Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today I'm gonna review one of my guitars, bought in december 2011 and present in the 2012 catalog, the Ibanez Arz800.
What I needed was a long scale neck (25" x 24 frets), in order to be able to lower the tuning without making the strings too flabby, a body not excessively thick and heavy (this body is 40mm thick, like a Stratocaster, unlike the original Gibson Les Paul, which is 60mm thick), and finally I needed a great quality-to-price ratio.
This guitar isn't exactly a Gibson clone, it's has more things in common with the Paul Reed Smith Singlecut, due to its reduced thickness and for the increased accessibily on the higher frets, as depicted on this image:
The neck is a set neck type, with a 24 jumbo frets rosewood fretboard, while the top is Quilted Maple with a dark transparent black lacquer, so that the maple is visible but through a dark transparency, and the binding also is black, as we can see from the pictures.
Also the guitar comes with a couple of Emg Active pickups: the Emg 81 on the bridge, the 60 on the neck, and the bridge is a fixed Tight Tune bridge, which is a very steady Ibanez Version of the Gibson Tune o'Matic bridge.
Tech Specs taken from the Ibanez website:
Neck Material: 3pc Mahogany/ Maple
Neck Type: ARZ set-in
Body: Mahogany body/ Quilted Maple top
Frets: Medium frets
Fingerboard: Bound Rosewood
Bridge: Tight Tune bridge
Neck PU: EMG® 60
Bridge PU: EMG® 81
HW Color: dark silver
Finishes: Transparent Deep Black, Transparent Deep Red
