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Published on 08/13/11 at 18:36The Ibanez RGA 8 string was designed as a lower priced version of their recent Prestige 8 string guitar. The 8 string is a fairly new idea, having really only come into popularity in the last year or so with the advent of djent and other forms of metal music really coming full fore onto the scene. Many players requested an extended range guitar and Ibanez delivered first with the Prestige 8 string, and then with the lower priced RGA8 string guitar.
It features a mahogany body, a 5 piece maple/walnut neck, a rosewood fretboard with 24 frets, an Ibanez Edge III fixed bridge, sealed tuners, and a high output pair of Ibanez LZ8 humbuckers. It's capped off with a volume control, a 3 way selector switch and a frequency response switch which changes the EQ structure of the guitar's tone.
UTILIZATION
The design of this guitar is ergonomic if you want it to be. Personally I think the neck is an abomination... it's a Wizard model neck and EXTREMELY thin. This combined with the uber-wide size needed to hold 8 strings makes it all but unplayable to someone like me who prefers a thick neck with a thinner nut width. However, for those players who like the Ibanez necks, I'm sure it's a dream. It's a fairly heavy guitar too... not nearly as light as many Ibanez guitars I have seen over the years. The upper fret access is great considering that the guitar has 24 frets and Ibanez's famed AANJ (All Access Neck Joint) neck heel which facilitates getting to those higher notes.
Getting a good tone out of this guitar is pretty simple. There really isn't much to get in the way of pure sonic mayhem, and like most metally guitars, it's not something that I expected to do great and pure clean and low gain tones... they're meant for djent. Oh yeah!
SOUNDS
I've tried this guitar through various high gain amp rigs and have concluded that it's a very compressed sounding guitar overall. I've never liked Ibanez stock pickups, and this guitar really is no exception. The high end is weak, there's really no midrange (essential to be heard in a mix) the low end just kind of dies when you go to the (really) low strings. It might be that the strings are so low that it loses a lot of definition or maybe I'm just not an 8 string player, but even on the regular 6 strings on the guitar it doesn't sound stellar. The pickups are quite compressed and sound pretty generic overall... kind of like an EMG that didn't quite make it. I'm sure the Prestige model comes with some nicer pickups... at least I'd hope so. The clean tones are pretty bland overall, not much to talk about here. The distorted tones are decent enough, but are marred by the pickup compression and weird frequency response, as well as the really low strings.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think this guitar (and the whole idea of 8 strings) is a hilarious fad and doesn't really hold any water. It doesn't really work practically as an instrument due to the fact that the low strings have almost no tension/flop around, and also that the pitches are so low that it sounds like mush anyway... especially with compressed distortion that many metal players use. It's reasonably well crafted and may sound better with new pickups, but I picked it up as a joke and still considered it that as I put it back on the wall... a joke. If you want an 8 string it's a good buy, but I'm not sure exactly WHY you'd want one.
It features a mahogany body, a 5 piece maple/walnut neck, a rosewood fretboard with 24 frets, an Ibanez Edge III fixed bridge, sealed tuners, and a high output pair of Ibanez LZ8 humbuckers. It's capped off with a volume control, a 3 way selector switch and a frequency response switch which changes the EQ structure of the guitar's tone.
UTILIZATION
The design of this guitar is ergonomic if you want it to be. Personally I think the neck is an abomination... it's a Wizard model neck and EXTREMELY thin. This combined with the uber-wide size needed to hold 8 strings makes it all but unplayable to someone like me who prefers a thick neck with a thinner nut width. However, for those players who like the Ibanez necks, I'm sure it's a dream. It's a fairly heavy guitar too... not nearly as light as many Ibanez guitars I have seen over the years. The upper fret access is great considering that the guitar has 24 frets and Ibanez's famed AANJ (All Access Neck Joint) neck heel which facilitates getting to those higher notes.
Getting a good tone out of this guitar is pretty simple. There really isn't much to get in the way of pure sonic mayhem, and like most metally guitars, it's not something that I expected to do great and pure clean and low gain tones... they're meant for djent. Oh yeah!
SOUNDS
I've tried this guitar through various high gain amp rigs and have concluded that it's a very compressed sounding guitar overall. I've never liked Ibanez stock pickups, and this guitar really is no exception. The high end is weak, there's really no midrange (essential to be heard in a mix) the low end just kind of dies when you go to the (really) low strings. It might be that the strings are so low that it loses a lot of definition or maybe I'm just not an 8 string player, but even on the regular 6 strings on the guitar it doesn't sound stellar. The pickups are quite compressed and sound pretty generic overall... kind of like an EMG that didn't quite make it. I'm sure the Prestige model comes with some nicer pickups... at least I'd hope so. The clean tones are pretty bland overall, not much to talk about here. The distorted tones are decent enough, but are marred by the pickup compression and weird frequency response, as well as the really low strings.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think this guitar (and the whole idea of 8 strings) is a hilarious fad and doesn't really hold any water. It doesn't really work practically as an instrument due to the fact that the low strings have almost no tension/flop around, and also that the pitches are so low that it sounds like mush anyway... especially with compressed distortion that many metal players use. It's reasonably well crafted and may sound better with new pickups, but I picked it up as a joke and still considered it that as I put it back on the wall... a joke. If you want an 8 string it's a good buy, but I'm not sure exactly WHY you'd want one.