Calling Ibanez Az2402 owners - is there something wrong with my new guitar?

Tannhauser

Tannhauser

Inspired
I've been playing a nashville tele or a strat as my main guitars for 5 years now. I was always a high gain player, but I got into a different kind of sound.

Anyway, I picked up an AZ2402 after seeing a good price - this feels more like home ground than anywhere else - this is my 5th Ibanez guitar, I've spent most of my playing time on an Ibanez. I also updated my Axe FX and got ready for some excellent guitar fun.

Fairly quickly, I thought something had gone wrong, so I rolled back presets and firmware to try and fix it.

I've just played my tele (sounds great) and now my AZ (sounds awful). Aside from the AZ being incredibly high output vs the tele (no big surprise) the tone just seems off, it's like I've got a cocked wah pedal on all the time or my tone control is turned right down. There's like a big unidentifiable nothing in the guitar tone - like it can be loud, but there's no definition.

Have I got too used to the Fender twang and need some time to acclimatise with the darker sound of AZ's Seymour Duncans? Have they sent me a guitar that's somehow got a mid boost permanently engaged? Are my pickups out of phase?

Any ideas?
 
I own a lot of AZs and love them but also have to tell you, that i don't get along too well with the Hyperion PUs. Too much mids and too much output. That's ok at the bridge position but it's not easy to get bluesy or funky tones at the neck. Guess that's why they swapped to the Fortuna PUs on the later models.

But what you described seems a bit odd - i don't experience that here. Did you experiment with the Dynaswitch? This cocked wah sounds like an out of phase setting
 
In my experience there's something wrong with your guitar.
In the past I made some tests (from clean to mean) with a friend using a tele, an RG, an AZ and a solar 7 string... of course each one has it's own character and definition... but nothing so "immense" when played by the same player.

Maybe you can try to record some DI clean sounds with the 10 positions and ask for a match to an AZ owner
 
Try making a copy of your preset where you dial in the amp and cab block for that guitar specifically. The differences between your AZ and your Tele are dramatic enough that they aren't likely to both sound amazing with the exact same settings.

That said, if you can't find a factory preset that makes the AZ sound good then there might be an issue with the instrument itself. Something as simple as a cold solder joint might cause what you are describing.
 
Harm said:
Go to a guitar store, plug it into an amp. See what happens. Then take one off the shelf and compare. Buy strings or other stuff as a thank you gesture.
Click to expand...
It's not a bad idea.
Riccardo Ros said:
In my experience there's something wrong with your guitar.
In the past I made some tests (from clean to mean) with a friend using a tele, an RG, an AZ and a solar 7 string... of course each one has it's own character and definition... but nothing so "immense" when played by the same player.

Maybe you can try to record some DI clean sounds with the 10 positions and ask for a match to an AZ owner
Click to expand...
Ugh, all my guitars are in cases at the moment, I'll have to get unpacking to compare. Depending on how that goes, I might do some recordings and see what people think.
OrganicZed said:
The differences between your AZ and your Tele are dramatic enough that they aren't likely to both sound amazing with the exact same settings.
Click to expand...
This is also a good point.

Maybe @Heinzi would be up for comparing recordings!
 
Last edited:
I bought a AZ2204N and loved the pickups at first. The pickups are the Duncan Fortuna set. The bridge was bright and smooth but little thickness or warmth to it. I put a Seth Lover in it and much better but it didn’t have enough bite. The Seth sounded out of phase with the singles, so I swapped the wires and found out they were in phase to begin with. Then I found out the pickups all use a 250k volume pot. I like Duncan pickups but the Fortuna’s are not great. Otherwise the guitar is excellent. SS frets, nice action with no buzz, neck’s kind of like my Strat, not the wizard neck. So I’m swapping out pots and switch to give it a proper HSS setup. I decided to keep it for now and one last chance.

Yours sounds like something might be wrong or maybe that’s just how those pickups are. If you got a good price then consider throwing some money at it. It’s either change it up or move on.
 
skolacki said:
Yours sounds like something might be wrong or maybe that’s just how those pickups are. If you got a good price then consider throwing some money at it. It’s either change it up or move on.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can still return it for a few weeks if I can't work out what's going on with it. I did get a good deal on it, maybe I'll think about putting some different pickups in there, maybe rewiring it totally so the switching system works more in the way that I think I'd like.

I must stop posting here, finish my work and then get my guitars out!
 
Tannhauser said:
Ugh, all my guitars are in cases at the moment, I'll have to get unpacking to compare. Depending on how that goes, I might do some recordings and see what people think.
Click to expand...
I can add that the presets I made for my classic combo (Air Norton + Tone Zone) sounded pretty similar on the AZ with the Hyperion and sound pretty close with the Suhr SSV + SSH+.
So I don't think they have a "strange" or unique sound
 
Riccardo Ros said:
I can add that the presets I made for my classic combo (Air Norton + Tone Zone) sounded pretty similar on the AZ with the Hyperion and sound pretty close with the Suhr SSV + SSH+.
So I don't think they have a "strange" or unique sound
Click to expand...
I actually have a guitar with that combo so can compare quite easily, so I'll try that later.
 
Tannhauser said:
I actually have a guitar with that combo so can compare quite easily, so I'll try that later.
Click to expand...
I can also be deaf, so don't keep my word for it 😂
It's just that the pickups were ok for me.
I should also say that I have never had a telly or a strat... but in position 2 and 4 (with alter switch on) you have the single coil split to compare. It's not apples to apples but it should roughly sound in the same league
 
Tannhauser said:
I've been playing a nashville tele or a strat as my main guitars for 5 years now. I was always a high gain player, but I got into a different kind of sound.

Anyway, I picked up an AZ2402 after seeing a good price - this feels more like home ground than anywhere else - this is my 5th Ibanez guitar, I've spent most of my playing time on an Ibanez. I also updated my Axe FX and got ready for some excellent guitar fun.

Fairly quickly, I thought something had gone wrong, so I rolled back presets and firmware to try and fix it.

I've just played my tele (sounds great) and now my AZ (sounds awful). Aside from the AZ being incredibly high output vs the tele (no big surprise) the tone just seems off, it's like I've got a cocked wah pedal on all the time or my tone control is turned right down. There's like a big unidentifiable nothing in the guitar tone - like it can be loud, but there's no definition.

Have I got too used to the Fender twang and need some time to acclimatise with the darker sound of AZ's Seymour Duncans? Have they sent me a guitar that's somehow got a mid boost permanently engaged? Are my pickups out of phase?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Sounds like there is some kind problem in your AZ2420.
I had AZ2420 also and as long I know that sound, it not supposed to be that way you described.

I sold my AZ out, even it was really good. But now I have really nice one Ibanez ---> LB1VL which is just awesome and very versatile guitar.

IbanezLB1VL.jpg
 
I think I might have been a bit over the top yesterday, I think this guitar just doesn't suit the sounds I play with my telecaster, that the output of this guitar being wildly different and some of the sounds the switching system conjurs up being particularly not suited to the sounds I had set up and having been single coil for only for quite a while all added together were a recipe for disaster.

It seems much better now - when using different amps (thank goodness for @austinbuddy's premade selection that made it easy for me to flick through lots of different amps).

I will say that this guitar is a different enough beast that it's not just a case of different sounds, I think there are now 100% different tools for different jobs at work here and this is a "modern" guitar that needs to be paired with a modern amp (or that seems my experience so far). So goodbye Bassman, hello Archon. The tele loves being in breakup, but this seems to prefer being very clean or very distorted and not enjoy the in between.

Thanks for all the replies and for the pic of that LB1VL, @GuitarChapPappa, - I met Lari at the UK Guitar show a while back and saw her play hers and agree that it is a lovely looking guitar!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom