RavenWestGuitar Co. RG5000

Walnut, alder, walnut sorta sandwich. Maple neck thru, rosewood fretboard. Hum, single hum and lic. floyd. 25.5 scale, 24 fret and an all over oiled finish (i think), you can feel the wood the whole way over the body and neck.

I play hard rock and metal. I needed a guitar that had a floyd, humbuckers and preferably neck thru. This is guitar is great for everything i play, from vintage metallica and pantera to more classic sorta stuff, i.e ac/dc and iron maiden. The guitar has hum, single, hum. The pickups are unmarked but quite hot and the selector switch is cleverly wired to produce a good vairiety of tones. 1st pos, is just bridge hum, 2nd is the bridge side coil of the bridge hum and the single in the middle. 3rd is just the single, 4th is single and neck side coil of the neck hum, 5th is neck hum. Its not what id call a bright guitar, but ive never had problems with it being anywhere near muddy, a very tonally balanced guitar. I know its odd i should talk about this being a metal player, but if it sound bad clean, then at higher gain it will sound bad except louder and crunchier.

The guitar as you would expect with a floyd arrived in tune, and was set and playing quite nicely which was nice after being flown from US to UK. I changed the strings to DR 9-50's and after a quick set up the guitar was playing very well again. These guitars are inceadably well built and the only thing i could complain about is the floyd. Its unfortunaltly a lic. floyd. I am a fairly heavy whammy bar abuser as you would expect from pantera, but after 8 months of owning this guitar and daily usage, the floyd is still returning to zero, only problem is it dont say floyd rose on the side lol

This guitar has withstood many gigs, the only alterations i have put on it are strap locks, the only reason why, is i dropped it at its second gig, but tbh this is to be expected with normal strap buttons, after the fall i picked it back up and it was still playing fine, a small dent in both of our prides but these things happen lol. I have used this guitar at a few gigs without backups, but would prefer not to, simply because the worry of having a string break and the floyd and tuning and you know how it goes

The only thing i can say is, i did ask a fair few questions about shipping and kinda wouldnt stop emailing ravenwest asking when the hell my guitar was going to get here, but they were great. They returned every email and were more than helpfull. The guitar was well packaged on arrival and was factory perfect.

This guitar is great. Tonally balanced, very very nice player. The floyd may be lic. but its holding out very well on me so far. In the future i may change the bridge to L-500XL pickup. Simply because altho the guitar is has never been muddy, the bridge isnt bright enuf for me. Looks great too. I didnt have much cash and kinda took a risk buying a guitar from over seas that i had never heard about before. But the guys from the company were most most helpfull and I cant fault the guitar on anything. Id happily buy another RG5000 or another guitar from Raven West guitars without a second thought.

All these other guys have described the actual features, and believe me...theyre not lying or crazy. This is one FIRST CLASS TOPNOTCH guitar.I am wonderfully awed by the quality.

I wont make this a bio of me, i'll just say that i have been playing guitar nonstop since i was 9 and i'm almost 53.Ive lost a LOT of good guitars to drugs and idiocy, and ive had some clunkers i couldnt give away.Ive been playing for pay since 1991, several styles of music, which include very little country,lots of blues and "classic rock " , for lack of a better term.i JUST GOT in from the FIRST gig with my RG5000, and i was compelled to write this, even tho its 2 am.
This is the best playing
best sounding
most versatile
most beautiful
smoothest silkiest action
stay-in-tune even under duress
finish so smooth my guitar tech pal was looking at it today
(who, by the way, is a PERFECTIONIST and CRITIC DELUXE)
and I thought he was literally going to come in his pants.....

Eric, you are the master importer of the best guitar i have ever played. ever. ever.
i mean it
I took this guitar from the box and plugged it in..
no adjustments necessary.....
none....
in 13 years of playing i have NEVER played without some pedals
and NEVER EVER without a tuner....
i just got in from a 4 hours gig with no pedals, no tuner...just my RG and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe....
thats all i'm taking tomorrow too....

Write me.... i LOVE talking about this guitar...
i'm converted....
These guitars have soul....
its that TOUCH....
you hold the neck, its alive.....
i played licks tonight that i have never played before...
i cant WAIT until tomorrow....

Eric is doing this right....always responds, always helps.....

I wish you could see the shit-eating grin on my face

I have had mine now since Xmas...brand new then...WOW is this an amazing guitar.!!! Looks incredible with Walnut and Alder body,Maple neck thru with Walnut stringers.. H/S/H and Grover tuners..A very nice Floyd Rose(licensed under)bridge...
All in all a VERY good buy for the money...!!!

I play everything from Black Label Society to Zeppelin and this guitar sounds incredible for all of it...the full,heavy,bluesy riffs to the squealing pinch harmonics it never ceases to amaze me..
I play thru a Digitech processer into an old Randall commander IV which is a 4-10 combo...
I find myself loving it more everytime I play it...I would have to say sound wise it isnt as nice as my Gibson LP or my Kramer Nightswan but its damn close and it saves wear and tear on the nicer ones in the collection

Is as close to a thing of beauty as I have found...It came with a decent set-up that required a little tweaking but all in all simply amazing is all I can say.

Have only had it for 4 months but nothing wrong yet...I am sure the gold hardware wont last very long but does it ever..?

N/A...not had to deal with them and dont see it happening either...

I have been playing since the release of Zeppelin's fourth album and dont ever see myself quitting...
If this was stolen I would start hunting..and beleive me I wont lose it...

Korean made, 2005 Solid Body, Neck Through construction, multiwood Walnut/Alder/Alder body. H-S-H pickup configuration. 5-way blade switch. 1 volume, 1 tone. Maple/walnut/maple/walnut/maple neck-center body section. Rosewood fingerboard with abalone boomerang inlays and wide-tall jumbo fret wire. Gold Floyd Rose LO-PRO locking trem and locking nut. Gold Grover tuners. Natural satin oil finish. It came with a cord, adjustment wrenches, screw-on trem bar and RWG's lifetime warranty. The construction, woods, build quality and gorgeous looks are exactly like that of the ultra expensive 80's guitars made by MODULUS GRAPHITE and ALEMBIC and used by groups like the Grateful Dead and others. You've got to see this axe to believe how gorgeous it really is! Fortunately, RWG (ravenwestguitar.com) has a whole series of great high definition pics at their site so you can really get a look before you buy. Bravo to Eric and RWG for bringing quality of this scale at such a musician's friendly price.

I play modern jazz/fusion and this guitar absolutely smokes! I've played it live and in my friend's home studio and it blows away just about every other guitar I own. The pickups are definitely overwound and hot. I suspect that they are probably RWG's version of distortion pickups. They are voiced toward the treble end of the tone spectrum but the tone control is extremely effective in rolling off the highs, if that's the sound you like, and it's always better to have more frequency response to play with than be stuck with just one set tone. The humbuckers deliver that modern hot sound but clean up well when the volume is turned down a bit. The middle single coil is also hot and surprisingly clean. I suspect that RWG went for a stacked humbucking coil here but I'm not really sure. The 5-way blade switch allows all the standard strat-style pups combinations. RWG has just started their own version of a custom shop called the HOT ROD ALLEY and is selling specially set-up versions of their guitars with genuine Seymore Duncan pickups. That would be a great option on this guitar and would give Duncan fans a guitar to die for! The electronics and hardware are very good quality and the woods and construction are top-notch. I'm not really a fan of the free floating Floyd Rose tremelo, though this one is really well thought out and looks to be easy to use. I never have figured out why anyone would sacrifice their tone by routing out wood under the trem for the option of at the most, a half step bend by pulling up on the bar. I'd rather that the trem make solid contact with the guitar body when not in use. That way I can tighten the springs enough to avoid any sagging of the other strings when I bend and still have the option of dive-bombing if I need to. I'll probably modify it eventually but for you metal heads, the trem will do all your extreme whammying and come right back in tune. The fine tuning screws work really well too.

The guitar came with a great setup and played like butter right out of the box. No surprise there, I own their 450 hollowbody and 350 solidbody PRS-style guitars and they arrived exactly the same. The jumbo frets make shredding almost too easy. The neck thickness and contour is similar to a C-shaped 70's strat neck. Not too thick and not too thin. The multi-layer woods used in the neck through and body wings, abalone inlays and gold hardware make this guitar absolutely beautiful. The organic feeling satin oil finish is classy looking and lets your hand move up in down the neck with none of the drag you get with a glossy finish. Needless to say, with the neck-through design the sustain is incredible.

This guitar is the best built guitar I've ever owned. Period. I'd gig with it without a backup any day. Short of breaking the headstock off in some freak accident, I can't see anything that could hurt it.

Eric at RWG is the best! I've never had a complaint but I know if I did he'd go the extra mile to make sure it was taken care of.

I've been playing forever and I've owned just about everything. I love the RG5000 and it is now my main guitar. If you've read this far, let me repeat that I honestly believe this is the most incredible value in a professional custom style guitar you'll EVER find. If you've ever lusted after that ALEMBIC or MODULUS GRAPHITE super strat you should check out the RG5000.