Your next guitar revisited

[cptgone]

Honestly I'd suggest the real deal if you are in the market for a Strat or an LP. I won't say that copies can't be good but some have serious longevity issues That being said my Samick fastback was an inexpensive guitar that I got tonnes of milage out of, pad little for and sold for more than I expected.

Being in Europe, I have to pay more for Fender and Gibson than I would for a British guitar (until Brexit).

I find Ibanez and Chapman guitars much prettier.

I know very little of these things, but IMHO the main downside would be resale prices, if I ever have to go down that road.
I suspect both Ibanez and Chapman offer better value.
I got my Ibanez Artstar 20-ish years ago, no said longevity issues that I know of.

[Uncle E]

Honestly I'd suggest the real deal if you are in the market for a Strat or an LP.

Lawsuit Ibanez's sold for less than $200 when I was a teenager and I owned many, including several Les Pauls, a Strat, a Tele, and a double-neck SG. The Les Paul's had bent tops and were probably plywood but they still sounded pretty great when you upgraded the pickups. Still, I would never recommend them to anyone at their current market prices. What's even crazier is that people buy those horrible Super 70 pickups.

We just got done repairing a Japanese-made Greco Les Paul that's pretty great. It has a thick carved maple top and sounds badass plugged in. Korean-made ESP EC-400's weren't built as well but they had real Seymour Duncan (not Duncan Designed) pickups and that made up for many shortcomings.

I've played many ES-335's, including a vintage 1964 that we currently have in inventory, and my personal favorite out of all of them was a Japanese-made Epiphone Sheraton. That guitar with its stock pickups through a Super Reverb was one of the best tones I've ever gotten.

[MadDogE134]

wish i had kept my old tokai 57 reissue strat... i did a fret job on that baby... got it from a pawn shop and had someone offer me a gibson les paul black beauty for it after he played it lol. that damn guitar played itself when the wind blew. what great sound. had the action down to about 1/16 in or less. (prob about 1/32 at the 12th) i sure miss that guitar. i was stupid and traded it for an ibanez 335 in '87 and hated that guitar. we live and we learn. back then i was broke and only kept one guitar at a time... i now have seven electrics if i was gonna get rid of it ... i should have taken the black beauty... it was worth more than that crappy 335. i would give anything to have that tokai back cheers

[Uncle E]

I had an Ibanez 335 on which someone had installed a Kahler trem and a Seymour Duncan Invader pickup. It was the weirdest guitar ever! It had the most anemic sound and I'm pretty sure that was because of the Kahler.

[MadDogE134]

yeah kahlers were pretty stout... bridge mass has a lot to do with sound imo bet it WAS weird... but sounds intriguing cheers


jay

[MadDogE134]

only reason i got that 335 is cos i never had an f-hole and loved nugent's feedback and that was pretty much all he played. my preference has always been strats... most versatile electric by far imo

[Uncle E]

The whole was less than the sum of the parts. I really wanted to love that guitar because it played and stayed in tune really well. The sound was just too horrible, unfortunately.

We are now using a Seymour Duncan Stacked P90 together with two of our TB90 pickups (Jazzmaster pickups in P90 housing), with the hum canceling coil of the Stacked P90 wired on a knob in parallel with the other pickups. The result is you get 3 Jazzmaster-like sounds with the coil knob up (with no hum), 3 Firebird-like vintage P90 sounds with the coil knob down (with normal P90 hum), or anything in between. It's a very versatile configuration.

[MadDogE134]

cool

[cptgone]

Lawsuit Ibanez's sold for less than $200 when I was a teenager and I owned many, including several Les Pauls, a Strat, a Tele, and a double-neck SG. The Les Paul's had bent tops and were probably plywood but they still sounded pretty great when you upgraded the pickups. Still, I would never recommend them to anyone at their current market prices.

Do you mean current Ibanez guitars, or the ones that triggered a lawsuit long ago?
I'm tempted by Ibanez strat models like Ibanez SA560MB-ABT and Ibanez GSA60-WNF Gio, and Ibanez RG-models like RGD61ALMS-CLL (I'm not a metal fan, but I do like Sonic Youth and Jimi, and find this layered body shape pretty)

[Uncle E]

I was referring to lawsuit guitars. For modern Ibanez's, I have a Prestige RG that is one of my favorite guitars but I have also owned several other Prestige models, including a Steve Vai Bad Horsie, that were lifeless. The one I love is an RG3120 with a maple top, mahogany back, and Dimarzio Tone Zone and PAF Pro pickups, and I do recommend it highly as it has a great combination of tone and features that make it a near perfect all-around gigging guitar.

[Forgotten]

I’m really starting to give serious thought to getting a Casino...

[cptgone]

Thanks Uncle, lovely guitar that.

[Uncle E]

I’m really starting to give serious thought to getting a Casino...

Try to find one that has the “E” shaped like a backwards 3. That means it’s an early 80’s Japanese Model.

[Forgotten]

I’m really starting to give serious thought to getting a Casino...

Try to find one that has the “E” shaped like a backwards 3. That means it’s an early 80’s Japanese Model.

I might even consider a new one as I’m seeing good reviews almost everywhere for current models, but I know there are some good bargains on older ones from certain eras.

[Uncle E]

There were also some late 80’s Japanese Epiphone’s from a different factory that were great. I’m pretty sure my Sheraton was from that era. The only problem is they’re more difficult to identify, whereas that backwards 3 lets you know right away it’s a good one.