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Posted by: Manny Jan 25 2008, 01:35 AM

I've been strongly considering buying an ibanez 2550e for my new hard rock/metal guitar. I have read plenty of reviews and i really like Rg's but i was wondering if anyone had other recommendations i should check out before investing my hard earned cash. (Money is hard to come by when your 15, so $1,200 or less please ).

Posted by: skennington Jan 25 2008, 01:44 AM

You know what I'm going to say, Jackson DK2 or DKMG

Posted by: swingline Jan 25 2008, 01:50 AM

Thats what I got and I love it.

Posted by: Manny Jan 25 2008, 02:10 AM

are jacksons good for shredding? Or are Ibanez better?
I've heard Jacksons are best for rhythm guitar

Posted by: skennington Jan 25 2008, 02:48 AM

Absolute shred machine! Fastest action i've played, But then again , my experience with other guitars is limmited. I'm sure others will beg the differ!

Posted by: Sabbz Jan 25 2008, 02:49 AM

Jacksons (Depending on the model) are great for shred. However, Ibanez Prestige models have the uber fast necks and I can tell you from experience, playing an Ibanez with a Wizard (Prestige) neck is simply a pleasure. It's silky smooth and effortless to play on. Unfortunately, about 5 months ago I needed cash and didn't want to take out a loan, so I had to sell my RG 1570 Prestige. I miss that guitar.

Now if you ask someone who's used to playing on say a Les Paul neck, they'll say playing an Ibanez feels like you're playing a toy guitar, but then again, how many "shredders" do you know that play a LP?

Posted by: JVM Jan 25 2008, 02:55 AM

Zakk Wylde, Slash, Jeff Beck (yes he shreds), Buckethead and pleeeenty of others are enough for me

Not to discount Jacksons and Ibanez, but I'm one of those guys who feels like they're toys in my hands (and I'm not a very good player even ) But thats mostly because I'm used to thicker necks. Just not for me. I can attest after having tried them that if you do find one of those guitars to your liking, they're great guitars. Even though I didn't really like the feel of the ibanez guitars I tried, I could tell they're well built, solid machines that'll serve any axeman faithfully

Posted by: Sabbz Jan 25 2008, 03:01 AM

I guess that depends on your point of view. I definitely don't consider Slash or Jeff Beck (Who I thought played Telecasters?) as shredders. I can sorta see Zakk, but I still don't really consider him a shredder, either. I'm not saying he can't or doesn't, but the vast majority of his playing is more bluesy, pentatonic minor stuff. Buckethead, yes, definitely.

Posted by: JVM Jan 25 2008, 03:48 AM

Beck plays a strat these days. I'm sure he's played a telecaster before, but he's definitely not known for it. His guitar of choice in the 60s-probably around sometime in the 80s, which was most of his best stuff, was a les paul.

However I can agree with you that he's probably not a shredder by your standard, but he's about in the league of slash technique wise. If you want others... eric johnson recorded cliffs of dover on an es-335 (gibson). How about Gabriel

Posted by: preownedguitar Jan 25 2008, 03:52 AM

Paul Gilbert and Steve Vai come to mind when I think Ibanez. Plus I love the feel of them. I chose the 2550e. I am not disappointed and will also have a Les Paul soon.

Posted by: JVM Jan 25 2008, 03:59 AM

Yeah thats the way to go, is to have both If you have the money.

Posted by: skennington Jan 25 2008, 04:05 AM

Dang guys, I thought we were talking a grand or so. If we were to broad'n the spectrum, then well, Parker, Dean to name a couple. I alwys thought the LP was the ultimate shredder ( never played one ) but have heared many.

The kid has 1200.00 to spend. what do you recomend?

Posted by: Sabbz Jan 25 2008, 04:23 AM

$1200 will definitely buy a good guitar. Personally, I'd recommend saving $$$ and getting one of the better Schecter models. For the price (around $6-700) you simply can't beat the quality and they're perfectly good for shredding. I love the neck profile and the action on my CS-1. In fact, out of all the guitars I've owned and played over the years, it's easily my favorite guitar. And I've owned some damned nice guitars over the years including Jacksons, Ibanez, and even a custom Stratocaster.

Posted by: SLASH91 Jan 25 2008, 04:26 AM

I have 2550e and could not be happier.

Posted by: JVM Jan 25 2008, 04:36 AM

Yeah $1200 is more than enough for a great guitar. Especially if you buy used though O_o But you probably don't want to so I think I could agree on a schecter as Sabbz said. I had a bad experience with one once (horrible setup, really old strings that needed to be changed at guitarcenter, dirty neck etc) so I couldn't judge for a while but maybe a month or two ago I tried one again and I found they were pretty nice.

Posted by: Maximus Jan 25 2008, 04:38 AM

Although I play/have 2 Ibanez's and a Les Paul Standard and love them all, I have to say that I am also very impressed what Schecter has to offer at a very reasonable price point. 600-800 bucks gets you what generally costs over 1000 bucks from other manufacturers. They look awesome to boot. Play a few and decide.

Edit: Spelling

Posted by: blindwillie Jan 25 2008, 08:20 AM

Absolutly +1

Posted by: MickeM Jan 25 2008, 09:51 AM

I think you're doing the right thing aiming for guitars abow low end since you can afford it.

Ibanez guitars are mostly made of Basswood, which cheddars like because it brings out the frequencies they prefer in order to make their shred heard. However, Steve Vai has his signature guitar made our of Adler instead, same wood that Charvel and Jackson are made from.. and Fender for that matter. So it it works for Mr Vai...

Posted by: blindwillie Jan 25 2008, 10:48 AM

Are you, in a subtle way, trying to tell us that shredders are cheesy?

/edit: forgot the winkie *sigh*

Posted by: Mark. Jan 25 2008, 11:42 AM

Go for the Ibanez RG 2550e
I'm 15 too and I bought it 2 months ago, it costed me al my money but I couldn't be happier
It really plays like a dream, and has a supper fast neck, the pick ups sound really good, for both metal riffing and shred
An alternative would be the RG 1570, but that one hasn't got the dimarzio pick ups

Mark.

Posted by: Sabbz Jan 25 2008, 06:18 PM

Those stock IBZ pickups suck IMHO. I ripped mine out and threw in some EMG's. Then, I bought another Prestige model after that, (Sold later to get my Schecter) and unfortunately, I let the sales guy at Guitar Center talk me into one of those Seymour Duncan Dimebuckers and a Pearly Gates. The Pearly Gates is an awesome pickup, very vocal sounding, but man that Dimebucker is a HORRIBLE pickup.

Posted by: JVM Jan 26 2008, 03:49 AM

Ooh thanks for the tip. Have you ever tried a joe satriani pickup? I've been tossing around different pickup combinations in my head for a while trying to think of what I should get, and I was thinking a satriani in the neck and either a SH-6, SH-5 or JB in the bridge. Now the pearly gates looks pretty cool too.

Posted by: RobM Jan 26 2008, 06:03 AM

I have to 2nd the Ibanez RG 1570, it's a great guitar and the only difference between that and the RG 2550e is the pickups(and of course the 1570 looks a hell of a lot better than the ugly paint job on the 2550e). The 2550E has Dimarzio/Ibanez pickups and the 1570 has Ibanez Pickups. To get an Ibanez with Dimarzio Pickups you have to go all the way up to a Jem ($2000+).

For $1200 you could probably get a Gibson LP Studio(great sound but a fatter neck). When I went shopping a few months ago I had up to $2500 to spend and I settled on my 1570. The more I play it the more I want to play it.

Good Luck and happy shopping!!!

Posted by: Sabbz Jan 27 2008, 04:51 PM

No sir, I haven't. Those are Dimarzios, right? I've never been a huge fan of Dimarzios, they've always seemed kind of 'peanut butter-&-jelly' to me. (Just my opinion ) I've always preferred Duncans and EMGs. Although I've been hearing such good things about Bare Knuckles lately, I'd like to try a set of those.

Posted by: JVM Jan 27 2008, 07:33 PM

Actually they're all duncans except the Satriani pickup But thanks anyhow. I guess I'll just resort to tons of research before taking a plunge and just trying two of em out

Posted by: Toni Suominen Jan 27 2008, 07:41 PM

+1 I would recommend buying new pickups in place of the stock pickups

Posted by: kevin-riff-after-riff Jan 27 2008, 07:48 PM

hmm well, i wouldnt get a les paul, get a sg instead, that way u can actually reach the higher frets if you got normal/small hands like mine
but no comment on the ibanez/jackson coz i played on both and they both kinda feel pretty similar to me.
imo any guitar is a shred guitar, some just take longer to get used to before you can unleash the shred on it

Posted by: Avenite Jan 28 2008, 07:34 AM

First, I disagree about the Dimebucker. I think you might not have liked it because you put it in basswood, which is a bright (treble-heavy) wood, and the Dimebucker is a very treble-heavy pickup, so it wouldn't sound good in basswood.

I would like to dissuade you from Schecter. They are very well-made and have amazing features for the price, but I find the neck is too thick to comfortably shred... but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

If you want a shred guitar, I'd recommend Ibanez. Look at who plays them: Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, and Herman Li and Sam Totman of Dragonforce (who all play Dimarzio pickups by the way) and plenty of others. That is a pretty shred-heavy roster.

I would have gotten the 2550E, but the paint job has a lot of sparkles, so for a bit more I got the twentieth anniversary RG550, with the original neck dimensions (thinner than anything on there current models), but with reinforced construction. It is a great guitar. I kind of wish I had gotten a mahogany body (like the S series) so I could make a Dimebucker work, but oh well. It is still a great guitar.

Try to hunt down a twentieth anniversary RG550 if you can. The new price was $900, you could probably get one on eBay for about that. I'm not sure where other than eBay you can find it, but I urge you to look. The black one (which mine is) has a rosewood fretboard, and the red and yellow ones have maple. They also have the original Edge tremolo which is amazing. Take this example. On many guitars, if you push the neck and the body of the guitar in opposite directions, the pitch of whatever is being played will drop slightly, due I believe to a slight amount of give in the joint. this does not happen with my Anniversary RG. I take this as a sign that it is well built, and other Ibanez guitars are probably similar.

Or you could get the Ibanez RG2228.
http://www.ibanez.com/eg/guitar.aspx?m=RG2228

Or not.

Hope I have helped.

Posted by: Goliath Jan 28 2008, 04:24 PM

I'll second your recommendation for the 550 20th. This guitar is blazing fast, the neck is paper thin. It's a collectors item to boot. The original Edge Tremolo is fantastic as well. It stays in tune better than my ZR, which says lots since the ZR is rock solid.

EDIT: I've had the 550 for about 6 months. It's not my mainstay since I fell in love with the King V, but it certainly is my go to when I need to play with a floyd. Only gripe about the 550 20th is that the strap buttons pull out of the body of the guitar pretty easily. I installed a dimarzio cliplock system on it so it's not an issue, but still had to shim the neck strap hole with a toothpick before it was as secure as I wanted it to be. It's really a hell of a value.

Posted by: Avenite Jan 29 2008, 03:36 AM

I feel I should add that there were a couple MINOR issues when I got it.

1. The whammy bar was very lose, and the included set of extra washers did not help. This may be something you could fix yourself, but I took it to a tech, and they fixed it under warranty. But Hoshino took FOUR MONTHS to ship us the part, but that is not the guitar's fault.

2. The volume pot broke. First, it was EXTREMELY stiff. Then it broke. It would turn 360 degrees, but had no effect on the sound. Again, this was fixed under warranty.

The first one was present when I received the guitar, the second one developed later.

Also, the screw that holds in the neck side of the strap is SLIGHTLY loose, but it still holds on the peg, and therefore the strap just fine. I may still put on straplocks though.

But please, please do not let these deter you from this guitar or Ibanez in general.

But the best part of the guitar was the free subscription to Rolling Stone magazine that you get when you register it at the Ibanez website!

Posted by: besip Jan 29 2008, 05:06 AM

i'm just wondering to know how you guys Find or what kind of vatiation quitar is for shreding and what for rythm quitars???????

actualy i'm be like later buy quitar which be pretyy good like for shreding and also for rythm

Posted by: Avenite Jan 29 2008, 07:39 AM

I know a guy who can play with brutal, nuclear speed and he uses Jacksons. He is a technical death metal guitar player, voted one of the top 20 death metal guitar players in the country, or something like that.

The biggest factors in detrermining if a guitar is good for shredding are things like neck thickness/radius and action (the distance between the neck or frets and the strings).

I played on my Ibanez for a while today, then grabbed my Jackson because it is a string-through and I wanted to play in drop D, and the neck felt like a tree trunk compared to the Ibanez.

So really, Jacksons aren't terrible, but for pure shred, Ibanez is probably better. Both can be used for both rhythm and lead.

Posted by: Goliath Jan 29 2008, 03:36 PM

Jacksons can be great for shred, it depends on the profile you have on your neck. I had an RR3 that was pretty great for shredding, but it was too small and felt like playing a toy.

Posted by: kaznie_NL Dec 9 2008, 04:42 PM

Ok, I also have an Ibanez Question, and since this thread already existed, I thought I'd just post it here:

My new Ibanez SA model has a AHS1 AHS2 and True Duo pickup. How good are those? and does anybody know whether it's possible to buy a loose tremolo arm? The store didn't give it, and now they don't seem to be reacting on their mails..

Posted by: Static Dec 10 2008, 05:36 PM

Never heard of these pickups. Usually stock-pickups aren't that great, but it all comes down to personal preference, a lot of people say the stock pickups on an RG1570 are horrible, but I think they sound okay.

About your tremelo question: http://www.thomann.de/be/ibanez_2ed2c1btremolo_bar.htm is a tremelo bar that fits an Ibanez Edge III (which I believe is the bridge in your guitar, correct me if I'm wrong )

Posted by: kaznie_NL Dec 10 2008, 07:15 PM

Nope, it's Sat Pro II

Posted by: Marc_Maiden Dec 10 2008, 07:25 PM

why are you asking US how good the pick ups are in YOUR guitar?

you know that one person might like 1 pick up, but the other could hate the same one....its completely up to you to decide


i personally like the true duo pick up...it gets the closest ive seen to a single coil strat sound out of a humbucker!

if you were to replace it, you could never get the same sound again...the true duo is one of the high points of the SA series.


============


as for the original post...

i myself, is an ibanez guy....i play now on a 2000 rg520qstb and i love the hell out of it...the neck was almost too fast! i was used to playing the new RGs that have thicker necks (by 1-2 mm) and i could easily see and feel the difference...took me a couple of hours of playing to get used to it...

the edge zero you would get with that guitar is the best trem the market has to offer (my opinion) it combines the quality, build, and stability of the the edge pro, and it has the easy and smoothness of the ZR trem...setting up the trem is as easy as turning the little wheel dial under need the guitar up or down depending on what the tension is doing to the trem (you dont even have to unscrew the trem cover)

it really is a great guitar, and i think you will enjoy it...it really is a shredder but if i were you,

i would wait till after the winter namm, because ibanez said they are going to do a big update on MIJ models and there is said to be maple fretboards coming our way (an ibanez admin confirmed this)

Posted by: Static Dec 10 2008, 07:29 PM

whoops , http://www.thomann.de/be/search.html?xsid=98890a5ce369f92da7490335c9de9372&KF=on&gk=giettrzu&oa=ala&bn=IBANEZ&pr=&wgfid1=11645&wgf11645=Tremolo+Arm&wgfid2=11646&wgf11646= are all the Ibanez tremelo arms, http://www.thomann.de/be/ibanez_2sa21c_tremolobar.htm is for a SAT, don't know if it will fit a SAT pro II though

Posted by: Sircraigery Dec 11 2008, 12:06 AM

I agree go Ibanez Prestige SOMETHING, with a wizard II neck.

The first time I played a 'real Gibson I was really disappointed with the feel of it, and it costed something like $3500 back in '99. It probably would have sounded nice if I didn't instantly unplug it and pick up a Jackson. I even tried an explorer a few weeks ago and I wanted to drop it on the floor LOL. Again, lots of great guitar players use them, but they are not my style.... at least not for the price.

I like both Jackson and Ibanez, but Ibanez has a bit of an advantage for me because I feel Jackson necks are almost too thin. It won't make you play better though, I can play just as good on a strat that my guitar. So if your more into blues, that might be another option. Kris proves a strat can also shred.

Check the RG2610, I picked up that one last year sometime. I did a review on it, so maybe check that in the wiki pages.

Just to add:
The 2610 has a seymour duncan TB-10 (passive). it's great man, has plenty of kick for being passive

Posted by: kjutte Dec 11 2008, 09:56 AM

I love my Ibanez for sure. Never outta tune, superb point zero spring system (you can take it off too.).
If I wasn't going for it, I'd get an American Strat for sure. HSS setup.



About the ZR trem, it's not really smoother. The difference is that it doesn't have edges that can get dulled.
It's strictly a maintenance issue, really.