Guitar and Bass Discussion - Sperg about players that inspire you, gear, share your experiences, etc.

[Dean Pentel]

Ibanez Guitars for life. Played many models over the years but I find myself always coming back to the Ibanez RG models.

Having said that the Ibanez JEM has one of my favorite necks of all time. Special shout out to the newer JS models which have some of the warmest and beautiful tones.

Quick story about my Ibanez JEM encounters.

I first heard Vai in late 1990 when my stepdad bought Passion and Warfare. I was only 8 so I knew almost nothing about electric guitar or players like him but I was instantly hooked. I saved up my allowance to buy Alien Love Secrets when it came out in 1995 and all the guitar magazines had pictures of Steve with that Ibanez JEM 7VWH. I swore I'd own one someday.

Fast forward to 2005 and due to me being fucking terrible with money I decide to forgo paying some bills/car maintenance/responsible adult shit to buy a JEM I found at a local shop. I hadn't been dreaming of this for years exactly, just one day on a whim I stopped in and I saw they had it. They claimed it had been sitting on the shelf for almost a year so they were going to give me a decent price on it. It was probably bullshit but it clearly hooked me.

This taught me 3 things immediately. 1) I fucking despise floating bridges, 2) I knew I wouldn't play like Vai, but holy fuck did I also sound nothing like him, and 3) I much prefer thicker necks ('59 Les Paul carve and the like). I ended up blocking the trem and kept it for 3 years unti I sold it to pay for an early model Motorave McQueen.

This year Vai is on tour and he's playing in a city near me. I make an adult wage and am not such a fucking retard financially so I have enough to comfortably buy the EVO Experience. After sound check the others that purchased the same tier are invited up on stage to check out the gear. I'm walking around talking to the other musicians in the band and the sound crew and I finally work up the nerve to approach EVO. As stupid as it sounds I'm fucking nervous. The guitar tech tells me I can pick her up so I do.

I wish I could accurately describe what this was like. The closest I can come is this analogy: imagine Batman is real and you're an enormous fan of his. You get a chance to meet him and not only is he cool as fuck, he lets you get in the Batmobile and start it up. So even though EVO is strangely heavy and goddamn does he like his action way higher than I would ever tolerate it was basically like this for me.

 

[Cats]

Speaking of high action, I've noticed a TON of those 80's virtuoso guys like theirs to be super freaking high...Malmsteen (who has his ridiculously high), Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai etc....pretty much all of them, which seems counterintuitive or at least did to me when I was a kid and learned this. The understanding I have come to is that you start off wanting super low action because it makes playing a lot easier, but allegedly kills your sustain and can promote things like buzzing and sloppiness. But you don't care because the neck feels fast and good.

Well when your hands get strong enough (I am talking about practicing 8hrs a day like these guys type of "strong enough") you can easily tolerate much higher action and high action starts making it feel more like you are pressing "buttons" than sliding across a flat plane, if that makes any sense at all. The benefits seem to be that you can actually articulate notes a lot more "purposefully" and it can even help you to not develop any bad jumbling habits. It seems to provide better overall left hand control. This is just my own sort of conclusion to the high action mystery.

That being said, I will always prefer my action super low.

 

[Funeral for a Furry]

Though I'd do an up date on my bass the last photo was old and since then I've had to swap the bridge for a Leo Quant Bad Ass II a Zero Mod Thumb rest & a Bettie Page neck plate as the ild one lost it's chrome.

 

[Cats]

Hah.

Check out what I found today. one of my old Comp books with random tabs in it. I keep these books to jot down stuff that pops into my head that I know I will forget about in a day or so if I don't document it on the spot. Loads of small melodies relating to vg songs or tunes I come up with that would otherwise vanish into the ether until I remember them at a later date. I have to consciously commit certain things to memory sometimes.

This was from last year when I was watching some Top Gear (SNES) theme remixes on youtube and these were just to help me remember the basic skeleton of the song rather than the actual procession of notes verbatim. But if you have a very basic understanding of what is written here you can piece the whole song together from this!

This was very shortly after I got a Synth pedal and I was really trying to make the best use of it.



For much needed reference, this is the remix I think I was tabbing in particular. Like I said the tabs are messy and technically just display the bones of the song so I wouldn't forget. But enough for you to piece together this very simple yet very neat theme song. I got tons of these little melodies and tunes scribbled down.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Ordered one of these from Nihon:

 

[Cats]

Another one down! That's the second project completed in 30 days. The body for the next one is coming in tomorrow, allegedly (says USPS)



What do you think? Do you like the original Ibanez PGM with the dots and reverse HS better? I think the roses and vines are neat, but there is some beauty in simplicity...

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

I like reverse headstocks on a lot of guitars but yours looks better than the original. Very nice job and based

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I do like a reverse headstock.

 

[Cats]

My favorite version of the Paul Gilbert model is actually a tie between these two, just because I love loud colors, neons, and pastels...and my first ever guitar was an Ibanez RG with sharktooths and fretboard binding:



They sit at around 2k-2700 for the electric blue and 3k++ for the teal (which can go pretty high, due to rarity of the Fujigen originals), so I'll wait. Though, that's the exact same thing that I said about the primary-color Petrucci ibanez when it was sitting around the same price and, nowadays, if you can even find one they can go for higher than an original desert sun Jem. I saw one sell for 6 grand just a few years ago.

Honestly for me nothing beats the playability, comfort and familiarity than these late 1980's to late 1990's era of Ibanez. Picking one up is like putting on an old pair of jeans.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Fujigen

Have you ever looked at any of the FGN guitars? They're amazing.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Another one down! That's the second project completed in 30 days. The body for the next one is coming in tomorrow, allegedly (says USPS)

View attachment 5613280

What do you think? Do you like the original Ibanez PGM with the dots and reverse HS better? I think the roses and vines are neat, but there is some beauty in simplicity...

View attachment 5613282

I'm in the reverse headstock camp. I don't know why, feels more natural to tune for me.

BTW- great work. Two projects in less than 30days is awesome!

 

[Cats]

Have you ever looked at any of the FGN guitars? They're amazing.

View attachment 5614435

I'm not up to date on the factory itself or anything that they do nowadays, all I know is that a lot of the old Ibanez customs and signature prototypes were made there and it was a fairly legendary Japanese guitar factory for that reason. I don't believe Ibanez ever technically "owned" them or even had some sort of controlling stake at some point, but rather used them as a manufacturer. Everything they turned out was just of exceptional quality. Very good builders.

I have a faint memory that they might have done a lot of the more luxuriously-topped J-Customs and Prestiges for Ibanez, such as ones with things like ridiculous quilt tops or 1000A flame hyperwoods from Alternate Dimension Earth where the trees themselves sing.

I don't think I'd ever want to own one, but I guess they were pretty. Just not my style.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I'm not up to date on the factory itself or anything that they do nowadays, all I know is that a lot of the old Ibanez customs and signature prototypes were made there and it was a fairly legendary Japanese guitar factory for that reason. I don't believe Ibanez ever technically "owned" them or even had some sort of controlling stake at some point, but rather used them as a manufacturer. Everything they turned out was just of exceptional quality. Very good builders.

I have a faint memory that they might have done a lot of the more luxuriously-topped J-Customs and Prestiges for Ibanez, such as ones with things like ridiculous quilt tops or 1000A flame hyperwoods from Alternate Dimension Earth where the trees themselves sing.

I don't think I'd ever want to own one, but I guess they were pretty. Just not my style.

View attachment 5614669

They made guitars for everyone.
Their Les Pauls are better than anything Les Paul ever made and if I'd known, I would've bought one of their Strat clones instead of an actual Strat.
However, their own-label FGN guitars are on another level, especially the custom shop ones.
The FGN Expert Flame in Vintage Violin is a work of art. If it had PRS or Gibson written on it, it would be a $20,000 guitar.

 

[Cats]

My Good Dudes,

Without you putting your hands on this thing, I'm not sure I can convey just how surprisingly well made and incredibly awesome feeling this temporary neck that I ordered from our little slant-eyed friends over in Ching Chong Land turned out to be. Like I am legitimately blown away by this dirt cheap Chinese "junk". It's really good

Since Warmoth will be taking several months to finish making my custom neck, I ordered this neck along with a second budget neck, a Canadian made non-scalloped, "fender-style straight" banana hs, both to be shipped to me early so that I could play this kami while I waited for Warmoth. I haven't gotten the Canadian one in yet, and while I trust it will be more than serviceable for a <100 dollar neck I'm not so sure it will be able to top this one from China. Not only does this thing fit the body and my hand like a glove, but the frets and neck itself are dead straight, very professionally crowned, filed, and polished, the guys put in a fucking top of the line double action truss rod without me even asking for one(!), and the entire thing is just made to a level of precision that I would never in my wildest dreams have expected to see coming out of China. The only complaint is, of course, the infamous thick ass full-poly finish the chinese guys always put on all of the necks that come out of there, but I can remove that and do an oil finish if I decide I want to. I kind of like it, for now. They did it the best that can be done for a poly finished neck, let's just say.

I paid seventy freaking dollars for this thing. $400+ less than the Warmoth custom I ordered. I will laugh my fucking ass off if I end up liking the Chinese one more than the Warmoth when that one finally gets here.

Anyway. I am getting the black locking tuners, the rest of my spray paint, strings and most importantly the hot pink Nazgul+matching pink strat style knob all in the mail tomorrow, so for now I have just clipped the pickup and knob into the empty spaces in the photo below so you can see what it will look like:



P.S. the stuff on the headstock is only temporary until I receive the spray paint can of Light Pink Sparkle in the mail and can continue the "camo" pattern from the body up onto the headstock...the bare maple headstock was bugging the absolute SHIT out of me tonight, so I made a couple of stylized "ripped notebook paper" stickers.

In case you are wondering what it says, it's just "1986" - the greatest year of that decade :] - and then the kanji for "year" or "date" to signify what the 1986 is referring to! I don't like putting brand names on my homemade guitars so like all the rest, it will remain logo free once I paint it, or I will just do the kanji on the camo but much smaller.

I shall post again when it is all finished, with all necks arrived and headstocks painted. You guys can tell me which neck you think looks the best, and maybe we can decide on what kind of extra stuff we want to do to the inlays on the two necks that have the boring black dots. The Warmoth neck will have a black pearloid Nightswan inlay. man this thing just feels "right" and I'm way excited that the very first neck I tried on it I was lucky enough to have it feel like they were made for one another. If you've ever gone Partscastering before you know how absurdly rare that is

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I'm not sure I can convey just how surprisingly well made and incredibly awesome feeling this temporary neck that I ordered from our little slant-eyed friends over in Ching Chong Land turned out to be. Like I am legitimately blown away by this dirt cheap Chinese "junk". It's really good

It probably came out of the Burny factory there, so set up by Japanese in the first place.

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

Speaking of high action, I've noticed a TON of those 80's virtuoso guys like theirs to be super freaking high...Malmsteen (who has his ridiculously high), Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai etc....pretty much all of them, which seems counterintuitive or at least did to me when I was a kid and learned this. The understanding I have come to is that you start off wanting super low action because it makes playing a lot easier, but allegedly kills your sustain and can promote things like buzzing and sloppiness. But you don't care because the neck feels fast and good.

Well when your hands get strong enough (I am talking about practicing 8hrs a day like these guys type of "strong enough") you can easily tolerate much higher action and high action starts making it feel more like you are pressing "buttons" than sliding across a flat plane, if that makes any sense at all. The benefits seem to be that you can actually articulate notes a lot more "purposefully" and it can even help you to not develop any bad jumbling habits. It seems to provide better overall left hand control. This is just my own sort of conclusion to the high action mystery.

That being said, I will always prefer my action super low.

Holdsworth used super-low action. Satriani, Reb Beach, Warren DiMartini, SRV, Eric Johnson, Guthrie Govan - I can think of lots of great low-action players.

 

[Cats]

Holdsworth used super-low action. Satriani, Reb Beach, Warren DiMartini, SRV, Eric Johnson, Guthrie Govan - I can think of lots of great low-action players.

Yeah I could never get comfy with high action myself. Feels like playing with your guitar neck submerged in mud lol

 

[CircuSphere]

Best guitar related purchase you can make for $8 FYI. These days most guitars don't get a proper set up and it's a shame because with C&C machines even cheap axes clean up rather nice with a little work. Even the guitars that do get setup properly (or PLEKed even) need adjustment with time/climate.

I think a lot of those 80's guys like a high action because of all the tap. Slide players also like a super high action.

Gain and sustain tradeoff is made by adjusting the pickup height AFTER you get the string height/contour correct.

Also you will never get the action right if the truss rod is not properly set up. Should have a very slight concave bow. Too straight (or backbowed) and you will get buzz on the bass end frets. Too bowed and you will never get the string height down on the high frets.

It's easier to eyeball/cheese but they make a tool for truss adjustment too (just make sure you get the right scale):

If you do things in the right order and use proper tools the guitar will play great 9/10... and if it doesn't you have a problem. Either you need to get the nut re-cut (or have the bridge shaved on an acoustic) or a get a fret level or a neck pocket shim (*cough* Fender MX) or something.

1) Truss
2) Action
3) Pickups
4) Intonation

 

[Cats]

I've never been a Seymour Duncan fan before today...never really been all that crazy about pickups in general, since I mostly find they tend to sound similar a lot of the time and stock pickups usually work just fine for me....but with any kind of purpose built "specialty" pickup I always know immediately if I am going to like it or not and I try to avoid "super mega ultra hot" or "metal" pickups, especially those from Seymour Duncan such as the dimebucker and fullshred, etc.

Well, I wasn't really happy about it, but I eventually picked their Nazgul model based on listening to dozens of pickups from various brands in preparation for this single hum guitar build. One might even say I had a pretty strong bias against Seymour Duncan because I've never been into them. But this one stood out during blind/non-blind passive pickup comparisons and it finally came in the mail today. man, does this thing ever crush your ass under a ton of tone. I think this is easily the best passive bridge pickup I have ever found, and one of those scenarios where it is well worth upgrading a stock pickup to one of these.

The Fluence HH set will always be my first pick for "modern guitar electronics", but for a single hum builds I sincerely doubt I will ever pick something other than the Nazgul. It looks really cool in pink, too.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Interdasting. I was toying with the idea of Fishmans in my FGN.
I've had mixed experiences with Seymour Duncans - my FGN has a set and I do not like them. OTOH, my Jackson Soloist Pro has Duncan Distortion pickups and they sound fucking mental.