couple of additional words on the guitar after one week of playing:
The neck is really nice and I would even prefer it to the Jem that, now, I find too flat…
The pickup are really hot… I have too turn down the volume knob to avoid full of unmanageable feedbacks.
The split is working correctly but the sounds is not as “clacky” as a real single coil.
Another really cool feature (like on the jem) is the not straight jack input… especially that I really find the jack input on the S model not nice and at the “right” place
About building quality and quality control (in comparison with my 2 MIJ guitars), I have to say that is not as awesome: one of the pick-up screw has been “forced”, I can still turn it but with a really high precaution.
The truss rod was not accessible due to some glue that I have to remove manually (hopefully, not it’s accessible).
I would say that this could be improved on Ibanez side.
Of course they minor issues and I will keep the guitar because she (or it) has the most important quality for me: I want to play it!
Yeah, I believed @kiko said that the neck of his guitar is a cross of Satriani neck and also the regular RGs neck. When I tried it in the store here, it’s really comfortable and I was really tempted to but it as the guitar is also versatile.
By the way, how’s the volume knob? I mean does it react well when you lower it down? Can it do volume swells? I’ve asked this because what I noticed for Ibanez guitars is that the volume knob seems like more of an on/off thing. Like, there’s no difference between 3 and 10 in volume knob.
That is usually related to the taper of the pot: they can be linear or logarithmic in response. There are certain conventions as to what gets used for volume and what gets used for tone. our hearing is logarithmic, so in order to perceive the effect of the volume pot as linear (so at 5 it’s half the volume), it actually needs to have a logatithmic taper (sometimes called audio taper). So it might be that Ibanez uses linear pots for volume. It is a matter if taste though. I don’t really care what comes in a guitar, but when it craps out I make sure to install Seymour Duncan pots instead. Not really beacause of the taper, but thus far I’ve found that they are the most consistent, with a deviation of around 1% from the nominal resistance, whereas I measured other types having an 500 k nominal resistance to be anywhere between 430 to 600 kOhms…
About the volume knob the main surprise was the difference between “9” and “10”: you have a real jump which can be interesting to quickly switch from rhythm to lead but at 10, as I mentioned before it’s really really hot.
I would say the progression is quite standard till 9. I’m not too good at violing but I will try.
I don’t forget the video… just I have to put my shyness a part
