So I tried an Ibanez guitar.....

unix-guy said:
The Japanese era is definitely the golden age.
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Totally agreed 👍

The fretwork on the Japanese ibbys are absolutely incredible!

Cheaper ibanez guitars are the worst - I agree...but i doubt anyone who is playing a fractal is gonna be playing on a $99 dollar Ibanez........but you never know 😄
 
In all fairness I almost bought that same micro!

It's a great deal at that price point, but generally the Ibanez guitars in that price range are not nearly as impressive, which gives them a bad name.

Truth be told, they have some of the best AND some of the worst at either extreme price point 🤣
 
the sustainer had to been added. some one may had added it because if you look at steve vai's white jem the humbucker was taken out of the neck position and a single coil was put in along with a sustainer pickup. they may had been trying to copy vai's guitar but who knows.

Tremonti said:
So I tried an Ibanez guitar.....and really really loved it. It was a Prestige RG66 or something. Did not open up to look, but looks to have had a Fernandes Sustainer pickup in neck with mini toggle for harmonics. I am a guitar tech on the side and did not think about getting info on this until after client picked up. Side note: I cannot believe that I may prefer super thin necks(don't tell ALL my other guitars with '59 roundback contours).

Question: What model am I referring to? I cannot find this online and must be going about this wrong. Thanks!
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I have a Ibanez JS-2450 and I have owned many many many Ibanez's but out of them all none of them can touch the JS-2450 hands down.
 
jon said:
In all fairness I almost bought that same micro!

It's a great deal at that price point, but generally the Ibanez guitars in that price range are not nearly as impressive, which gives them a bad name.

Truth be told, they have some of the best AND some of the worst at either extreme price point 🤣
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Yeah, it took about $200 and a decent amount of work replacing or modifying the pickups, tuners, nut, string trees, selector switch, and volume pot in order to get it playing and sounding like I wanted, so it's more like a $399 guitar now. :) Interestingly, I was expecting the frets to be pretty bad at this price point, but I was pleasantly surprised to find no protruding fret ends or rough edges and I didn't feel the need to do any work on them.
 
I bought an RG550 new in about 1985 or 1986, mainly because I wanted something with a Floyd Rose on it. This was at a period of my life when I'd "retired" from working in a band, so it really didn't get a lot of playing. I never really liked the thin neck, but it played and sounded good. Fast forward about 30 years and I started playing in a band again. I still didn't like the neck on the RG550, and didn't think I'd have a need for the Floyd Rose in the band I was playing in, so I traded it in on a new MIM Strat. (The Strat was a better fit for the type of music I was playing in the new band.) The sales kid at Guitar Center was frothing at the mouth when he saw the near-mint RG550...he was planning to buy it himself since it was his dream shredder guitar. Not too many months later I discovered PRS SE guitars (I'd been out of the loop for a lot of years) and I fell in love with a Custom 24 SE that happened to have a Floyd Rose on it. I bought it, and as it turned out there are a few songs this band plays where the Floyd comes in handy. But the main thing is that I like the neck a lot better on the SE than I did on the RG.
 
TG3K said:
I bought an RG550 new in about 1985 or 1986, mainly because I wanted something with a Floyd Rose on it. This was at a period of my life when I'd "retired" from working in a band, so it really didn't get a lot of playing. I never really liked the thin neck, but it played and sounded good. Fast forward about 30 years and I started playing in a band again. I still didn't like the neck on the RG550, and didn't think I'd have a need for the Floyd Rose in the band I was playing in, so I traded it in on a new MIM Strat. (The Strat was a better fit for the type of music I was playing in the new band.) The sales kid at Guitar Center was frothing at the mouth when he saw the near-mint RG550...he was planning to buy it himself since it was his dream shredder guitar. Not too many months later I discovered PRS SE guitars (I'd been out of the loop for a lot of years) and I fell in love with a Custom 24 SE that happened to have a Floyd Rose on it. I bought it, and as it turned out there are a few songs this band plays where the Floyd comes in handy. But the main thing is that I like the neck a lot better on the SE than I did on the RG.
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I think 1987 was the first year for those... It was a great year for Ibanez, so I'm sure Mr Sales Guy was excited ;)

It's funny after having been playing my Charvel DK-24 and Suhr Modern primarily for the last year, when I picked up one of my Ibanez guitars it felt really thin! So I can see if you're coming from something bigger how it could feel wrong... But I've been playing them so long that almost every other neck felt huge to me :D
 
Love rg550's. had many over the years, sold for various reasons. I have 2 now, not going anywhere. I have a 7 string prestige j-custom CT or CST dont remember, only 24 made, again not going anywhere, awesome guitar.
 
I have owned and played Many Many Ibanez's and best one hands down in my JS-2450. There is not an Ibanez I can think of that plays as good, sounds as good and feels as good to play.
 
unix-guy said:
I think 1987 was the first year for those... It was a great year for Ibanez, so I'm sure Mr Sales Guy was excited ;)
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Yeah, thinking about it more, it had to have been around '87 or '88 when I bought it. I've lost a couple brain cells since then, lol. Thanks for the correction. 👍

It was a great guitar, just not for me.
 
I have owned a ton of Japanese RG's, they amazing guitars for the money. I have had few 7 strings and still have an 8 string RG, all amazing too!
 
Steve South said:
This is not a shredder but it is an Ibanez. A crazy clean 2619 from 1978 and I love it.
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That thing looks mint! I was working in a drum & guitar shop in '78 and I remember that was around the time Ibanez changed from being cheap Japanese copy guitars to being well-respected pro-quality instruments.
 
I have two RG prestige's one 2002 RG3120TV w/whammy and has neck through body which Ibanez no longer makes (Womp Womp), the neck is wizard II and is a bit thicker, kind of feels like a my 69 Les Paul but slightly thinner. Second Prestige is a 2001 RGA121H-CDR hard tail both work well for me and are way less than some of the other more popular guitars costing $4k to $6k... Ibanez is great option if your on budget... I did replace both guitars with Dimazio's PAF's as the stock pups not very good.
 
rickster71 said:
the sustainer had to been added. some one may had added it because if you look at steve vai's white jem the humbucker was taken out of the neck position and a single coil was put in along with a sustainer pickup. they may had been trying to copy vai's guitar but who knows.
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The single coil just has to be a dummy because if you place a single coil next to a powerful magnet shit will be hitting the fan. So its either a dummy to fill up that empty space, or its a single coil sized humbucker. But your output will still suffer from having a powerful magnet next to it. There's also no need because the sustainer driver is also a perfectly fine neck pickup when not sustaining.
 
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