4 years; electric/acoustic guitars; for now jam at home/sometimes with friends

Death metal and rock.

This guitar is great for metal style playing! Especially if you are heavy into the new metal styles that have the saturated distortion with heavily compressed sound. The active pickups will yell at every setting of your amp to, "GO!" This is my first guitar owned that uses active vs. passive, (which I will describe my bias next), but I must say, very happy I chose this one to be the first.

Love the action, without a doubt! I play Ibanez exclusively and even with the different feel of each new one I've bought, they always seem to take a matter of seconds to sink into. Now to the active pickups. I have always used passive. I bought a guitar and put after-market pickups in them. The only gripe I have had with the actives is that, for one, the tone seems to change very little from guitar to guitar. It's loud for sure! But, it sounds far less organic, (I guess), than passive. Side by side, complex lead patterns seem so much less muddied with ambient sound when distorted on passives. But, for those wanting that saturated distortion sound, you will get it! You can play light like Yngwie without 8's on a strat! (which is like cloth string). LOL Nothing too bad, just cut the distortion back a grip if you want some roundness, and less industrial...especially with solid state amps. With the great action, its like a couch on wheels though!

Great with every product on the other end.

Great Ibanez quality

This is where I'm very excited to review. I bought this also as my first "B" stock guitar from Zzounds. This one must have just been a customer return because even though I'm an avid player and scratches don't make or break it for me, I couldn't find a defect on it, and I feel like I got a brand new guitar for $250 off! To be honest, had someone bought the last "B" stock one I bought, I intended to get it anyway at full price. Even with inflation the way it is today, any Ibanez over $500 will not disappoint.

Haven't needed to thus far.

Some ways yes, some ways, no. I love, (and wouldn't have known til buying), the finish. I like the look and feel of the flat wood finish. Not coats and coats of clear over the wood. Kinda cool and original! And if you wanna bang bottlecaps in it like Zakk Wylde, it'll take much softer whacks! :) On the other side, if you wanna keep it nice, don't wear an exposed belt buckle while playing.

Semi-pro

Rock, Metal, Instrumental