The controller is visually stunning. Curvy, sleek, and solid. The white binding is a great nod to detail. The fret buttons work terrifically and feel much more responsive than the RB2 & RB1 guitars. One thing I absolutely love about this peripheral is the effects knob. Harmonix has replaced the toggle switch for overdrive effects with a round knob. That way you are not always bumping into it, changing the effects and what not (I like keeping mine on echo). However one thing I didn’t really like was the placement of the ’select’ button. I’ve never really been one to tilt my guitar to go into overdrive, I’ve always hit the select button because it helps to keep me focused. On the Gretsch however, the select button has been moved significantly farther down and away from the strum bar making it harder to locate. Good thing the tilt mechanic works great (unlike the other guitars that would either fight the tilt, or set off for no reason). Speaking of which, If you want to pick up an overdrive stomp box, you can plug it into the jack at the bottom of the guitar. That is also where the ‘PS’ and ‘connect’ buttons are located. The whammy bar is a bit deceiving. In the pictures it looks really different to what we are used to, but in all reality it’s just a standard RB whammy bar with a chunk of plastic clipped on top. Still works great. One thing I noticed about the guitar (right out of the box) was that it sounds like something is loose inside. I’ve actually opened it up to see if I could find the culprit, but to no avail. Minor gripe. Auto-Cal works great.
Rating: 5 / 5