All user reviews of 3/5 for the Ibanez Stagestar

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

I bought if off a mate of mine for $300 AUD.

Well lets just say it is an awesome guitar for rock / distortion. My friend has a Ibanez with 3 single pickups on it and it sounds crap compared to the stagestar when u use the double pickups at the bottom. I like the body of it. Mine is a maple wood body that goes from black on the outer edges to a tanned wood inside. looks pretty cool. The shape is almost exactly like a Fender strat except without the little knob bit on top of the fretboard. Its also got a nice thick and solid body.

Dont really like the clean sounds too much. playing along with a Fender dvd etc it sounds crap compared. Although i haven't put it through any effects pedals yet but straight into the amp.. yeah not that impressed.

As I said above. good solid construction... happy with that.

Overall an excellent beginners guitar which is what i got it for so im happy. looking at stepping up soon to a les paul or something. If you want a good guitar to learn rock on with then yeah grab one of these. if you want to concentrate on clean blues / solos etc... maybe look elsewhere.

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

I bought this guitar August 2002 because I wanted a cheap-starters unit. I paid 150€ and I must say that the price is right!

I like the sound, as a first thing. For a beginner it's wonderful. A stratocaster model which sounds alright, looks like a professional unit and feels quite good. Personally (with a bit more experience in guitars) I lost interest in stratocasters and went into Les Pauls but it's good to learn solo's on a stratocaster since u can reach the end of the neck easily. it's also very light in weight.

The neck is made out of maple and personally I prefer rosewood. The stratocaster sight gets boring after a while (but that's personal) and the sound is just so-so when you get more experience with better guitars. Another thing is when you don't secure the strap well it knocks the front of the guitar right in your face... that hurts, I learned it the hard way so you really need to secure your strap right on the pins.

it's solid.. it's really solid. The black parts get damaged easily though so don't bump into anything. The wood doesn't chip fast so it's quite lasting. Your snares could get stuck behind one of the last fret's if you bend the e-string too far, that's a negativity in the construction but overall it's great

Good guitar for a beginner, wouldn't buy one if you already have a guitar. If you wanna learn to play guitar on something cheap and solid: buy an Ibanez Stagestar (wouldn't go for a Samick). It sounds right, it feels right and it looks right.

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