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Hatsubai « HSH S series »
Published on 09/25/11 at 10:44This is another version of the Ibanez S series that Ibanez is releasing. It's not much different from any of the other Ibanez S series out there, so there's not much new to say about it. The guitar features a mahogany body, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 extra jumbo frets, offset dot inlays, an Edge Zero tremolo, HSH configuration, one volume, one tone and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
The first thing you notice about this guitar is that it's crazy light. For someone like me who has a bad back, this is quite nice. However, I also noticed that it didn't seem to resonate quite as nicely as my RGs tend to. The super sleek body is great for stage work, and I'm a big fan of these when playing live. The fretwork was top notch, and it's about on par with the rest of the Prestige models, as far as I'm concerned. The bridge on this is kinda lame with the ZPS system or whatever in, but once you take that out, it's quite a nice trem. If you're going to keep it, I recommend replacing the studs with some real Lo Pro locking studs as they'll help improve stability.
SOUNDS
The guitar had a D-Sonic in the bridge, a True Velvet in the middle and a Breed in the neck. The D-Sonic in this worked pretty well. In fact, this is one of the few applications where I think the D-Sonic works. I'm not entirely a fan of the D-Sonic in alder and basswood, but it's pretty nice in mahogany. One thing I should mention is that this pickup is pretty noisy. The True Velvet was great for clean tones and those single coil kinda funk tones. The Breed Neck was the perfect lead pickup. It had just enough power, midrange and fatness to get super thick lead tones, but it wasn't so muddy that you couldn't make out single note runs. It's one of my favorite neck pickups out there.
OVERALL OPINION
The guitar is great, but you have to be sure you like these super thin bodied guitars. A lot of people dislike them, and I can see why. It's almost like playing a toy at times, but they're still very solid guitars. I kinda recommend searching for an older S540 instead of buying one of these, but you should be satisfied with any of them, really. Be sure to buy used as you'll get a better deal.
UTILIZATION
The first thing you notice about this guitar is that it's crazy light. For someone like me who has a bad back, this is quite nice. However, I also noticed that it didn't seem to resonate quite as nicely as my RGs tend to. The super sleek body is great for stage work, and I'm a big fan of these when playing live. The fretwork was top notch, and it's about on par with the rest of the Prestige models, as far as I'm concerned. The bridge on this is kinda lame with the ZPS system or whatever in, but once you take that out, it's quite a nice trem. If you're going to keep it, I recommend replacing the studs with some real Lo Pro locking studs as they'll help improve stability.
SOUNDS
The guitar had a D-Sonic in the bridge, a True Velvet in the middle and a Breed in the neck. The D-Sonic in this worked pretty well. In fact, this is one of the few applications where I think the D-Sonic works. I'm not entirely a fan of the D-Sonic in alder and basswood, but it's pretty nice in mahogany. One thing I should mention is that this pickup is pretty noisy. The True Velvet was great for clean tones and those single coil kinda funk tones. The Breed Neck was the perfect lead pickup. It had just enough power, midrange and fatness to get super thick lead tones, but it wasn't so muddy that you couldn't make out single note runs. It's one of my favorite neck pickups out there.
OVERALL OPINION
The guitar is great, but you have to be sure you like these super thin bodied guitars. A lot of people dislike them, and I can see why. It's almost like playing a toy at times, but they're still very solid guitars. I kinda recommend searching for an older S540 instead of buying one of these, but you should be satisfied with any of them, really. Be sure to buy used as you'll get a better deal.