Ibanez Artcores

Junior_

Junior_

New member
Anybody had any contact with the Ibanez Artcore series? Cause I'm thinking of getting one but not sure if they are decent guitar for electric rhythm stuff...
 
Hey thks lots Sub, but just wondering if a guitar of such calibre would be gd for rock songs where normally there would be a injection of overdrive/distortion. What abt the AF75?
 
the semis would handle high gain/ drive very well but i'm playing black metal stuff with my hollow AF105 in the mean time... if you can tune your distortion/ drive to suit your music, many guitars would be game 8-)
 
i have the as73 and i think it's very good for the price. can do rock damn well, especially classic rock and punk maybe? of course jazz is great.
 
Hmm, so from the looks of it from Sub's review, the artcores are actually quite bang for the buck and quite versatile?
 
bang-for-the buck is an under-assessment, really. many people express ill opinion of non-Jap Ibanez guitars but the Chinese Artcore are superb guitars for their offerings.
 
Haha, agreed. Somehow MIC seems to deter people away. But well, there are good and bad. Hmm, have you had any contact with the AF75 or the AS73. Cause I'm sort of short-listing this two models...
 
bro subversion bro... tot you had the talman artcore as well?

I have mentioned before that the artcores are super value for money. Well made guitars at very nice prices.

The only thing I hate about it is that stupid lightning logo on the headstock.
 
Junior_ said:
Haha, agreed. Somehow MIC seems to deter people away. But well, there are good and bad. Hmm, have you had any contact with the AF75 or the AS73. Cause I'm sort of short-listing this two models...
Click to expand...

i have the as73, in transparent blue finish, with the tremolo. i would say it's flawless. perfectly made no doubt. the wood used is mahagony and sustains well. i've just upgraded my pickups but the stock ones sound good as well. the whole damn guitar is great for the price. i bought it cheap from a softie sometime ago. very good for jazz and very very sweet when used with distortion and overdrive.
 
I used to have an Artcore As73 too in sunburst, sold it a few months ago. Still trying to find some pics, may still have some on my home PC.
When i first got it i was looking for an ES335 type guitar (courtesy of watching Eric Clapton with his), and I fell in love with the As73 instantly. My mini-review below if that will help


Build quality:
Overall very good for a MIC guitar, semi hollow just like the es335. Construction is above average although on my guitar there were some paint oevrflow on the binding which i only found out after i brought it home. Also discovered a very small blemish on the paint at the neck joint. So if you are picky like me, go over carefully at the shop.


Electronics:
One of the tone knobs were scratchy from the shop, and was fixed with some contact cleaner. However, over the 1 year i had it all the other pots started going bad too, so ended up changing all of them to Gotoh's (by the way, changing pots on a semi-hollow is not for the faint hearted, nearly went crazy when doing mine!).

Love the fact that the output jack at the side, instead of on the top of the guitar like the Gibson's, which can sometimes cause problems.


Sound:
With stock electronics, i actually think the guitar is better at distortion that clean! For some reason the pickups seem to be quite hot and bright, with a mid emphasis. With distortion on the bridge pickup, i now understand why the Tom deLonge now has an es335 with bridge pickup as his main punk rock guitar. Likewise on the neck, great crunch :D

As for clean well, it just wasn't me. For guys looking for a mellow jazz sound, I suggest that fullhollow will be better than this semihollow. Never really found a clean sound that i liked despite fiddling endlessly with pickup heights, not sure if it was the mid emphasis or just me.


Size:
Something that never gets mentioned, but if like me you are used to superstrats, this thing is big. Due to the size of the body the neck is further away from where you woudl expect it to be normally, especially when wearing a strap and so you have to reach further to get to the first few frets. This kinda threw me off the first time i played live, took me a while to realize what was wrong! Oh, and higher frets are not so easy to get to.



Anyway, I loved the look but never did bond, so am now back to my RG's ;)
 
The artcore series are good stuff man!!


i have an artcore custom AS103NT...like gliew, i was searching for a 335 type guitar when i saw her and i fell in love with her right away...falling deeper in love with every use...

For mine...the workmanship is quite gd..the frets are even rounded at the sides!!..beautiful flamed maple on mine..everything's so perfect...can't be happier..

Sound-wise...it's tiny weeny lil bright for my jazz tone due to the maple i guess..but it isn;t really a problem for me..cos i can always EQ...

Electronics-wise...my pick-ups were great...were muddy at first but with a few minor adjustments on the screws on the pickups...the muddiness was gone...could get pretty much any tone i want...handles distortion pretty well too...


Bang for the buck i say...
 
hmm, looks like there are alot of artcore users around... Guess my worries about the guitar were senseless then... haha... now i can rest my mind and shop for one in peace...
 
but somehow MIC also turns people away.. I remembered when Squier and Epiphones shifted their factory to china, people would say the quality drop. but somehow my MIC squier doesn't sound too bad other then weak pups... So i guess there are good and bad pieces around.. :)

But thanks lots for all the comments on the artcore... think i'll go and shop for one, one of this days.
 
it's not about the country of origin per se, bad production exists everywhere & affects no one particular brand name.
 
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