Ibanez RG1570Z

While this is clearly a shred machine and geared towards the serious metal crowd, it can be used for about any genre given the right player. It has a very impressive feature set given the price point. Japan made. Edge pro trem. Basswood body. HSH configuration. The big calling card here is the Prestige line quality at a low price. For those of you who don't know...the prestige line is comparable in quality to some of the best American made guitars out there.

UTILIZATION

The wizard neck is very comfortable. I'm a fan of Ibanez necks and this version of the Wizard is one of my favorites. I really like the wide radius. Great for solos. If you like a more Fendery radius you might have trouble with this one. The playability is amazing. Great fretwork and excellent action if you know how to adjust it. The edge trem by the way is arguably my favorite trem of all time. It's comfortable and the design in really ergonomic. The whole guitar just feels very playable overall.

SOUNDS

Here's the bottom line. The IBZ pickups are okay, but they try to cover way too many bases. A pickupe stradling the line between metal, pop, and rock is just too much to ask and the IBZ's have a lack of unique voice as a result. It's almost mandatory to get a pickup upgrade. I happen to like Dimarzios with Ibanez guitars but other brands are fine if you know what sounds you want. I put a Tone zone and a Breed neck in mine to cover hard rock stuff. Sounds great. Everyone seems to have their own favorite pickups they put in these but the consensus is that a pickup change is a great upgrade.

OVERALL OPINION

The bottom line is, aside from the mediocre to decent pickups, this is the best shredder guitar you can buy for under $1800. And i've played enough to know. Everything on it is solid. The hardware, electronics, and craftsmanship is amazing. See if you can find a deal on one of these. At the end of the day you get a top notch metal (or other genre) guitar for 1 k.

The RG1570 has been upgraded this year. In reality, there's only one change to this model compared to the rest of them, and that's the fact that it has the brand new Edge Zero tremolo. Aside from that, this model is the same as every other one on the market. The guitar features a basswood body, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 24 extra jumbo frets with dot inlays, an Edge Zero tremolo, HSH configuration, one volume, one tone and a five way switch.

UTILIZATION

The thing everyone wants to know about is how this new tremolo performs. I'm here to let you know that it's kinda good and kinda bad. First off, with the ZPS system in this, it feels very stiff, and I don't like the overall feel. However, once you ditch that nonsense, it feels just like all the old ones used to feel. You lose the benefit of staying in tune if a string breaks, but you gain that awesome, natural feel, and I think the trade off is worth it. These bring back the locking studs that the Edge Pros didn't have, but they're not quite as good as the old school Edge and LoPro locking studs. If you can, I recommend replacing them with the older version that have the proper taper. The rest of the guitar is the same as any other Ibanez Prestige out there.

SOUNDS

The guitar has the IBZ pickups still installed in it. Everybody whoever gets these, I recommend that they replace them with some real DiMarzios as that's where you'll get the most out of this guitar. These stock IBZ pickups just don't really cut it, in my opinion. They seem to lack the overall dynamics that the real DiMarzios have, and they're not nearly as clear sounding. I find the bridge to be a bit too muffled and the neck to be a bit too bright for what I'm looking for in pickups. I'm more of a lead player, so I like to have my neck pickups very fat and smooth, but I also like my bridge pickups to be super tight and in your face. This helps give me the best of both worlds, I've found.

OVERALL OPINION

These guitars are just as good as all the other, older RGs out there. The one thing I'd really recommend you do if you get these is to replace the pickups with some higher quality ones. It doesn't have to be DiMarzio; any of the higher quality manufacturers will do. Once you do that, you'll have one hell of a great playing guitar that'll rival nearly anything out there.