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Hatsubai « One of the most famous JEMs »
Published on 07/07/11 at 20:22Steve Vai has been a long time endorser of Ibanez products. In fact, I think he is the longest running endorser, but I'm not entirely sure. This guitar is probably his most iconic one as he's had it for years and years. It's gone through different changes throughout the years, but they generally have similar specs. The guitar has an alder body with a five piece maple/bubinga neck, rosewood fretboard with 24 frets, special vine inlay, unique handle carved out in it, an Ibanez Edge Pro tremolo, last few frets scalloped, HSH configuration, all access neck joint, one volume, one tone and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
This guitar is built pretty awesome. I'm a huge fan of the Prestige lineup by Ibanez guitars. First of all, the fretwork on this is top notch. I was able to achieve sickly low action without any issues at all. The neck is a touch thicker than the normal Prestige Wizard, and that's a good or bad thing, depending on who you are. The edges on the frets also felt very nice. The inlay work was cleanly done, and there weren't any annoying fillers. The neck joint on this is to die for. It makes it crazy easy to get up to the higher frets, and the last few scalloped frets add some additional grip for bending.
SOUNDS
Some people find this guitar a touch bright. It's true that it's bright, but I find it to be bright in a musical way. The Evo bridge pickup is crazy powerful. You can get all kinds of awesome pick squeals going on, and harmonics jump out like no tomorrow. The Evo neck is a bit bright for me, but by rolling down the tone knob a bit, I can get that fatter lead tone I usually desire. In between positions sound wonderful as always. It's almost like having a strat kind of sound.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're looking for a JEM, this'll probably be the number one guitar you'll be looking at. The guitar is great in every sense of the way, and if you buy used, you'll save tons of money. I highly recommend looking into these, especially if you're not a huge fan of the standard basswood that Ibanez likes to utilize in most of their guitars.
UTILIZATION
This guitar is built pretty awesome. I'm a huge fan of the Prestige lineup by Ibanez guitars. First of all, the fretwork on this is top notch. I was able to achieve sickly low action without any issues at all. The neck is a touch thicker than the normal Prestige Wizard, and that's a good or bad thing, depending on who you are. The edges on the frets also felt very nice. The inlay work was cleanly done, and there weren't any annoying fillers. The neck joint on this is to die for. It makes it crazy easy to get up to the higher frets, and the last few scalloped frets add some additional grip for bending.
SOUNDS
Some people find this guitar a touch bright. It's true that it's bright, but I find it to be bright in a musical way. The Evo bridge pickup is crazy powerful. You can get all kinds of awesome pick squeals going on, and harmonics jump out like no tomorrow. The Evo neck is a bit bright for me, but by rolling down the tone knob a bit, I can get that fatter lead tone I usually desire. In between positions sound wonderful as always. It's almost like having a strat kind of sound.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're looking for a JEM, this'll probably be the number one guitar you'll be looking at. The guitar is great in every sense of the way, and if you buy used, you'll save tons of money. I highly recommend looking into these, especially if you're not a huge fan of the standard basswood that Ibanez likes to utilize in most of their guitars.