels come with compound radius necks. This means that on the higher frets the radius is flatter making it easy to bend but on the low frets its more curved making chords more comfortable. The hardtail bridge means you have excellent tuning stability and the string through hard tail increases sustain.

SOUNDS

The alder body with the maple neck give you the classic shred guitar tone. Not many companies put after market pickups in their guitars but Jackson does. Jackson knows if you are paying more than 1000 dollars for a guitar you should not have to change the pickups right after you get it. The JB and the Jazz is a good set if you are playing heavier music. The JB is a great bridge pickup when combined with the right wood guitar. In a mahogany guitar like this it is perfect. The low end is tight but not djent tight. It has a nice about of sag to it. It has good midrange and high end to it. It cuts really well and does not get muddy. The Jazz in the neck is clear and tight. The Jazz is like a more modern sounding 59 pickup. It is as smooth as the 59 but it has a bit more top end so it so it does not get as muddy as the 59 when you are playing with high gain. The sound matches the classic metal vibe of this guitar.

OVERALL OPINION

If you are looking for a Jackson RR but dont like tremolos this is a great deal. RR1T's are pretty rare and cost just as much as a normal RR1. This guitar has all the same features of an RR1T for like 1/2 the price. This guitar has great aftermarket pickups and great Jackson playability. What more could you need.

Made in Japan jackson RR5. I've owned 2 versions, one in the black with gold and one in white both of which are amazing and identical in specs.

Alder body (with flame maple veneer on trans finishes), maple neck (through body), compound radius rosewood fingerboard, Seymour Duncan JB humbucking pickups, adjustable string-through-body bridge and gold hardware. 1 vol 1 tone and a 3 way switch.

There are so many variations of this guitar but this one is basically the simplest and highest quality! It's a hard tail and it's made in japan. Best combination for an awesome guitar!!


UTILIZATION

Very nice playing guitar, the neck is I believe, jackson's compound radius neck which get flatter as you go up the frets for shredability.

The seymour duncan pickups are JBs I believe in both positions which are decent. I've owned two of these and one of which I kept the stock pickups in the other I changed to the EMG 60 and 81.

Both sound great!!

It is not ergonomically shaped of course. It's shaped for the look and it looks great, but if you wanna sit down with it you might have to get used to how to position it properly (having your right knee in between the 2 wings) propping it in a sort of classical guitar position. This is the love or hate part of the guitar. And for me, it made no difference.


SOUNDS

For this review I will be judging the guitar based on the stock pickups, which are the duncan JBs. They sound great of course. They're a bit on the edgier side and can be known to be sharp sounding and bitey. Which is good for anything that involves high gain. The JB pickups are famously known for rock and high gain applications. Nobody talks about Duncan pickups without talking about the JB.

The distortion is tight, and bitey/edgy. Tweak the amp to compensate if it's too bright for you but generally the pickup is very workable. Leads are very prominent and come out strong!

The cleans are ok. On the neck pickup it is better but a bit too thick for general use. But the leads sound great on the neck also! The guitar itself has the same specs as a strat would, alder body (but neck through) and rosewood board so it should generally sound similar if that strat had a jb pickup in it.

I don't really need to comment too much on the sound as the JB pickups are rather versatile for a lot of applications. Though I wouldn't say they do too well for super low gain/bluesy stuff, although jeff beck HAS used these way back in the past for his stuff..just goes to show how versatile these pickups are!

Just the cleans would be lacking in my opinion. I've always loved the clean sounds of single coils and humbucker cleans just never seem to do it for me, too thick and dark!


OVERALL OPINION

RR5, best buy for the money. Hard tail for those who hate floyds. Awesome rock/metal shape to look great on stage, high quality construction since it's MIJ. Versatile set of pickups included. What else does anybody need??? Maybe a good case. That might be hard to come by, and sitting down playing needs getting used to. Otherwise, a great guitar, high quality and versatile sounding!! A great quality product from jackson!

Beautiful violin
micro symour duncan sh4 (sleeve) and tb4 (bridge)
handle end and low action (typical sleeves jackson) NECK really pleasant
through tailpiece with tune o matic Chevalt
2potard volume
1potard of tone
even if it is not a US through the handle is great.

USE

Channel super nice, thin and wide, it is perfect for sweeping tapping +.
access to the very simple thanks to the shape of the guitar and V NECK.
the weight is very light so far san talk about a gadget, the guitar stays in place and does not move in any direction. it is well balanced and does not address when the handle is loose.
we easily get a good (metal, of course !!!)
nickel

SONORITS

It is perfect for my style of music since I played as metal.
I play with a Marshall MG 100 DFX (which is nevertheless a transistor) and I get a big sound faiclement.
we get a very fat sound and crystal clear distortion. I heard the clean sound is very bad but I find it very well.
I love acute micro

NOTICE GLOBAL

I use it for 3 months
I like +: The look and sound
yes but I have tried but I prefer this one
good price quality ratio
I repeat that choice san hesiter