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Hatsubai « Budget JS model »
Published on 07/11/11 at 20:03Joe Satriani has been one of the longest playing guitarists of Ibanez guitars out there. This guitar is for those who want that JS look and feel but without the expensive JS price. The guitar features a basswood body with a maple neck and a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, dot inlays, a licensed floyd rose tremolo, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a three way toggle switch.
UTILIZATION
The overall construction of the guitar is decent, but it's not the best guitar out there. For one, the fret edges are pretty sharp. It's a fairly common issue on these guitars as they don't seem to take the time to work on the fret edges and final dress as much overseas. The frets themselves were somewhat flat and could use a decent crown. The finish itself wasn't too bad, and the back of the neck didn't feel that bad. However, I find that the Japanese equivalents are put together much better. The licensed floyd rose on this is a piece of trash. It sounds awful, it is made out of pot metal and seems like it's going to break under heavy whammy.
SOUNDS
The stock pickups in this guitar suck. They're cheap pickups just to throw in there to make some sound, really. The bridge pickup is very muddy and lacks any type of clarity at all. The actual basswood body isn't helping in that aspect as it's a very middy and warm wood without much high end. It seems to be more sensitive to pickup choices than certain other woods. The neck pickup was also pretty bad. It lacked that super fat and powerful tone that I like. To be fair, it's pretty average for a pickup of this caliber.
OVERALL OPINION
Honestly, I don't really recommend these guitars. There are much better ones out there, especially once you start looking on the used market. I know the regular S series is mahogany, but try to look for a Japanese S series, and you'll be much better off in terms of overall build quality and (most likely) tone. If you do plan on keeping this, be sure to at least replace the pickups or something.
UTILIZATION
The overall construction of the guitar is decent, but it's not the best guitar out there. For one, the fret edges are pretty sharp. It's a fairly common issue on these guitars as they don't seem to take the time to work on the fret edges and final dress as much overseas. The frets themselves were somewhat flat and could use a decent crown. The finish itself wasn't too bad, and the back of the neck didn't feel that bad. However, I find that the Japanese equivalents are put together much better. The licensed floyd rose on this is a piece of trash. It sounds awful, it is made out of pot metal and seems like it's going to break under heavy whammy.
SOUNDS
The stock pickups in this guitar suck. They're cheap pickups just to throw in there to make some sound, really. The bridge pickup is very muddy and lacks any type of clarity at all. The actual basswood body isn't helping in that aspect as it's a very middy and warm wood without much high end. It seems to be more sensitive to pickup choices than certain other woods. The neck pickup was also pretty bad. It lacked that super fat and powerful tone that I like. To be fair, it's pretty average for a pickup of this caliber.
OVERALL OPINION
Honestly, I don't really recommend these guitars. There are much better ones out there, especially once you start looking on the used market. I know the regular S series is mahogany, but try to look for a Japanese S series, and you'll be much better off in terms of overall build quality and (most likely) tone. If you do plan on keeping this, be sure to at least replace the pickups or something.