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Ibanez S540
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Phil Norris Phil Norris

« A good standard guitar »

Published on 06/08/22 at 02:07
Best value: Correct
Audience: Anyone
I've used an S540 for years for playing covers, and it is a good quality instrument with a solid all round feel. It's a versatile guitar with pickup configs that can produce many classic guitar sounds. Almost Strat like in some settings, almost full humbucker and high gain Les Paulish too - with many inbetween. It's not the best instrument by any means, but for the price it is a good quality and versatile instrument. The guitar does not have a cheap feel to it as some other Ibanez models do. It's ultra slim, great finish (mines black) and nice and light weight for long gigs.
The sound is tight/good, the pickups put out a good signal, but there is no special character to it in any way that makes it stand out on it's own. As I say, you can emulate sounds of other types of guitars because of the single coil tap and humbucker configs - plus it has a whammy. The best sound for my liking is when you back off the vol. pot to about 75% on the neck humbucker for that half distorted rich clean with a treble bite. So it's my soul-less working guitar that can be modelled to sound like most things by amp and pickup config, but that's not a negative in my view because it's versatility is what made me choose it for a good allrounder to take on cover jobs where you need to sound like Jimi Hendrix one minute, then Chet Atkins the next.
If you want one iconic sound - then this is not really your axe, but if you want versatility, then it's a good deal.