I am 54. Playing for 40 years. Ibanez since 1986. I started with two used RS440. Absolutely killer guitars after few modifications. I was building guitars for some years, and still customizing all guitars I own. Enough as of introduction.
I bought this particular guitar because I fell in love in how it looks like. Simply love that white accent (“frost”) over my grandma’s old furniture wood. It really looks like that, but I am finding it absolutely beautiful. It appeared out of nowhere at Thomann, and I bought it instantly.
The white is more transparent in real light than you can see on the pictures. The burls are beautiful. Finish is flawless. I tuned. Connected. Spent whole night playing.
SOUND
Very, very even across strings and positions (almost like Ibanez built an invisible, high quality compressor in this guitar).
• High gain pickups. They will forgive you a lot, but they also will kill a lot of your intonation. Definitely a set for heavy rocking players.
• Good, solid and transparent sound from the wood. Feels like body has much more wood than it really has. Great sustain.
• Beautifully sounding harmonics, both natural and artificial.
SET-UP and FINISH
The factory setup is very satisfactory. String action is low enough, and guitar has proper intonation. I just fine-tuned it a bit and was able to play instantly.
Did not find any finish flaws. Paint job it top-class. Big plus goes for frets. Jumbo steel frets beautifully crowned and polished. Get it and try some ultra bends. Goes like on butter.
TECHNICAL-flat-tities
That is where some problems started for me. But I am spoiled by myself and some guitars (also from Ibanez I own(ed)).
The Neck
I was expecting different shape. Something like the earliest Wizzard necks were. Or maybe like JEM necks. Slim, but with nicely rounded profile (more C or V accordingly). Here you have very slim neck, but it is shaped like D with (as for me) way too big shoulders and then flat area in the middle. It feels like axe handle for huge lumberjack. Yes, the body is slim at the edges, but I prefer to play with that guitar, not run into fight with trees or other enemies.
I am quite tall, my fingers are long, but I just personally find that neck shape unpleasantly “squarish”. I will reshape it.
Second “minus” is the wood, with big pores. You feel them when you slide your palm up and down the guitar neck. And - as I have nothing against pores in body wood, the neck must be silky smooth for me.
The neck was also covered in some substance that was rolling unpleasantly during the play. Some polishing grease left? Someone abusing hand creme was holding the guitar? Point is - it needed immediate cleaning.
Fretboard
Are you absolutely sure that is Rosewood??? It feels completely different. And it is dry like pepper. This fretboard feels and looks different than all my other guitars with Rosewood fretboards. They are more smooth, also in sounding.
I applied oil. We will se ;-)
The Bridge (tremolo)
ZPS (zero-point-system) is fantastic invention for people who are used to play with hardtail bridges. You adjust once, then you tune. Done. You may use tremolo, as you want, guitar comes back to the “zero” point and stays in tune.
Good thing is, simply by removing two springs you are getting full floating tremolo. Which I immediately did. I love growls the floating trems produce, vibrating ultra fast when you hit them correctly.
I read a lot of negative comments about Edge-Zero II, but same was with Pro Rock'r tremolo from 80’s. Lot of people was saying “crap”, “stays out of tune”, “impossible to use”. I was using and abusing mines and never had any problems with them. But - before I started to use and abuse, I spent some time with properly setting them up. I’ve got the feeling same story is with Edge-Zero II. Just take some time and set it up properly. Or ask some GOOD luthier to do it. I am really not sure, if the old Edge (Pro) performs better.
I do not like the tremolo arm mounting mechanism. That is of minus.
Pickups
I love DiMarzio. I have them on basically all my guitars. And I use them since late 80’s (I was rewinding old SuperDistortions to make them coil split and to lower the signal from that split coil, so it worked better with the SC in the middle position. Now I believe all DM pickups are 4 wired.).
But (I) do not like this particular set.
While I understand Ibanez and the “Shred-Heavy guitar” idea, those pickups (humbuckers) are too high output and too muddy for me. There is that DiMarzio clarity still, even when you play heavily distorted amp, but because of the very strong signal, and lack of trebles you are losing nuances in your play. But - as I wrote before, mentioning invisible compression - those pickups are very forgiving. They will (when played on heavily crunched or distorted amp) forgive lot of small inaccuracies in playing, by simply masking them. They will make your played notes more equal, more “right”, but also kill lot of noises you produce with your fingers, and you would like to hear in your playing.
As for me - pickups, I will change.
SUMMARY
Very, very good guitar. Beautifully finished, nicely crafted. Fitted with high quality hardware.
A no-brainiac choice for people, who play heavy music, mostly on very crunched or hi-gain amps.
This guitar is also extremely comfortable. Thanks to the body shape it is much lighter than other guitars and it fits very comfortably between your arm and torso (ribs, belly, tits - whatever is at the guitar body position).
Despite the fact it is not “Made in Japan” it is very solidly crafted and definitely worth it’s price.
