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MGR/Brett Gibbs « Ibanez GRX-40 »
Published on 12/04/02 at 15:00I acquired this unit off an eBay auction for about $110. I've always considered Ibanez is a respectable brand, and the GRX-40 seemed like a good deal, and turned out to be one. I was looking for a guitar that would handle the tedious jobs of both lead and rhythm thrash based-metal, and Ibanez makes very fast necks on most of their guitars.
This guitar is a very good deal for $110. It's fast neck and bridge pickups are probably the best features on the guitar. The neck pickup sounds good for playing stuff clean, or with a little distortion, but isn't very clean when lots of distortion is added, rendering it not very useful for lead use. The neck isn't a Wizard or Wizard-2 or anything (it's listed simply as a GRX neck), but I frequently have people ask me if it really is a Wizard when they first play it, and it is very good for leads. The body is alder, and the guitar is very light. The tremelo works pretty decently for a $110 guitar. If you've got really old strings on it, you usually have to dive a ton and then tune it, or else the 3 high strings will gradually lose tension and have to be retuned, and if you don't do this, diving later will really throw them off. The 22-fret fretboard has medium-size frets, and are very tap and bend friendly.
The neck and middle pickups aren't very clean when you add distortion. The middle pickup just has an ugly tone, and isn't very useful at all. The neck pickup does have a decent tone, but isn't clean and the tones bleed over really bad when you start hammering and pulling 16ths. The alder body is light and does deliver a good tone for lead or rhythm, but is not durable at all, and cracks relatively easily. If this guitar was dropped from a standing position, it would probably do serious damage to the body. And while the neck itself is very good, it's not set in very good and can make venturing around the top frets akward. The tremelo also does take a lot of adjusting with good strings before it holds tune real well. But after you do get it adjusted, it works respectably.
The body is is made of alder, which does provide pretty good sound, but does crack easily. This isn't a studio guitar, and unless you've set up the tremelo and are used to the guitar, it's not quite reliable enough for live stuff. Once you're used to the guitar and have set it up well, it will hold it's ground fairly well against the much more expensive ESP and Jackson models that are so common in thrash metal.
This is not a guitar for someone trying to add a good lead or rhythm to an arsenal of ESP's or Jackson's or Les Paul's, but is an excellent guitar for a beginner or someone who doesn't play electric a ton and wants one for playing sometimes and wants to save cash. This also is a very affordable guitar for someone wanting to hotrod a guitar, but isn't big on having a super-nice looking guitar. Like myself. This can be a very good guitar with nicer mid & bridge pickups, a re-set job on the neck, and nicer tremelo system. All in all, in just about any situation, this guitar brings some pretty good bang for it's buck.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
This guitar is a very good deal for $110. It's fast neck and bridge pickups are probably the best features on the guitar. The neck pickup sounds good for playing stuff clean, or with a little distortion, but isn't very clean when lots of distortion is added, rendering it not very useful for lead use. The neck isn't a Wizard or Wizard-2 or anything (it's listed simply as a GRX neck), but I frequently have people ask me if it really is a Wizard when they first play it, and it is very good for leads. The body is alder, and the guitar is very light. The tremelo works pretty decently for a $110 guitar. If you've got really old strings on it, you usually have to dive a ton and then tune it, or else the 3 high strings will gradually lose tension and have to be retuned, and if you don't do this, diving later will really throw them off. The 22-fret fretboard has medium-size frets, and are very tap and bend friendly.
The neck and middle pickups aren't very clean when you add distortion. The middle pickup just has an ugly tone, and isn't very useful at all. The neck pickup does have a decent tone, but isn't clean and the tones bleed over really bad when you start hammering and pulling 16ths. The alder body is light and does deliver a good tone for lead or rhythm, but is not durable at all, and cracks relatively easily. If this guitar was dropped from a standing position, it would probably do serious damage to the body. And while the neck itself is very good, it's not set in very good and can make venturing around the top frets akward. The tremelo also does take a lot of adjusting with good strings before it holds tune real well. But after you do get it adjusted, it works respectably.
The body is is made of alder, which does provide pretty good sound, but does crack easily. This isn't a studio guitar, and unless you've set up the tremelo and are used to the guitar, it's not quite reliable enough for live stuff. Once you're used to the guitar and have set it up well, it will hold it's ground fairly well against the much more expensive ESP and Jackson models that are so common in thrash metal.
This is not a guitar for someone trying to add a good lead or rhythm to an arsenal of ESP's or Jackson's or Les Paul's, but is an excellent guitar for a beginner or someone who doesn't play electric a ton and wants one for playing sometimes and wants to save cash. This also is a very affordable guitar for someone wanting to hotrod a guitar, but isn't big on having a super-nice looking guitar. Like myself. This can be a very good guitar with nicer mid & bridge pickups, a re-set job on the neck, and nicer tremelo system. All in all, in just about any situation, this guitar brings some pretty good bang for it's buck.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com