Ibanez RG3550MZ

One of Ibanez's most popular guitars ever made was the RG550. For whatever reason, they discontinued that guitar, and they refused to bring back maple fretboards. Why, I have no clue. Thankfully, however, they brought it back with this model. The guitar features a basswood body with a smoked pickguard, a maple neck with maple fretboard and outlined sharktooth inlays, HSH configuration, one volume knob, one tone knob, a five way switch and an Edge Zero tremolo.

UTILIZATION

Finally, they brought back both Desert Yellow and a maple fretboard! A lot of Ibanez fans have been waiting for this for quite awhile. The fretwork on this guitar is top notch thanks to it being built in the Prestige factory. The neck is nice and thin, so it works great for shred licks. The fretboard's radius is also fairly flat, so you can get super low action and bend to the moon without worrying about fretting out. Access to the higher frets is a breeze thanks to the All Access Neck Joint.

SOUNDS

Not only did Ibanez bring back a guitar inspired by the RG550, but they also included real DiMarzios in this! This guitar comes equipped with an Air Norton in the neck, True Velvet in the middle and Tone Zone in the the bridge. The Air Norton delivers an awesome, fat, round neck tone that is just to die for. It's one of my favorite DiMarzios. The True Velvet is a nice, clean single coil that sounds great in positions 2 and 4. The Tone Zone is a fat, strong midrange pickup that really kicks an amp into overdrive and helps make this guitar sound huge.

OVERALL OPINION

I absolutely adore this guitar. It's one of the guitars that Ibanez should have been making for years in their standard production line. For years, you had to buy a J-Custom or special edition guitar to get real pickups, but they finally included a nice set of DiMarzios in a production model guitar. On top of that, it has a maple fretboard! If you're looking to buy your first Ibanez, I highly recommend looking at one of these. In fact, I'd probably take this over the RG550.