All user reviews of 4/5 for the Ibanez MBM1 Matt Bachand Signature

I should first mention that I don't care about Shadows Fall at all. I'm reviewing this guitar purely from a standpoint of my own personal interests. The guitar features a mahogany body with a fancy graphic, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 24 jumbo frets, offset dot inlays, a Gibraltar bridge, two EMG humbuckers, one volume knob and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

The guitar is put together fairly nicely. The guitar itself doesn't weigh a ton, and that's always a plus as I find heavy mahogany tends to be dead weight more than anything else. The neck on this felt great. It's pretty slim, but it works great for shredding. The fretwork on this is top notch, and I was able to get some really sick action on this. I generally prefer floyd bridges, but this bridge delivered in terms of feeling great and not causing the strings to bind every time. The nut was also cut properly, so no issues there. I didn't have any problems soloing up in the higher frets, either. I think the graphic looks really stupid, but that's just me.

SOUNDS

The guitar sounds pretty good, but it's mainly only going to be able to do metal with the EMGs. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind. The guitar has an EMG 81 in the bridge, and it fits perfectly with the body wood combination. The EMG 81 cuts like no tomorrow, and it's extremely powerful. On top of that, it's super clear under high gain. The EMG 60 in the neck sounds more like a single coil than anything else. It works great for clean tones, and you can get some pretty cool lead tones out of it. However, I tend to prefer the EMG 85 more than anything else in the neck, but that's just me.

OVERALL OPINION

The guitar is cool, but I couldn't really get over the stupid graphic that was put on this guitar. If you're a fan of Shadows Fall, I'm sure you'll be drooling over this guitar. Given that I don't care for the band one way or the other, I just thought the graphic looked stupid. That aside, it's a great guitar, and if you find one at a good price used, buy it immediately.