View other reviews for this product:
tjon901 « Ibanez hardtail with a big sound »
Published on 11/02/11 at 07:35RGA Ibanez guitars are some of my favorite from the maker. They have all the features I like. The A in RGA stands for archtop. These guitars have a mahogany body with a maple top and the top of the guitar is arched. Most of these guitars were hardtails but now they make some tremolo models. The mahogany and maple in the body is a big improvement over the basswood used in most Ibanez guitars. This guitar has a mahogany body with a maple top. The bolt on neck is a maple wizard prestige neck with a rosewood fretboard. The neck made up of 5 pieces of maple and walnut to give it stability. The fretboard has 24 jumbo frets and a super flat radius. The hardtail bridge is Ibanez's Gibralter design. It has a master volume and a master tone with a 5 way blade switch. The pickups are a set of stock Ibanez pickups.
UTILIZATION
A lot of RG problems are gone when you make it a hardtail. There is no tuning instabilities with this guitar and it is very easy to setup and change strings. The wizard prestige neck is one of the thinnest necks you can get on a guitar nowadays. With a thin neck your fingers have more space to move about the fretboard instead of wrapping around the rest of the neck. The radius is super flat and that combined with the big frets mean it is very easy to get a super low action if that is what you want. The cutaways are deep so you have lots of access to the upper frets for leads. With the hardtail you can do even more extreme bends without going out of tune.
SOUNDS
The stock sound is the only shortcoming from this guitar. Stock Ibanez pickups are some of the worst. Many people swap them out immediately. The pickups are very weak. When plugging this guitar in I had to check my amp to see if the setttings were the same because going from a guitar with good pickups to this I lost like 20 percent of the output. The pickups are weak and dull. The bridge pickup is muddy and does not have a lot of punch. The neck pickups is also muddy as well. The neck pickup might be usaable but the bridge is very lacking.
OVERALL OPINION
Lots of people want an easy playing guitar but dont want to put up with floating tremolos. Most shred guitars come with these tremolos so if you want a shred guitar you usually have to put up with them. Now with these RGA Ibanez guitars you can get a guitar with all the playability but without the troublesome tremolo there. With a simple pickup swap this guitar could be a great all around instrument.
UTILIZATION
A lot of RG problems are gone when you make it a hardtail. There is no tuning instabilities with this guitar and it is very easy to setup and change strings. The wizard prestige neck is one of the thinnest necks you can get on a guitar nowadays. With a thin neck your fingers have more space to move about the fretboard instead of wrapping around the rest of the neck. The radius is super flat and that combined with the big frets mean it is very easy to get a super low action if that is what you want. The cutaways are deep so you have lots of access to the upper frets for leads. With the hardtail you can do even more extreme bends without going out of tune.
SOUNDS
The stock sound is the only shortcoming from this guitar. Stock Ibanez pickups are some of the worst. Many people swap them out immediately. The pickups are very weak. When plugging this guitar in I had to check my amp to see if the setttings were the same because going from a guitar with good pickups to this I lost like 20 percent of the output. The pickups are weak and dull. The bridge pickup is muddy and does not have a lot of punch. The neck pickups is also muddy as well. The neck pickup might be usaable but the bridge is very lacking.
OVERALL OPINION
Lots of people want an easy playing guitar but dont want to put up with floating tremolos. Most shred guitars come with these tremolos so if you want a shred guitar you usually have to put up with them. Now with these RGA Ibanez guitars you can get a guitar with all the playability but without the troublesome tremolo there. With a simple pickup swap this guitar could be a great all around instrument.