The $599 RG1230FE straddles the line between the most affordable and higher-end guitars with the feel of a professional grade instrument.
With an artist roster stacked to the gills with the shred world’s elite—Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Meshuggah, and Paul Gilbert, among many, many others—Ibanez has established itself as perennial contender for the crown of the de facto metal and hard-rock axe. The company’s long-running and ultra-popular RG series is among its most recognizable and iconic offerings. It debuted in the late ’80s at the height of the shred craze, and it now comprises a broad range of instruments from entry-level models to the flagship J Custom line. The new Iron Label RGIR20FE, which is built in Indonesia and goes for $599 street, straddles the line between the most affordable and higher-end guitars—but it has the feel of a professional grade instrument that you won’t have to break the bank to buy, nor treat with kid gloves when you’re moshing onstage.
With its understated white finish (a sleek black finish is also available), black body binding, and position-marker-free fretboard, our test model exudes a no-frills metal attitude without the aid of corny-looking flames or skulls. The RGIR20FE is constructed from a basswood body and a 3-piece maple neck with a bubinga middle stripe, which the company says puts it on par with 5-piece necks in terms of stability and sustain—and Ibanez has extensive experience with bubinga from the drum side of their business.
Off to Shred the Wizard
Our test model came with a Gibraltar fixed bridge, but if your style depends on whammy madness, an alternate model, the RGIR20E comes with an Edge-Zero II locking tremolo. Regardless of which you choose, one of the major draws of the guitar is its fast Nitro Wizard neck. The 25.5" scale and 15.75"-radius, 24-fret rosewood fretboard are perfect for legato, three-notes-per-string runs or multi-octave arpeggio flurries. A slight surprise was that the RGIR20FE we tested came strung with a set of .010s rather than .009s, which made it a little harder to play fast (and I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way)—though the benefits were a less plinky feel, a beefier tone, and better tuning stability for dropped tunings.
The American-made EMG 60 neck and 81 bridge pickups are a perfect match for the Iron Label. There are usually two camps when it comes to active pickups—those who love them and those who loathe them. A common complaint among the naysayers is that active pickups can sound sterile, but I definitely found the contrary to be true with this guitar. To my ears, the RGIR20FE sounded quite warm, and the active pickups seemed to impart a string-to-string evenness and a very commanding presence. The EMGs also give the guitar a ton of volume—it was significantly louder than several of the passive-pickup guitars I A/B’d it with. If active pickups aren’t your thing or you don’t want to deal with a battery, Ibanez also offers Iron Label S-series guitars with American-made DiMarzio passive pickups.
Ratings
Pros:
Excellent build quality even at twice the price. Lively yet warm-sounding active pickups. Fantastic value.
Cons:
No case included.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$599
Ibanez
ibanez.com
Killer with a Kill Switch
With a Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb combo on the opposite end of the cable and the overdrive channel engaged, the RGIR20FE generated near infinite sustain and a liquid sound and feel that’s ideal for shred workouts. It’s also more than up for the task of rhythm work. With a scooped-mid amp tone, I summoned a hellacious grind that felt massive enough to rattle an arena, especially when using dropped tunings—which is where this guitar excels. I even liked the RGIR20FE for pop/rock playing—both in clean and dirty settings. If it weren’t for the fact that the pickups aren’t splittable, you couldn’t be blamed for believing this guitar could cover virtually any conventional style of music.
The Verdict
The quality-to-price ratio of Ibanez’s Iron Label RGIR20FE is almost astoundingly high. A decade or two ago, a similarly outfitted guitar would have retailed for north of a grand. But for about 600 bucks, the RGIR20FE delivers on just about every imaginable count: The craftsmanship is excellent—there were no finish or playability issues—and after a minor intonation tweak, the guitar was ready for action.
Ibanez’s press materials refer to the guitar’s design as built “with metal and nothing but metal in mind,” but truth be told, there is absolutely no reason it couldn’t be used effectively in other styles of music including pop, soul, or as a studio guitar. It’s got a lot more versatility than its styling projects, which makes it an even better value than the already impressive bargain it is out of the box.
For fans of modern blues and/or classic rock looking for a quality axe that can take them from slicing bridge-pickup leads to funkier dual-pickup sounds and gristly neck-pickup tones, the Bluesboy is well worth checking out.
When the late Leo Fender sold his cataclysmically industry-altering enterprise to CBS in 1965, it was due to health issues, not a lack of ideas or passion. A few years later, when his health had improved and he was approaching the end of his consultancy/noncompete period with Fender, he amped things up again. He went on to pioneer active basses with his Music Man StingRay design, and then he partnered with his old Fender-days friends, drafstman George Fullerton and Dale Harris, to create G&L in 1980.
G&L (named after George and Leo) has put a lot of its focus on refining the proven formulas that made Leo a god of guitardom—and they’ve mostly followed that route since Leo’s passing in 1991. The Comanche and S-500 built on the Stratocaster recipe with, among other things, tweaks to the vibrato and pickups that are intended to offer greater tonal flexibility and setup precision. The ASAT did the same for the Telecaster formula.
In 2003, G&L introduced the Indonesian-made Tribute series, which includes more affordable versions of the company’s mainstays, in addition to the more modern-leaning recent Ascari and Fiorano solidbodies. Here we take a look at the ASAT Bluesboy Classic Semi-Hollow.
Trad Looks with a Modern Twist
No guitar illustrates the overall aim of G&L
design more than this ASAT Bluesboy.
It echoes the venerated original Fender
Telecaster and the later Tele Custom and Tele
Thinline with its light (roughly 6-pound),
two-chambered swamp-ash body, which
features a single f-hole, a bridge single-coil,
and an alnico neck-position humbucker.
Meanwhile, its traditional “ashtray”-style
bridge assures it will appeal to those who’ve
adapted their picking-hand techniques to
the peculiar-but-endearing design, and yet it
also seems to promise both ’50s-style tones
and modern-day precision with its six individually
adjustable brass saddles. Similarly,
the control array—volume and tone knobs
paired with a 3-way pickup selector—and
the 22-fret bolt-on maple neck are reassuringly
old school for players who want traditional
T-style looks, feel, and operation.
Overall build and setup quality on the Bluesboy is very good. The clear-orange finish is smooth and evenly applied other than some spotty application on the inner edges of the f-hole (which also has a little roughness on its interior edges). The neck pocket is impressively tight (the very minor unevenness where the pickguard fits around the neck has absolutely no effect on playability and is only noticeable up close). The ASAT’s controls are super solid, too. The pickup selector offers up reassuring clicks so you know right off the bat that the right position is engaged, and the knobs stay where you set them and feel reassuringly robust. If you do a lot of volume-knob swells, you may wish they required a tad less effort to turn, but otherwise you’ll breathe a sigh of relief, knowing the knobs will never slip to another setting even under the most Townshend-like picking-hand assault.
As for neck playability, the Bluesboy’s medium-jumbo nickel frets are nicely beveled and polished, with a comfier feel at the ends than plenty of more expensive guitars we’ve seen. Likewise, the medium C-shaped profile occupies a great middle ground that should be comfortable for players with big or smallish hands.
Tone Boy
Tested through a Goodsell Valpreaux 21
augmented on occasion with an overdrive
pedal, the ASAT proved to live up to
the Bluesboy part of its name and then
some—although it’s worth noting that it
depends what sort of blues you’re into. If
you’re a fan of fat, amped-up, Chicago-style
blues—i.e., if you dig the sounds of,
say, Joe Bonamassa or Jonny Lang over
those of John Lee Hooker or Hound Dog
Taylor—you’ll dig its hotter-than-vintage
bridge pickup. The G&L MFD (magnetic
field design) single-coil was designed by
Leo Fender, but it’s got a more searing,
midrange-y sound than most traditional
T-style fans would expect from the guy
who brought us the wiry-sounding Esquire.
For that crowd, the bridge pickup’s substitution
of a more modern, Strat-type
response for classic Tele spank and twang
will likely be at odds with both the guitar’s
vintage aesthetics and the perceived reasoning
behind using brass saddles—which
many T-style enthusiasts tend to view as
a step toward authentic ’50s-style Tele
tone. Some of that lack of spank is probably
attributable to the guitar’s chambered
design—because a semi-hollow body will
never get the same amount of snap as a
solidbody—but it’s primarily due to the
voicing of the electronics.
Ratings
Pros:
Solid build and quality components. Searing, corpulent
tones.
Cons:
Lack of traditional Tele spank. Mid-heavy tone circuit
may feel limiting to some.
Tones:
Playability:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$549
G&L Guitars
glguitars.com
That said, the MFD blazes in a classic-rock/modern-blues way that will definitely please players looking for power, sustain, and zing. In fact, the ASAT Classic Bluesboy would be a wonderful choice for Chicago-blues fans who are simply tired of toting around the same S-style guitars that are so common in that field. And if you’re into wooly, woofy neck-humbucker sounds that seem to fill every nook and cranny of your practice space, you’ll totally dig the AS4255C alnico unit. Switch to it, and you’ve instantly got so much seething corpulence that it can turn even a moderately distorted amp into a fuzz machine. And when you dial the Bluesboy’s tone knob back, the effect is even more pronounced, because the tone pot seems to primarily impact midrange—and that’s especially apparent with the neck pickup. This nasal-leaning sweep in the ASAT’s tone control is a drastic effect you’ll either love or find limiting. If you dig a guitar that enables you to get a parked-wah type sound without a wah, you’ll find it gloriously wicked—it cuts through a mix in an unstoppable way that can veer toward either rocking, thinned-out Michael Schenker-type tones with the bridge pickup or more psychedelic jam-band sounds with the neck or both pickups engaged.
If you prefer a neck humbucker with a clear, bell-like response that you can fatten up or mellow out by reining in the tone control, you could easily swap out the tonepot capacitor for a value that enables you to get that sound while also taking advantage of the Bluesboy’s other virtues.
The Verdict
Although the Tribute ASAT Classic
Bluesboy Semi-Hollow’s vintage aesthetics—especially its use of an ashtray bridge,
brass saddles, and a Leo Fender-designed
bridge single-coil—might lead some to
think it proffers traditional T-style twang,
those seeking the prototypical sounds that
powered early country and blues may find
themselves a little surprised at the guitar’s
hotter sonic signature. That said, its build
quality and playing comfort make it a very
promising candidate for mods that could
totally get you into spankier territory, too.
Players most likely to dig the Bluesboy are those looking for more sizzle. If you’re a fan of modern blues and/or classic rock, and you’re looking for a quality axe that can take you from slicing bridge-pickup leads to funkier dual-pickup sounds and neck-pickup tones so gristly that you may very well be able to take your tamely set fuzz box off your pedalboard, the Bluesboy is well worth checking out.
Watch the video demo:Made by Squier—Fender’s budget brand—the Affinity Telecaster is an entry-level version of Leo’s iconic axe. This one has been relic’d and hot-rodded. For some strange reason, I don’t own
Made by Squier—Fender’s budget brand—the Affinity Telecaster is an entry-level version of Leo’s iconic axe. This one has been relic’d and hot-rodded.
For some strange reason, I don’t own any all-original, “normal” Fender Telecaster guitars. All mine are either Tele “inspired” or modified in some way. While looking around on Craigslist the other day, I noticed this intriguing Tele. Apparently someone had taken a fairly new butterscotch Squier Affinity Telecaster, relic’d it, removed all traces of “Squier” from it, and then stuck a Fender decal on the headstock. The seller knew it was actually a Squier and listed it as such, so there was no deception going on. The pictures of the guitar just looked way too cool for me to pass up, plus it was fairly cheap.
So I called the owner and arranged to meet him at his place of work, which was a lot closer to me than going to his home. It turned out he was in law enforcement, so I wound up in the police department parking lot. Whoa! At first I was a little nervous, but he turned out to be a really nice guy and we ended up chatting during his lunch break about music and guitars. I paid him his asking price of $150 for the guitar, which also included a very nice reissue tweed hard-shell case. I figured the guitar was worth about $100 and the case $50. That’s bottom-feeder territory for sure.
LEFT: A close-up of the body scars and distressed metal parts. The upgraded Duncan pickups are identical to those Jerry Donahue has in his
signature Fender Tele. RIGHT: All references to Squier and Affinity have been banished, and a Fender decal now graces the headstock.
Although in general I like stock Squier Teles, I’m not a big fan of their neck pickups, which tend to sound a bit “wooly” and dull to me. I decided to take the guitar to my tech, Jack Dillen, and have him replace both pickups with a set of Seymour Duncans I had lying around. The Duncans I gave Jack were a Jerry Donahue model bridge pickup and an Alnico II Pro Strat pickup for the neck, the same type of pickups on Jerry’s signature model guitars. This gave me a perfect opportunity to finally test-drive the pickups (and get my buddy Jerry off my back about trying them).
Jack had the guitar ready the following week. When I played it through Jack’s Fender Pro Junior, I knew right away it was a good move to replace the pickups. I seemed to get a lot more Roy Buchanan-inspired harmonics in the bridge position, as well as modern, snappy Strat-like blues and jazz tones from the neck pickup. Yeah baby, that’s what I’m talking about!
I also like that Squier offers satin finishes on their maple fretboards and necks. It makes the neck less sticky when your hands get sweaty, and it feels better than the heavy polyurethane finishes on most maple fretboards. This guitar is most definitely a keeper now.
Bottom Feeder Tip #367: If you like the way a guitar plays, but aren’t wild about its sound, it pays to replace the stock pickups with some really good ones. Pickups are the guitar’s engine, and I feel like this one went from a Mustang to a Shelby Cobra!