Ibanez DN500

Made in China.

- Cash and handle sapele, a derivative of mahogany it seems ...

- Channel 22 boxes with screw driver trussrod double action (acts on the handle in both directions) and rosewood fingerboard

- Scale Gibson type, or 628 mm

- Passive pickups split-Ibanez, very dynamic and unique design (I will detail a little later).

- Tailpiece and bridge design Ibanez very well designed, with many systems of locks and tilt adjustment cords, very effective for all kinds of tuning without altering the string resonance.

- 2 knobs (1 volume + 1 tone with integrated dip switches)

- 1 3-position selector.

- Cover and sold with the guitar strap and a set of keys and a note of explanation for the mechanical adjustment

The finishes of this beautiful guitar to the original shape are particularly neat! The rosewood fingerboard is perfect, the frets are well cut and pearlescent marks gradient give a nice relief to the boxes. Not the shadow of a burr glue or paint (the handle is painted and varnished as well) and finally two pearly binding (one around the neck and a second darker around the body) give a strong vintage / modern degraded friendly to all.

UTILIZATION

The first thing that surprised me when I took this guitar in hand for the first time is its weight!
She must approach the 8 or 9 pounds, which obviously reminds Gibson. In particular, the Les Paul that weighs 9 pounds according to legend (I have not had a real LP hands to confirm but when I already see the impressive a Gibson SG standard weight, I said that's all quite possible).

The driver handle 22 boxes is also quite solid, in contrast a little hit with the usual Ibanez ... The rosewood fingerboard on when it is very flat and the radius history to remember that we are dealing with an Ibanez.
Access to the latest cases is also very good despite a cutaway in the LP vein.
A nice pickguard and small chamfers on media microphones allow to rest your fingers depending on the position of the right hand rhythm Thurs

The ergonomics are excellent despite the weight of the instrument. The shape of the body gives this guitar hybrid appearance:
The lower part comprising the cutaway is in style Les Paul while the upper part of the horn is comprising Stratocaster style. The mix of these two forms perfectly balances the instrument relative to its weight and makes it very comfortable to play both standing than sitting.

I still recommend a good padded strap for comfort in standing game. The supplied strap tends to go awry because of the weight of the instrument ... Everything depends on the breadth of the guitarist also ideally again and again to try the instrument before you buy to avoid any surprises upon receipt.

Still a little flat on the tone knob for using push-pull splitter microphones double single coil: it has a lot of play when rotated. A common type of knob on the dual-use problem after my luthier. So I would have preferred a switch by switch, but the purchase price of the guitar was not the same ...


SOUNDS

Heavy! Ibanez pickups that fit perfectly beautiful enrich his musical palette throughout bass, treble and midrange compared to gaps of acoustic properties of wood frequencies.

Another original feature for microphones, their contacts appear as tubes and are not held by screws. This process aims to improve the rendering of harmonics from Ibanez.

I play mainly heavy metal and I acknowledge having bought this guitar to play this kind of music exclusively.
It fulfills this role to perfection. So much so that even taunting the EMG pickups in my 81 Ltd EC-1000, developed to be much more dynamic by giving made more plain and not at all flat and sterile compared to EMG compared to my amp! When I move from one to the other guitar is no photo, Ibanez made the walls shake! While yet being disconnected, Ltd. is the mahogany resonate more warmly than DN500. As soon as I plug the EC-1000, the sound is very clean but certainly loses its punch, almost as if going into a pipe ...

I think this experience definitely confirms my farewell to active pickups ...

The pickup sends the puree on rhythmic saturation while that of the handle reveals his interest mainly on solo and clear sounds.
The intermediate position has endeared him to mix cleans / crunch but can probably show more interest in blues records.

Being able splitter microphones double single coil also enhances the sonic palette of this guitar but have not really bought for his versatility at the base, I can not dwell too much on the subject.
All I can say is that the record is convincing without equal clarity and slamming true single coil pickups either, but it helps out well when we had to settle for one guitar and that maximum versatility expected of it.


OVERALL OPINION

Ibanez wanted to think outside the box (ergonomics close to Gibson, no vibrato, touch and handle a little less suited to super fast game shredders unlike traditional Ibanez but still keeps a hand "highway" with a very flat key) while continuing to provide interesting innovations such as this pair of passive pickups can win without problems facing active pickups and systems tailpiece / bridge blockages very well designed.

I absolutely had a guitar not very expensive to play metal in drop C # and the mechanics of DN500 is ideally suited to the exercise sub tunings.

That's what I could say about the qualities of this guitar pretty attractive price (paid less than € 600 in 2011).
I will conclude by talking about the little things as having been some time now, I've met some who are not catastrophic either because nothing will deteriorate the quality of this guitar, but can may be put off even the most demanding of enter us on a possible purchase, even if I find the quality / price ratio of this great original guitar anyway.

- Fragility dials: To reduce the purchase price to the maximum input and medium ranges, Ibanez (like most manufacturers of guitars) mounted knobs small quality. So after a year and a half of use, the volume knob is set to "crack" me and my luthier was replaced by a knob Gibson, harder to turn and almost twice as large as the original one. The same for the push-pull tone whose function it gave the game since the day I got the guitar. Do not need the split pickups, I've set up a simple as a tone knob without making mods to the wiring, so being able to raise a switch if I came up with the idea of will again splitter microphones. Price Modified: less than 50 € for 2 knobs of good quality and 1hr labor.

- Be careful when tightening the two nuts on the tailpiece decoration: Indeed, they tend to loosen easily and I recommend you put a drop of loctite after tuning the guitar so as not to lose repet or concert. The loss of these would not be catastrophic either because they are only used to protect and decorate the hex screws that hold the tailpiece but ...

- Paint way "chrome" media microphones ends up leaving with sweat: In an economy concern once again, Ibanez favorite mount supports micro plastic painted chrome rather than real chrome supports color .. .
It is very well imitated in appearance but limited in time ... I would probably eventually replace by metal supports.

That's it. I do not regret my purchase because the wood / electronic / mechanical base is excellent for this price and the accumulation of these small improvements are still very far from costing the price of another guitar.

Made in China
Body and handle Sapele
Tight-Tune easel.
2 Ibanez humbuckers with push-pull system (CAP-N-PP1 PP1-CAP-B)
More info on the official page: https://www.ibanez.co.jp/products/eg_page11.php?area_id=3&data_id=231&color=CL01&year=2011&cat_id=1&series_id=482



UTILIZATION

Playing mostly on a RG, I was afraid of finding myself with a large handle and tiring to play but this is not the case at all. Obviously, we are far from slim profile but the gameplay is exemplary for a particular model at rather low prices.
Level tones, this guitar looks pretty focused Metal but I find it pretty versatile, it leaves a very nice crunch and a clean sound rather crystaline (and varied thanks to the push-pull).
It rather heavy but nothing dramatic.

SOUNDS

I play extreme metal, with various types of tunings, I wanted a guitar without a floyd easy to tune between songs. Well I found my happiness! I use mainly for Laboga Mr Hector lives and to repeat, it is divided between a Blackstar HT100 and a JCM900. Whatever I use, it sounds. The palm mutes out well, the leads are accurate either on the bridge pickup or the neck pickup.
Note also excellent sustain!

OVERALL OPINION

I use this guitar for 2 years and it soon became my main guitar in front of my beloved RG. First attracted by its looks atypical of Ibanez, though a bit wary about the marketing campaign around this guitar, I was amazed by its ergonomics and sound quality. Biensur everything is relative, it is a guitar mid-range pulling all the same to the entry level (but not low-end). So this is certainly not the century of guitar but it gives me a real achievement on the part of Ibanez that in many associated design and quality.
I would do this choice without hesitation.