View other reviews for this product:
Shaunm « Great beginner 7 »
Published on 03/25/11 at 16:21I wanted a cheaper 7 string to dip my toe into the extended range waters and eventually decided on Ibanez's lower end solution, the RG 7321.
It features;
*Basswood Body
*Maple/Walnut Wizard II-7 Neck
*Bound Rosewood fingerboard (incidentally quite a nice bit of rosewood in my opinion)
*Hardtail Bridge
*Grover style tuners
Two Humbucker Pickups
*5 way pickup selector (configured to Bridge, Bridge parallel connected, Bridge and Neck, Inner coils from neck and bridge and finally neck.)
*Master volume and master tone controls
*Made In Indonesia
*All Black Hardware
UTILIZATION
I have to admit, I really enjoy the feel of this guitar. The Wizard II-7 is quite thin, but feels quite a bit fatter due to the bulky shoulders. The fingerboard has a fairly flat feeling radius and allows one to travel all over quite easily. I also find it quite easy to access the higher frets due to the carved neck pocket, which works a treat.
The body is quite comfortable in terms of shape and is fairly light weight.
The bridge is quite comfortable in terms of resting your palm, mine is the old style bridge, not the newer Gibraltar style one. I also find the position of the control knobs and pick up selector quite comfortable to alter during playing, which is important to me.
For a budget guitar, it holds the tuning quite well, even through a fair amount of abuse. I detune this guitar quite a lot, play a lot of two tone bends and use a lot of huge vibrato and it rarely lets me down. It sustains fairly well too
SOUNDS
The sound is a bit of a let down unfortunately, it sounds quite muddy and loose a on distortion and quite plain and boring on clean. Both the neck and bridge constantly lack any kinda of clarity or definition. It doesn't cut through in a mix well either. I've experimented quite a lot with EQ and tried at length to get a decent sound. I run through a Roland cube 60, but have had similar results from line 6 spiders, computer simulation (guitar rig, logics amp designer) and even through a mesa boogie single rectifier. I would recommend anyone thinking about this to upgrade the pickups. This is the only real let down in my opinion, fortunately it's easily altered with a decent set of after market pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall, I'd recommend this guitar to anyone looking for a beginner 7 string, or even an intermediate looking for a back up/beater. Some of the upgrades I intend to make include Bareknuckle pickups, Graphtech saddles, graph tech nut and strap locks. This is a great guitar on the whole and with a little work could be a great overall guitar, it doesn't compare to higher end ibanez', but the price doesn't compare to them either.
I did try a few similarly priced schecter models before deciding on this. I thought about ordering an Agile for a while too, but I'm quite glad I ended up with this. It's a nice feeling, decent looking guitar and I'm never bothered by its war wounds.
It features;
*Basswood Body
*Maple/Walnut Wizard II-7 Neck
*Bound Rosewood fingerboard (incidentally quite a nice bit of rosewood in my opinion)
*Hardtail Bridge
*Grover style tuners
Two Humbucker Pickups
*5 way pickup selector (configured to Bridge, Bridge parallel connected, Bridge and Neck, Inner coils from neck and bridge and finally neck.)
*Master volume and master tone controls
*Made In Indonesia
*All Black Hardware
UTILIZATION
I have to admit, I really enjoy the feel of this guitar. The Wizard II-7 is quite thin, but feels quite a bit fatter due to the bulky shoulders. The fingerboard has a fairly flat feeling radius and allows one to travel all over quite easily. I also find it quite easy to access the higher frets due to the carved neck pocket, which works a treat.
The body is quite comfortable in terms of shape and is fairly light weight.
The bridge is quite comfortable in terms of resting your palm, mine is the old style bridge, not the newer Gibraltar style one. I also find the position of the control knobs and pick up selector quite comfortable to alter during playing, which is important to me.
For a budget guitar, it holds the tuning quite well, even through a fair amount of abuse. I detune this guitar quite a lot, play a lot of two tone bends and use a lot of huge vibrato and it rarely lets me down. It sustains fairly well too
SOUNDS
The sound is a bit of a let down unfortunately, it sounds quite muddy and loose a on distortion and quite plain and boring on clean. Both the neck and bridge constantly lack any kinda of clarity or definition. It doesn't cut through in a mix well either. I've experimented quite a lot with EQ and tried at length to get a decent sound. I run through a Roland cube 60, but have had similar results from line 6 spiders, computer simulation (guitar rig, logics amp designer) and even through a mesa boogie single rectifier. I would recommend anyone thinking about this to upgrade the pickups. This is the only real let down in my opinion, fortunately it's easily altered with a decent set of after market pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall, I'd recommend this guitar to anyone looking for a beginner 7 string, or even an intermediate looking for a back up/beater. Some of the upgrades I intend to make include Bareknuckle pickups, Graphtech saddles, graph tech nut and strap locks. This is a great guitar on the whole and with a little work could be a great overall guitar, it doesn't compare to higher end ibanez', but the price doesn't compare to them either.
I did try a few similarly priced schecter models before deciding on this. I thought about ordering an Agile for a while too, but I'm quite glad I ended up with this. It's a nice feeling, decent looking guitar and I'm never bothered by its war wounds.