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tjon901 « Another Satch Sig »
Published on 09/02/11 at 06:55Satriani is a guy who sticks to what he likes. He has been playing Ibanez guitars for years and his model has barely changed. Joe Satriani is one of Steve Vais peers. He is a modern guitar player and uses a lot of modern equipment. He does a ton of session work for people and has won Grammys. He also leads the G3 tour which takes him and 2 other great guitar players around the world. The Satch sig is a pretty cool design. It is kind of based off an S series Ibanez. The guitar features a basswood body in the super smooth JS body shape. The neck is 22 frets with a rosewood fretboard and his own neck profile. Early models had the original Edge tremolo but this was changed later as Ibanez advanced in their tremolo designs. This guitar has two humbuckers and a master volume and tone knob with a 3 way for switching. It has a PAF pro in the neck and a FRED in the bridge. The FRED is one of Satrianis signature pickups.
UTILIZATION
Being based off an an S series Ibanez the guitar retains a lot of the comfort that was built into that original design. The shape of the guitar is designed to fit comfortably against your body. It gets very thin up at the top so its fits well against your body and arm. The smooth contours along the cutaways help with upper fret access because you do not have any hard edges around anywhere. A lot of RG's have hard edges in the cutaway that can make the guitar pretty uncomfortable to play on the high frets. This model being so old has the old style Ibanez neck join which is similar to what you would find on a Fender guitar. While the body is thin at the top it gets nice and thick towards the bottom so the guitar has a thick tone and nice weight to it. It does not feel flimsy like some Ibanez guitars tend to feel. Satriani prefers a more traditional feel to his guitars so the frets are not as big and the radius is that that flat but it still retains all the great Ibanez playability.
SOUNDS
The sound of this guitar is pretty love hate. Satrianis style requires pickups that get a ton of harmonics and this is what you get on this guitar. If you do not play like Satriani this could be a problem for you. With the Satriani designed FRED in the bridge this guitar has a crazy sound that only Satriani can really take advantage of. I am not a huge fan of the Fred pickup. The FRED works well for him though. You can really get crazy harmonics from it and it is super clear. It is kinda like Steve Vais EVO pickups cousin or something. The PAF pro in the neck is a classic tone. With this guitar only having 22 frets you get a classic neck position tone. Satriani only gave this guitar 22 frets for that reason. With the neck pickup that much farther out you get even fatter tones from the position. The further away a pickup is from the bridge the more beefy it sounds and this is as far as you can get it. This beefy sound with the basswood really give the PAF pro a nice even tone that you want for smooth leads in the neck position. The neck pickup tones are classic but its the bridge tones that I dislike, and since the bridge is what you use the most I find myself not liking the overall tone of the guitar. I should probably be happy that this guitar comes with something other than stock Ibanez pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
This is pretty much a classic guitar now. If you can find a good deal on one of these they are great guitars if you are Satriani fans. The models have not changed much so I would not pay more for an older one. If you get a new one you are pretty much getting the same thing.
UTILIZATION
Being based off an an S series Ibanez the guitar retains a lot of the comfort that was built into that original design. The shape of the guitar is designed to fit comfortably against your body. It gets very thin up at the top so its fits well against your body and arm. The smooth contours along the cutaways help with upper fret access because you do not have any hard edges around anywhere. A lot of RG's have hard edges in the cutaway that can make the guitar pretty uncomfortable to play on the high frets. This model being so old has the old style Ibanez neck join which is similar to what you would find on a Fender guitar. While the body is thin at the top it gets nice and thick towards the bottom so the guitar has a thick tone and nice weight to it. It does not feel flimsy like some Ibanez guitars tend to feel. Satriani prefers a more traditional feel to his guitars so the frets are not as big and the radius is that that flat but it still retains all the great Ibanez playability.
SOUNDS
The sound of this guitar is pretty love hate. Satrianis style requires pickups that get a ton of harmonics and this is what you get on this guitar. If you do not play like Satriani this could be a problem for you. With the Satriani designed FRED in the bridge this guitar has a crazy sound that only Satriani can really take advantage of. I am not a huge fan of the Fred pickup. The FRED works well for him though. You can really get crazy harmonics from it and it is super clear. It is kinda like Steve Vais EVO pickups cousin or something. The PAF pro in the neck is a classic tone. With this guitar only having 22 frets you get a classic neck position tone. Satriani only gave this guitar 22 frets for that reason. With the neck pickup that much farther out you get even fatter tones from the position. The further away a pickup is from the bridge the more beefy it sounds and this is as far as you can get it. This beefy sound with the basswood really give the PAF pro a nice even tone that you want for smooth leads in the neck position. The neck pickup tones are classic but its the bridge tones that I dislike, and since the bridge is what you use the most I find myself not liking the overall tone of the guitar. I should probably be happy that this guitar comes with something other than stock Ibanez pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
This is pretty much a classic guitar now. If you can find a good deal on one of these they are great guitars if you are Satriani fans. The models have not changed much so I would not pay more for an older one. If you get a new one you are pretty much getting the same thing.