Ibanez Stagestar

Its a blue with a white pickguard. Not too big not too small. The action of the strings is amazing. I barely have to touch the stings to get it to play. I love how easy it is to play on it. Much better than any other ibanez ive played. Ive just started playing about 8-9 months ago and I love my guitar Ive played alot of different types of guitar and mine is by-far the best. I play a little of everything. Blues,Metal,Jazz,Instrumental (Steve vai, Buckethead type shit)

My step-mom got it at a junk store for 45$ and when she got it the frets were completely rusted and the toggle swith for my pickups was bent and the tuning pegs were missing. We took it to a store and they fixed it for 65$. It plays amazing is all i have to say.

Everything.

Ehhh maybe just the nut thats about it. But i got a floyyd installed so yeah is badass now :D

Great Great Great.

Man i love ibanez

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I play bass and drums...have played for about 30 years. Mostly Jazz, Fusion, Latin.

$500 bought locally here in SF, although I could have gotten it $75 cheaper online (but could not have heard the particular kit I was purchasing first).

I really like this kit....considering the bang for the buck, this has to rate up there. I would agree it's probably too small to deliver any oomph for a headbangin' sorta player, but for Jazz, Folk, Latin, Klezmer, small Alt rock bands...it is pretty darn respectable. It is sturdy enough, and with some good coated heads in place of the thin stock ones, it sounds quite nice (the stock bass head is actually good, though). The cymbal stand, 'hat stand, snare stand, and bass pedal are just fine....good action, well-built.

The cymbals are, as would be expected, brass trash. Throw 'em away immediately, or use 'em in a sculpture. Also, the thin-shelled chrome snare drum is forgettable...adding an internal muffler helped it, but really...for anyone at the intermediate level or above, they should replace the snare when the time comes.

The wood is better than any of the comparably priced kits offered by Ludwig, Yamaha, Gretsch, or Pearl. It came out of the factory nice and dry...no greening, no splits or cracks in the grains like most others have. The bearing edges are very, very good. Hardware, as mentioned before, is quite respectable.

It has gotten a fair amount of good press from straight-ahead jazzers who use it for a portable gigging set. I would agree. With new heads, some good head tuning, real cymbals, and a replacement snare drum, this rig makes quite a good bop kit....again, better than most competitors. Its size makes it great for small practice spaces or venues. For the price, you cannot beat what you get !

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bought at Cash Converters for $115.

Nice fast neck, fat tone, the body is like a thicker strat body with a deeper low cutaway so I cant complain about fret access. Great tone for detuning. Bridge humbucker is of decent quality, if not slightly tinny sounding but for $115 how can u go wrong.

Clean tone is pretty dull on the 3 highest strings (I think it has something to do with the crappy plastic nut). Lame ass single coil neck and mid pickups were taken out by me within a month of having the guitar cause i never used them. The action is too high and the truss rod bolt is metric and all i have are imperial hex wrenches so that kinda sucks. Saddle heights are all fucked up, on the 6th string the bolts on the saddle are sticking out so the highest one is full of skin and blood from my pinky being ripped open when i was playing Slayer and Lamb of God stuff at triple thrash speed with my drummer. Trem kinda sucks, as soon as i can ima get an alder blank and fill in the cavity and replace the bridge with a gotoh flat mount bridge. I already removed the tone control too cause i always had it on 10 anyways. Bought white speed knobs to replace the trashy looking fender knobs.

I cant really comment on the construction quality but i had to take the neck off to sand the finish and crap off of the heel of the neck. The base of the heel in the body looked like it was cut with a hack saw so i had to sand it down too. After that it played really well. The body is more resonant than my yamaha acoustic which gives the tone balls for miles. The paint had various chips on it from the previous owner (if i ever found him i would bite his throat out), he decided to mess with the saddle heights and scratched up the headstock with a screwdriver or something. I will probably install an EMG 81 or a Duncan Invader but right now im kinda strapped for moolah so im stuck with stock. I'm also gonna replace the neck with a moses strat graphite neck.

This is actually an extremely good ax for the money i paid for it. It's great for shredding Slayer, Lamb of God, Unearth, C.O.F., Slipknot, Cannibal Corpse, etc. even with horrible action so... as i said for the money... not so bad. Great crunch to the sound. It was royal blue with a white pickguard when i got it but now its dark silver metallic with a black pickguard (painted everything myself) and it looks like a cross between a strat on steroids and a soloist.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

about 400 bucks on musicians friend.

i liked its size, some people might not prefer a set that is so small (particularly the 18 inch bass). but i got a long fine with it. after new heads and tape/dampening the shells sound pretty good. tuning wasent actually that bad. all the toms only have 6 lugs i think, so it didnt take long. i would suggest remo o's if you can get them. the bass sounds good if you do the right stuff to it. i keep the batter head loose and the resonant just a little bit tighter.

the factory head sucked, the hardware/cymbals it comes with need to be thrown out. i kept one of the high hats that had a nice trash sound when it was bent the other way. the t rack that tama makes on most of there other sets isnt on this one. its the same thing but you cant extend the the actually tom holders.

well its pretty good for the crappy kind of wood that they use on it. if your jamming with people the drums sound really good as long as they are are tuned low and you get new heads. at this point there is nothing wrong with the set. nothing is breaking or anything.

if you have the money i would go to either a rockstar or a ludwig rocker(if you can find one) but if you dont this will do fine.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com