Guitar received !!! ---- <HERE>




I've been looking for this guitar for months now on internet, and I finally found one ! It was buried for ages in a plain-looking german classified ads website. After some discussions by email, the guy seemed totally legit, the guitar looked just perfect and the price was gooood.

So I took the risk... well, actually, i'm still in the middle of it since the guitar hasn't arrived yet !

Story first, pictures later ... up to you to find out the brand and model

That's a vintage-sounding guitar :

Body : Mahogany
Neck : Mahogany
Pickups : P90
Bridge : Fixed

Made In Japan (model was produced between 96 and 98 only)

Finish : Translucent red (only this one available)

There are other runs of this model from Korea, for half the price and 1/10th of the quality.

I think i gave enough clues already...

Pictures tomorrow...

(note : What are P90's : those are "big" single coils, which sound lies in between a standard single coil and a humbucker:
)

This post has been edited by Pix: Jul 31 2008, 01:35 AM

no, not a copy... it's an japan-made original model from a very well-known brand. it'd be too hard to find out otherwise.

no no... ok, maybe with the clues I gave, it's too hard to find out:

Here is one pic...

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Added on July 25, 2008, 9:57 pm(real geeks would check out the photobucket link !)

This post has been edited by Pix: Jul 25 2008, 09:57 PM

nope, it's not PRS, nor Guyatone, nor anything that has been written before.

absolutely correct !

and the unhappy crowd goes :
** boooh... another ibanez .... **

well... no, not really. This model looks and sounds different than your typical RG, obviously You don't see many P-90's in Ibanez models, for one..

This model was designed for Satriani when he was recording its "Joe Satriani" album. In my opinion, his bluesy guitar sound on this record is to die for ! So what you have here is a japan-made JS signature model, but
- no humbucker
- no floating bridge
- no basswood

Clearly not a lot of appeal for many (more flashy) guitar players !!
(blacktrix might already be throwing up his lunch right now...)

Well, enough ranting, I'll make a review as soon as i receive it. (or we'll all have a good laugh about me getting scammed !!)

Just few pictures :




And saying it one more time won't hurt : it's not a korean model (you can find a lot of those, cheaper and all fjookedup built quality). Look at the "dark" / "translucent" aspect of the body... yummy. That's one of the differences with korean models.

This post has been edited by Pix: Jul 25 2008, 10:32 PM

gapnap,

what a coincidence ! and a japan-made on top of that... I'm glad you liked it, I'm really buying it "blind-folded". I'm already expecting to swap the pickups in a while, as it seems it isn't honouring the axe the way it should... but maybe i'll be surprised about them too..

I paid 600 euros for it (550 euros + 50 euros transport & case)

btw, what do you mean "on Jan" ?



-- And thx all for your friendly words

everdying, don't you think the new LP standards are just a ripoff ? go for the custom shop ! nothing less

where are pics of your new guitar, blacktrix ?

everdying > i don't know if the "chambering" is the only problem on those guitars. I was really into getting one in 2005/2006, and already at that time the std LP were just not sounding good enough for the price. And I did try a bunch of them !

But the customs... mmm.. those were the real ones !

blacktrix > so you got yourself a guitar AND a medieval weapon. Don't go through the airport security with it, you might get a single trip to Guantanamo...

Right now, I'm in France, and the guitar was shipped from Germany. So 22 euros, by DHL packet service. It's amazingly low, even within Europe...

Gapnap, even the pickups are good ? that's a crazy bargain then...

NEWS ALERT : Guitar has been shipped yesterday Will receive it on tuesday !

interesting video about recording an album with a band you don't know !
"reel satriani"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8057982759392214707

at 54:50 onwards, you can hear and see my future JS700..

it arrived today, i played a little bit... i'm very happy : it does sound different from the js1000 and the neck too is different (a bit thicker... just a tiny bit chunkier behind)
the look and the quality are amazing... but have a look by yourselves...

funny picture... did i plan it all the way, since i bought my strat, 12 yrs ago ?




more seriously, close-ups now.






and plugged in this :


that sounds great


the neck is damn thirsty, i'll need to paint it with lemon oil asap..

[Blacktrix: I edited the picture URL because some of the images wasn't showing]

edit: photobucket host for the pictures
and no lemon oil for guitar necks.. doesn't seem to be a good idea

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Added on August 1, 2008, 3:42 amso more details about the ibanez JS700 made in japan:

the guitar neck needs some adjustment, the string action is too high for me... and the strings are too old. i don't know what brand they are, but they feel "bad". Definitely not d'addarios The strings are dampened when i bend a string around the 17th fret. Too high action from 1st to 12th, and too low action from 15th to 22nd fret. Anyone care to take a guess at what i should do ? Neck adjustment seems unavoidable.. (i'll tight the screw, right ?)

the bridge pickup output is lower than the neck pickup, both sounds good though. It's exactly what i was hopping for. Those P-90's could be upgraded IMO, but that's not an investment i'll do right now. Cleans are really warm and "straigth", kind of great for Jazz. The humbuckers from the js1000 sounds more mellow in clean sound.

With crunch, I can't really explain it yet... it's something else. It's rough ! The high strings sounds almost "clear", which ever the amount of disto i put, while the low strings ... how to put it. They bite.

I tend to hit the strings very heavily on this guitar : the harder the better

The neck of the JS700 is noticeably thicker than the JS1000, probably a kind of c-shape, but same fretboard radius.

The bridge is really nice, the engineering is quite smart, it looks "relaxing" for the string. The nut also is "different" than the strat. The grooves are almost invisible, and the strings are pushed down after the nut by a longitudinal rod. I like to look at it.. The effect is that the sustain is great, even though the strings are crap.

When i come back from holidays, i'll try to record some stuff with it... probably i'll compare the js700 with my two other guitars in the same track.

This post has been edited by Pix: Aug 1 2008, 03:42 AM

hi all,

i finally setup my guitar... actually, there was a lot of problems with it and i was really afraid that i was never gonna have a playable guitar.

problems:
high action
bends on the 12th fret (on all strings) were muted: the 12th fret was... wrong. Irregular, it kind of sticked out and muted the strings. Only the 12th fret. Scary.



1. I brought it to the only guitar shop of the area: the guy looked at it with surprise, saying "I've never seen that in my life, i'll send it to a luthier". Hell, that's not the kind of things you want to hear if you want to keep hope...

2. 2 weeks later, the guy calls me back "your guitar is back from the luthier, it's ready"... wow... that's surprising. I try the guitar out: action is still extremely high, but the 12th fret is not a problem anymore. Ok, I happily pay 50 euros because at least now the guitar can be played... more or less. I suppose the luthier has sanded the 12th fret.
Bad news: action is still high.
Even worse: intonation is pretty fjooked up !!
Very bad news: something is wrong with the bridge (one of the 2 screws that go into the body is "dead", its thread is gone, it will have to be changed one day...) the luthier had threaded it back temporary with some silicon stuff.
After few minutes, the 50 euros felt like a total rip off.

3. Back home, I just check out all websites about setting up guitars. I just can't give up on her, I'm sure it can be setup fine, with low action and perfect intonation..

Clean and feed the fretboard : it's as dried as my grandma's ... hum. you get the point.
I put new strings... the luthier didn't even change the old strings...

Trussrod: over the 3 next days, I screw, screw and screw again. The truss-rod was so loose, i'm lucky the neck was still within earth gravity. I had to screw about 10 full rotations. I mean... 10 times 360 degrees. Would you believe it ? I tell you, after 2 full turns, I was sweating very badly. Normally, you screw 1/2 of a turn max, perhaps 1 turn, before reaching the perfect neck bend. So 10 times... It *was* loose. And now it's heaven

Then intonation... mmm.. i'm still not very happy about it, but it'll get better. I'm afraid the bridge is a bit shaky because of this "unthreaded" screw, so it messes things up.

Anyway, now the guitar is almost perfect. Still some adjustments to do, to be frank, but already I'm so happy to have this guitar... I play it over and over. The P-90 sound is really exciting.

What a great experience it was, at least i now feel confident about setting up any guitar...

bonjour / ciao blacktrix !

where have you been in france ? i'm not anywhere you'd probably want to visit in france. you been to eurodisney, i assume ?

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Added on September 30, 2008, 2:49 amjejari7, it's fun above all ! really, the guitar sounds and looks amazing... and i feel like i'm giving birth to "her"

plus, i'd feel like crap wasting 600 euros !

i remember when blacktrix got conned on internet about an epiphone ZW... well, I don't get conned

This post has been edited by Pix: Sep 30 2008, 02:49 AM

enteryourusername, haha... i don't know if the thread is still archived somewhere... what was the name of the company ? custom66 ?

blacktrix, i'm glad ou liked it. Eurodisney is great at that time of the year: the park is empty because holidays are over, no waiting queue.
Man, you already forgot your french... it's not vessiles, it's Versailles



And Lourve is Louvres. It's funny, because a chinese friend also calls it "Lourve".

Just one little correction (French history is quite a big mess, and it's certainly the first time someone talks about it on LYN, so let's do it properly !!) Versailles was used by Louis the 14th, but not Marie-Antoinette, which lived 100yrs after (wife of Louis the 16th, they lived in Paris).

I've been to Italy during Summer... Parma, Bologna, Venice... the food is so delicious over there ! So much better than France...

Ok, talking about guitar:

that's the new gadget i'm getting !!

It doesn't cost very much, and I'm so excited I'll be able to crunch my tiny terror without making my baby deaf. And i'm just being pretentious, because I'd be the one going deaf first.. 15W (or even 7W) are so freaking loud, the whole street can hear me play.

you mean, more P90's on the same guitar ? or more guitars w/ P90 ? what have you got ?

i've 3 guitars now, and that's just about 2 too many according to my wife...

a *little* more ? I can't even crank up a 15W in a house without shaking the paint of the wall... so 60W...

nowadays, i usually stick around 6 or 7 euros per bottle... the more you pay, the more you want to pay it gets so damn good.
But italian wine is not really interesting compared to the french one. It's like comparing a LP standard with a LP custom... the first one is okay, but the custom just sets the reference you were looking for...

I liked the italian sparkling wine though, very refreshing.


That color looks great !