View other reviews for this product:
tjon901 « Great Metal RG »
Published on 09/04/11 at 10:38I am not a Slipknot or Mick Thomson fan but I will give credit where credit is due and this guitar is a great guitar for metal and heavy music. Mick Thomson is one of the guitar players for Slipknot and this is his signature model. The other guitar player in Slipknot Jim Root has a signature model with Fender and that guitar is great as well. They both have great taste in gutiars and know what they want. This is what an RG should be. This guitar has great specs. This guitar has a mahogany body with a bolt on 5 piece neck for stability. The neck has 24 jumbo frets with no Inlays for a clean look. It has a locking nut up top but the tremolo system is locked in place so you get all the fine tuning and stability without having to worry about springs when changing tuning. The electronics in this guitar are rock solid as well. You get Mick Thomsons signature set of Blackout pickups which I prefer over the normal Blackouts. Blackouts are Seymour Duncans set of active pickups which are their answer to EMG pickups. The controls are a single volume with a 3 way blade, all you need for metal. The only thing letting you know that this is a signature model is the SEVEN logo on the truss rod cover. This is pretty small and barely noticable. I hate when good signature guitars are ruined by huge gaudy logos that make you look like a billboard for that player.
UTILIZATION
This guitar plays great like all Ibanez and comes setup for heavy music. The locking tuners and locked tremolo are a cool feature you do not see much. This really helps tuning stability and gives you fine tuners but you dont have to worry about spring tension. With the fixed tremolo you dont really have to use the locking tuners anyway. This is a good alternative to locking nuts and is probably cheaper for Ibanez to do since more of their guitars have locking nuts than locking tuners. There are no inlays so this may be a problem for some people but there are side dots. The neck is super thin and flat like most RG's. According to the catalog it has a custom profile but it feels like any other RG to me and that is not an insult. The playability is great. The action can be set super low it almost plays it self. It coems from the factory setup in drop B tuning which is very cool. Tuning down that much on a guitar setup in E might cause some intonation problems but coming from the factory tuned down means you are right on from the get go.
SOUNDS
I love the tone of this guitar. The mahogany body is a lot better and has a lot more natural tone than the Basswood Ibanez uses on most of their guitars. The Mick Thomson blackouts also have a better tone than the normal Blackouts in my opinion. These Blackouts have a more traditional active pickup sound. This set has a neck and bridge pickup. The bridge pickup has a ceramic magnet while the neck pickup has an alnico magnet. They still have good low end but the top end is nice and crisp so the sound never gets muddy. These pickups were voiced for a guitar playing in super low tunings so when you are not in super low tunings the clarity is excellent. With this clarity the neck position is actually useable. On the old Blackouts since the low end was so woolly the neck pickup sounded muddy no matter what you were playing. These pickups with the extra top end crunch you can hear what you are playing on the neck position. This is good because typically people who have neck position pickup want to be able to use them. The bridge is crushing like you would expect but the extra new found clarity brings more useablility to the table. The bridge tone is super tight in the low end and has the top end crunch like you would find on an 81. This allows you to tune to whatever you want and still retain clarity.
OVERALL OPINION
This is a great guitar. I hope they make it forever. They should put out more models like this. This guitar is a metal machine. The mahogany body with the active pickups provide great metal tone. The unique fixed tremolo and locking nut design give you all the stability of locking tuners with out having to worry about the spring tension when changing tunings. If you are looking for an Ibanez that is great for metal this is a great deal even if you are not a Slipknot or Mick Thompson fan.
UTILIZATION
This guitar plays great like all Ibanez and comes setup for heavy music. The locking tuners and locked tremolo are a cool feature you do not see much. This really helps tuning stability and gives you fine tuners but you dont have to worry about spring tension. With the fixed tremolo you dont really have to use the locking tuners anyway. This is a good alternative to locking nuts and is probably cheaper for Ibanez to do since more of their guitars have locking nuts than locking tuners. There are no inlays so this may be a problem for some people but there are side dots. The neck is super thin and flat like most RG's. According to the catalog it has a custom profile but it feels like any other RG to me and that is not an insult. The playability is great. The action can be set super low it almost plays it self. It coems from the factory setup in drop B tuning which is very cool. Tuning down that much on a guitar setup in E might cause some intonation problems but coming from the factory tuned down means you are right on from the get go.
SOUNDS
I love the tone of this guitar. The mahogany body is a lot better and has a lot more natural tone than the Basswood Ibanez uses on most of their guitars. The Mick Thomson blackouts also have a better tone than the normal Blackouts in my opinion. These Blackouts have a more traditional active pickup sound. This set has a neck and bridge pickup. The bridge pickup has a ceramic magnet while the neck pickup has an alnico magnet. They still have good low end but the top end is nice and crisp so the sound never gets muddy. These pickups were voiced for a guitar playing in super low tunings so when you are not in super low tunings the clarity is excellent. With this clarity the neck position is actually useable. On the old Blackouts since the low end was so woolly the neck pickup sounded muddy no matter what you were playing. These pickups with the extra top end crunch you can hear what you are playing on the neck position. This is good because typically people who have neck position pickup want to be able to use them. The bridge is crushing like you would expect but the extra new found clarity brings more useablility to the table. The bridge tone is super tight in the low end and has the top end crunch like you would find on an 81. This allows you to tune to whatever you want and still retain clarity.
OVERALL OPINION
This is a great guitar. I hope they make it forever. They should put out more models like this. This guitar is a metal machine. The mahogany body with the active pickups provide great metal tone. The unique fixed tremolo and locking nut design give you all the stability of locking tuners with out having to worry about the spring tension when changing tunings. If you are looking for an Ibanez that is great for metal this is a great deal even if you are not a Slipknot or Mick Thompson fan.