Ibanez RG for blues/rock/pop?

guitarcookie1

Thinking of getting one of these cos of the tuning stability of a Floyd but am I going to look out of place?

We play pop, country & blues in the main and I’m no spring chicken anymore; yay or nay?

Alnico

All day long.

Mine is an '02 in Metallic Black with a rosewood board and now fitted with EMG's. It's got a purple mirrored guard and dot markers (it's an 'EX' model) and powder blue Edge tremolo and hardware.

I'm in my late 40's and don't really care how it looks (I also have sparkly white Explorer!) but it doesn't look as garish as some Ibanez models can.

skunkwerx

Its rock n roll man, do what ya want! 

Theres something about floyds though when doing unison or oblique bends and it not sounding in tune.. but I canny remember what it is exactly.. might be worth looking into if you do it a lot with yer blues.. 

Though Kirk Hammett does it in abundance so cant be that much of an issue. 

Modellista

Aesthetics are personal so I’ll not comment, but - as above - the Floyd doesn’t work for country bending very well due to the problem of all the strings going flat when you bend just one. So country-style multi-string licks with bends are out of tune enough to sound bad. 

Modellista

A Bigsby doesn’t seem to have the same problem, so just find an RG with a Bigsby

fastonebaz

With a floyd there's generally a couple of points to note:

When you bend one string,  all the other strings drop in pitch so all those blues double stop licks will sound bad.  Eventually it gets annoying. 

If you break a string mid song you have to stop as all the other strings go wildly out of tune and also it takes ages to re string after. 

Whilst they may stay in tune in the same environment well, moving from warm house to cold car to sweaty pub will make it go out of tune and they can be a right pfaff to retune in a hurry. 

sw67

I have one at 52 that does everything from Duran Duran to Steve Earle. Picked it up cheap on ebay as something to mess about with but its used for half the set ( fitted new springs and a trem stop so it stays in tune the whole gig

dhaywood67

If you're not going to use the trem you could block it and still have the tuning stability of the double locking?

Alnico

"Country" wasn't in the title and I'm too tired to have read the OP properly.

My apologies I didn't see the inclusion of that in the text and yes, @Modellista is right it won't work well for country.

Tremol-no is said to work well by those I know who have one and I've tried one on a friend's Vigier which worked very well for me.

p90fool

I think we're all a bit guilty of assuming the style of guitar we're playing will make us play a certain way, but actually it only ever hints at it without forcing us to.

Yes, you can play all that stuff on an RG, in fact Steve Vai has some of the tastiest blues phrasing around when he wants to and could've easily made a living doing only that if he'd felt like it.

viz

p90fool said:

I think we're all a bit guilty of assuming the style of guitar we're playing will make us play a certain way, but actually it only ever hints at it without forcing us to.

Yes, you can play all that stuff on an RG, in fact Steve Vai has some of the tastiest blues phrasing around when he wants to and could've easily made a living doing only that if he'd felt like it.

Yes, they’re really flexible guitars, go for it. The double-stopping tuning issue is easy to overcome by bending the upper string a bit too - it becomes totally natural and causes no issues if you can bend in tune. 

guitarcookie1

Might give one a go I think. 

Also knock up a couple of pre-wired pickguards (HSH, HH, HSS) to swap around as the mood takes me. 

sw67

There was a Jap made 507 for sale on here for less than £250. I have the same guitar

jeztone2

I play in an alt rock/shoe gazing band and our singer plays a Ibanez RG2550z. It’s replaced both his Jaguar and his Les Paul as a live all rounder. 

I think I’m the post everything world, pointy guitars are quite fashionable. 

TINMAN82

jeztone2 said:

I play in an alt rock/shoe gazing band and our singer plays a Ibanez RG2550z. It’s replaced both his Jaguar and his Les Paul as a live all rounder. 

I think I’m the post everything world, pointy guitars are quite fashionable. 

Yeah if you look at what’s “on trend” from NAMM, 80s style guitars have made a comeback. They look cool and are easy to play. The only downside is the double stop bend tuning issue, that’s for sure.

ICBM

TINMAN82 said:

The only downside is the double stop bend tuning issue, that’s for sure.

If it is an issue and you don't want to compensate as Viz described, you can always fix it by adding a backstop to the trem and setting the springs just tight enough to prevent the bridge moving with bends. You'll still be able to use the arm for down-bends.

normula1

There's a guy in a busking duo in Sheffield that plays Jazz on one and he sounds great.....

skullfunkerry

normula1 said:

There's a guy in a busking duo in Sheffield that plays Jazz on one and he sounds great.....

I think I've mentioned on here before that when I bought my Charvel Spectrum the seller told me about a guy he knew who played a bright orange one strung with flatwounds in a jazz band

Personally, I think the RG is the ultimate all-rounder - both in terms of sounds and looks.

And tbh, the sort of person who comes up to you after a gig to berate your guitar ("couldn't afford a real Gibson then?" and "nice playing, shame about your fucking turquoise guitar" are the two that stick in my mind) are the sort of people I wouldn't really be wanting to have a conversation with anyway...

jeztone2

skullfunkerry said:

normula1 said:

There's a guy in a busking duo in Sheffield that plays Jazz on one and he sounds great.....

I think I've mentioned on here before that when I bought my Charvel Spectrum the seller told me about a guy he knew who played a bright orange one strung with flatwounds in a jazz band

Personally, I think the RG is the ultimate all-rounder - both in terms of sounds and looks.

And tbh, the sort of person who comes up to you after a gig to berate your guitar ("couldn't afford a real Gibson then?" and "nice playing, shame about your fucking turquoise guitar" are the two that stick in my mind) are the sort of people I wouldn't really be wanting to have a conversation with anyway...

Exactly. I remember in my early 20’s getting a Digitech RP-1 in 1992 & some twat came up to me after a gig & asked if I could play without the big NASA box on the floor. So I pulled my guitar out and said “let’s jam!” and he ran off. 

professorben

Within reason you can play anything on anything. 

I play old school punk on my RG including neon colored Pickups. 

TINMAN82

ICBM said:

TINMAN82 said:

The only downside is the double stop bend tuning issue, that’s for sure.

If it is an issue and you don't want to compensate as Viz described, you can always fix it by adding a backstop to the trem and setting the springs just tight enough to prevent the bridge moving with bends. You'll still be able to use the arm for down-bends.

Wouldn’t do it on my Jem but tempted to get a second Floyd equipped guitar for that.