Ibanez PM20 Pat Metheny Signature

Primarily a singer, I've been playing guitar for about 10 years, been in a band (drummer!), and have continued to record and play with other musicians on a non-professional basis. My styles range from folk to hard rock, with heavy power-pop leanings -- Big Star, not Green Day.



I bought this from Musician's Friend on sale for $699.

Gorgeous gold finish. Pretty powerful vibrato, almost as smooth as a G&L's. Very good clean tones, far better than my Telecaster and even giving a good Gretsch a run for its money, thanks to the Burns Tri-Sonic pickups. Very distinctive design, catches the eye and makes the player stand out. Lots of tone-switching options. The ebony fretboard feels heavenly, and the shorter 24" scale length makes bending very easy. Quite light and compact body.

I first bought an Eastwood copy of this Brian May design, and I'd have to admit, the Eastwood is much more comfortable to play than this official Brian May guitar. The Eastwood has a narrower neck, which helps because both guitars have a hand-filling "baseball bat" profile. The Eastwood also added a body chamfer on the upper bout and made the body slightly wider, providing better arm support. The Brian May official Signature has probably the brightest-sounding pickups I've ever used, and even with the tone pot at halfway and only the neck pickup engaged, it sounds like the bridge pickup of most other guitars. This extremely trebly tonal quality also makes distorted tones papery and harsh unless you back off the tone control.

Very good. A beautifully applied finish, great gold hardware.

As with the Eastwood Red Special, this Brian May guitar looks so distinctive that you won't be able to help looking like a Brian May tribute player. What was surprising was how different the tonal character of this guitar is compared to the Eastwood. I think overall the Eastwood fits my sound and playing style better, but the Brian May official Signature is no slouch, either. If you love clean tones, dazzling looks, a fretboard that plays like butter and lots of tone-switching options, you should try the Brian May Signature. And since the Eastwood is no longer in production, this official one is the only choice for a Brian May model.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bought this piece of crao from one of Esteban's infomertials. Thought maybe, he knew what he was talking about. Apparently NOT! Paid approximately $140. Esteban says it's worth a lot more. I doubt it, I'm sure it's worth a less, if anything about $30.

Can't find anything that I really like about it, except the price, if it would be at least a half decent guitar!

Quality is very, very poor! Paint comes off the neck with a few minutes of normal play. Won't stay tuned for more than a few hours. Sometimes minutes! Strings are very high off the neck. Body of the guitar feels like it's made of balsa wood and would break at the slightest drop. It does dent with every little bump not necessarily on shape objects either. The top of neck is so narrow that the average player can't play clean chords. Details of the whole guitar are sloppy. I should have returned it when I received and inspected it, but it was going to be one of my son's Xmas gifts and he had seen it arrive. What a great disappointment. Never, ever again would I buy anything that ESTEBAN would endorse!

Please see section "Please describe what you don't like about the unit:", it will convey my thoughts about the very poor construction.

I would recommend to anyone, that you go to your local music store and purchse any guitar around $100 and get all thoughts of ESTEBAN and all his worthless hype out of your head. Of all my years of purchasing musical equipment, this is the first time I have ever been disappointed. The saying goes "You only get what you pay for!". Well in this case you don't even get THAT!

I have to rate this as a "1", to my regret this scale does not go down to "0"!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com