Jackson Pro Series Mark Heylmun RR24-7

I was interested of buying this guitar since it was announced. There is not that many Jackson RR 7 string models out there.

I loved black / gold combination. Also Fishman pick ups is feature that i have been interested to try.

When i received package, it got pretty big hole in it and had to check it, but luckily Thomann's box was only thing damaged and guitar was fine. Big thanks for Thomann for double packing.

I write music mostly in D standard tuning, so first thing was tuning guitar to D standard and at first i was worried that guitar got some major intonation problems. I couldn't get it stay in tune. I noticed factory strings were somewhat thin, i think 009-52 set. When i tightened nut bolts, it caused strings to go somewhat out of tune, so much tuning from bridge screws was really hard, as i ended up turning them all the way in.

So i went and got me a set of 010-58. And it was like magic. Maybe 30 minutes later, guitar stays in tune very well and intonation was spot on. Didn't have to adjust at all. No matter how hard i do dive bombs and use whammy it keeps the tuning solidly.

Only thing i did was adjusting bridge height little higher because action was little too low, and there was some string buzz.

Fishman pick ups are really good specially for high gain extreme metal. Really hot output with minimum noise. Having two sounds modes with them is good feature. Neck is solid, much faster and easier to play than my previous Jeff Loomis Signature Schecter.

Overall this is guitar of my dreams and i am really happy with it. 10/10 from me.

The guitar looks amazing and is great to play. Quality control seems good and I found no visual defects or marks anywhere on the guitar, although the volume pot and jack nuts were a little loose, no biggie.

However, there is one thing that I need to address and that is the string thickness. I tuned to drop G and wanted to go with a .074" string but quickly found out that the floyd rose saddle is not made to accomodate such strings. The saddle groove is too tight and shallow and the string never seats in the groove at all, resulting in bad intonation and tuning instability. Also the string holding block that is screwed against the string, is too thick and any string larger than .070" won't go deep enough in the hole. I first tried a .074" and it unwound itself from the tremolo after 15 minutes of playing.

I contacted Jackson support, who in turn contacted Floyd Rose support and received an official answer that the maximum thickness that is accepted is an .062" string, which is really silly to be honest. Rumors say that Floyd Rose can hook you up with an custom saddle piece to accept thicker strings. I filed the saddle groove and string holding block and now the bridge happily accepts an 0.74 string. Also, the tuner peg can take around .074" string, a .078" won't go through it without drilling it larger first.

All in all, a great guitar but beware that the maximum string thickness is around .062" if you do not buy custom saddle or modify the existing one.