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tjon901 « The best mid-range lefty Ibanez made »
Published on 06/24/11 at 06:53For a long time the best mid-range Ibanez RG you could buy was the RG470. They were made in Japan and reasonably priced. They made these models lefty too which is pretty rare. most guitar companies either only make their super low end guitars and super high end guitars in lefty, leaving a gap in the middle where they do not have any mid-ranged lefty guitars. The guitar is your basic RG. It has the basswood body in the superstrat RG style. The Japanese model have a better quality tremolo than the later Korean ones do but the tremolo is still decent. 24 frets on a super flat Ibanez Wizard 2 neck. It has the HSH pickup configuration with Ibanez pickups in all positions. There is a 5 way blade switch to switch between them in a strat style arrangement.
UTILIZATION
With Ibanez you know you are getting a guitar that will play well once setup. The Wizard neck is super thin and lets you fly over the frets. The flat fretboard with the jumbo frets means you can really slam the action down low so it plays like butter. The deep cutaways on the body mean you can really get at all the high frets and make your solos sing. People say the tremolos on the Korean examples are not very good but I have found with a good setup any Ibanez tremolo will work fine as long as you are not killing it.
SOUNDS
The weakest part of all but the highest end RG's are their pickups. The Ibanez pickups are pretty terrible compared to what is out there in the after market. The fact that they use basswood on their guitars does not help either. The neck pickup is passable for soloing and clean stuff. It can provide a nice smooth sound for solos and a good clean tone for clean passages. The bridge pickup is pretty weak for anything but the lightest rock. It is pretty muddy and dull. Ibanez puts Dimarzio pickups in its high end guitars and these pickups match up well with Ibanez guitars. I would recommend a Dimarzio in the bridge at the very least. If you want something even heavier and dont mind changing out both pickups you could do a swap with some active EMG pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
There are not many mid-range lefty guitars out there. Most companies have a big gap in their lefty production due to just making their super high and and super low end guitars left handed. This model is discontinued now and has been replaced by a decent lefty model but it is not as good at the 470. If you are left handed and looking for an RG I would recommend a 470L over any of the new non Prestige lefty models.
UTILIZATION
With Ibanez you know you are getting a guitar that will play well once setup. The Wizard neck is super thin and lets you fly over the frets. The flat fretboard with the jumbo frets means you can really slam the action down low so it plays like butter. The deep cutaways on the body mean you can really get at all the high frets and make your solos sing. People say the tremolos on the Korean examples are not very good but I have found with a good setup any Ibanez tremolo will work fine as long as you are not killing it.
SOUNDS
The weakest part of all but the highest end RG's are their pickups. The Ibanez pickups are pretty terrible compared to what is out there in the after market. The fact that they use basswood on their guitars does not help either. The neck pickup is passable for soloing and clean stuff. It can provide a nice smooth sound for solos and a good clean tone for clean passages. The bridge pickup is pretty weak for anything but the lightest rock. It is pretty muddy and dull. Ibanez puts Dimarzio pickups in its high end guitars and these pickups match up well with Ibanez guitars. I would recommend a Dimarzio in the bridge at the very least. If you want something even heavier and dont mind changing out both pickups you could do a swap with some active EMG pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
There are not many mid-range lefty guitars out there. Most companies have a big gap in their lefty production due to just making their super high and and super low end guitars left handed. This model is discontinued now and has been replaced by a decent lefty model but it is not as good at the 470. If you are left handed and looking for an RG I would recommend a 470L over any of the new non Prestige lefty models.