My cousin has the same guitar ! In my opinion it sounds nice. It has a rich full sound and I think it's a great choice if you play metal and "dark" music. Buy it ! ^^

Thanks, first-hand experience is good :) It's looking likely.

Ibanez guitars are generally well worth the money almost guarenteed everytime. I think the pickups are a bit weak on those guitars though, not really active or great for metal music like I play (emg and seymor duncan<3 xD) but I personally like ibanez. If I weren't hooked on esp I would totally play an ibanez or jackson as my 2nd choice. I'm not really a fan of gibson but enough rambling, it has a Ibanez guitars have a full sound, depends on how much depth you want if you really want to change pick ups. But overall I think that is a great guitar xD I was gonna get an ibanez until I picked out my esp instead

So what I'm getting from this is that it's good for metal, not necessarily the absolute best... but even if I do end up wanting to replace the pickups somewhere down the line (which is the detail that I was most unsure about myself - is it good out of the box or does it need a whole lot of replacements and setup?) then it's still a physically good guitar to play metal on. Thanks for that.

Lol sorry I rambled abit but yeah its an awesome gutiar, I'd love one myself

I own an Ibanez RG series myself, though I'm not sure if it is this same exact one or not, as its at our vocalist's house atm XD. Might be one or two models up the line (actually, pretty sure i have one of these: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Ibanez-.....59-i1463466.gc ), but either way, I do highly reccomend it. I made rounds through a couple music stores, sitting and playing guitars. I played alot of BC Rich, Schecter, Jackson, and Gibson guitars before I found a place with a good selection of Ibanez and settled on an RG, and did so because its just plain smooth to play.

The wizard necks are suprisingly solid feeling for their thickness and the setup of the fretbars seems to me to put up less resistance (though it may just be my imagination, as I'm sure the strings on display guitars are all kinds of weird from guitar to guitar). That also means they can be a bit touchy, so if you clamp your chords too hard and downtune you'll probably sound a bit out of tune till you get used to it and loosen you grip a bit. We play in D/drop C though, and I don't have any problems that low. Whats really nice about that though, is sweeping and tapping are a breeze. I can play things on that guitar that I just plain can't do picking up any of my bandmates'. It picks up everything!

The range in tone you get with the pickup setup is great, the only complaint i have is that the middle single-coil on the model i have is very, very noisy. Meaning I can't use it or it screeches with the volume and gain levels my band plays at. Its just a buzz at lower volumes and gain levels, but with the fact that my Line 6 head is already a bit bad for feedback when the distortion get piled on makes it an earbleed =p. Most of the reviews said something about it though, so it wasn't a suprise. Not sure what else to add really, bridge stays in tone really well once you have it set up for your strings/tuning and onxe thats done and you have your locks clamped down the fine tuners will take care of it till you need to restring really. I lurves it.

Thanks a lot for your in-depth comments! I had word from someone else with an RG370AX, and I'm not sure of the exact difference between them either - it's good to know that that 'wizard' neck feels as good as advertised :) I've had pretty much constant positive commentary on the various places that I asked about this guitar, so I think it's going to be the one I end up with, after hopefully getting to try it out somewhere this weekend. Thanks for your help :)

Haha! I can't tell you a damn thing about guitars but I can relate to the audio hardware problems there. Same thing is happening to my earphones although they are't in as bad a state :P

It's odd how they never just die outright - they always make you think that they can hang on a little longer. I opened it up and couldn't find anything obvious physically wrong with it... that's going to have to be replaced, but I don't really want to get a stop-gap replacement for it because it's $99 and the new one I'm looking at is three times that.

The vast majority of reviews for it say that it's the best guitar they've ever owned and that it's good both physically and... sonically for metal, but on every site that invites comments there is always one review that is about 200% as long and 2000% as pompous as the others saying that everyone else doesn't know what they're talking about and that it's actually terrible unless you replace the pickups with new ones that cost just about as much as the entire guitar.

Wait, since when did they start offering guitars on NewEgg?

It seems to be a phenomenon common to all sites that invite product reviews... the pattern was the same wherever I looked, and I remember the same being said about that power supply fan that I had to buy last year after my other one expired in a shower of sparks. And it's strange how much more attention you can pay to the very rare negative reviews, especially when the majority are positive...

It's a decent guitar, but it doesn't stay in tune very well. That and the added hassle of having a Floyd Rose, which you said you probably won't be using...

This is something I've heard repeatedly about that model of tremolo... the advice that I've been given is to just to make sure that I know how to use it, to prevent the slipping out of tune problem. I'll make sure to ask!

I'll see if I can find any info at Sam Ash for you, man. I may be going back there next week... they did my strings too low.

I suggest you use this guitar here: http://www.music-man.com/instrument.....-petrucci.html

Used by Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci, and in my opinion, a very well made guitar. Though if you're set on the Ibanez, then what ever works for you!

I'm a bassist/drummer anyhow, I don't know to much about guitar

Well... yes, ideally, that sounds appealing, but at the moment I'm looking for guitars that I don't have to take out a second mortgage to buy :) I think $400 or so is my price point for now... I think my current one was bought for about $90, the guitar on its own.

Oooh, I hadn't considered price. Most of my stuff is hand-me-downs, except for my dad's Acoustic Bass, which is a lot of fun to play. But yeah, come to think of it, I'd imagine that the guitar I suggested is QUITE a pretty penny :P.



Either way, knowing your skill, I don't think it really matters what guitar you have.

Hah, that's a... flattering amount of confidence, thank you for that :) But for actual playing rather than composing, I have a long way to go yet!

Oh Pshaw, you've got plenty of talent....just no money to speak for it! I'm sure once the interwebs remembers what REAL music is, they'll be lining up at your door.

Well, that complicates matters :P

I own a RG 1570 Prestige, and the tones it can output are amazing. The stock pickups are great, and have a really good, transparent tone. My bridge pickup has been switched out for a DiMarzio FR, but I still like to switch to the standard middle pickup whenever I play on a clean channel. I love the sound.

And even better, I have played the 350DX as well when I was helping a friend decide on the same guitar. It's got a great tone, quite similar to the upper-range models, although some of the hardware is not to my tastes (I have been spoiled by my 1570 and its easy of use). The 350DX is by no means a bad piece of hardware, and for a $400 price range, I think you would be hard pressed to find a better rock/metal guitar.

I'll warn you ahead - get yourself a very good tube amp, or stick to transistors if you want a good tone out of it. That's just my opinion, though :P I would suggest trying it out in-store with at least one powerful tube amp, and another transistor, just to see which works for you better. In my experience it does have a different tone depending on the type of amp.

If you have any other questions, hit me up on MSN. I can record a few sound clips if you want, although if you want a live demo you would have to wait till Sunday as I'm capped currently (and thus at dial-up speeds)/

Thanks for all your advice! I'm pretty confident that I'm making a good choice, looking at the range of responses.

As far as amplifiers go, I'm planning to stay with electronic amplifiers for the ease of recording to the computer - the Pod XT (or Pod 2 if I find myself shorter of money) seems to be paired with this model of guitar a lot, and I like what I've heard of the demonstration videos I've looked up.

Ask my bf  Adenabout guitar stuff if you have questions. I'm sure he might have lots of good advice, since the guitar he owns is VERY nice is my opinion and his too (and he goes to guitar center and plays all the guitars all the time). His guitar is a Schecter C1-Elite Diamond Series I believe, and he added a trem to it because it was the one thing the model didn't come with ^^

Thanks for the offer - I was... surprised by the response that this journal generated as it is, but if he wants to weigh in as well then he's welcome to!

I haven't used that specific guitar, but I have owned many ibanez guitars before. If you're looking for metal, you've got the right brand. Ibanez is pretty much for metal heads. If it's anything like what I have used, the sustain should be really good and the fretboard really smooth.

Thanks, it sounds like it's a reliable choice based on the strength of the name alone!

i say get it

Short and simple :) With the overwhelmingly positive response so far, I think that's looking very likely!

yep short and simple is how i always put things ^.=.^

My player works for Sam Ash Music in the guitar department... but he's a bass player. So I'll give you what knowledge I can impart from what I've been put through myself so far ^^

The Ibanez RG series is tremendously popular for folks who want to get some heavy metal power without spending top dollar -- like, say, for a Les Paul. Or maybe an ESP for more heavy rockin'. Or a Paul Reed Smith for more elegance. Ibanez has been trying really really hard for years to be a little bit of everything to everybody, which is why they have about 900 models come out every year -- then disappear the next year for the new ones!

The model you show is one of the popular ones from a couple of years ago that lasted up to now, so it's got some 'legs' on it. Nice choice. The one thing to be wary of is the Floyd Rose locking tremelo system. Simply put, they are a PAIN to get set up -- and you probably deserve college credit when you finally master the art of changing your strings and re-intonating everything. Do you play in standard tuning, or drop-something? Just remember, every time you chose a new tuning on a Floyd Rose, you need to re-intonate the whole thing... and probably get a new gauge of string. So DON'T plan on re-tuning it in the middle of a gig!

I hope this all is helpful... Like I said, what do I know? I'm still trying to figure out what those other two strings are for! ^^

The locking Floyd Rose tremolo system is something I've seen mentioned all over the place as well - I'm definitely planning to ask about that, and I'm thinking that it can't be that hard when you get used to it, but then I haven't tried one yet :) I play mostly in standard tuning (unless writing out a tab really dictates that I need to drop the low E string) so I'm hoping that I can at least get it set up once!