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The Ibanez RG421 Electric Guitar
The material, build and the setup are the things that should be considered in order to produce a great sound quality of a guitar. The setup can be easily manipulated by professionals or luthier, but the material and build should be closely looked at. Thankfully, you don’t need to go that far because RG421, a budget guitar, offers more than its price tag.
Ibanez is a trusted brand when it comes to guitars. From the cheapest to the most expensive guitars, the company successfully upholds their brand of quality.
Famous musicians like Joe Satriani and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers used this guitar. There are still hundreds of musicians out there, who trusted the brand in their concerts and tours.
The RG series is the most well-known guitars in all Ibanez line. And, one of the most reliable guitars in this series is the Ibanez RG421. You can check notable features of this guitar below.
Pros
- Richer tone
- Great sustain
- More solid
- No sharp fret edges
Cons
- Some may find it heavier
Good Body Quality
RG421 is made of a mahogany body. It comes with the Wizard III neck profile.
Mahogany is a hardwood that offers greater bass tone than basswood can’t. Since it’s hardwood you know your guitar can stand against dents and scratches.
Although some don’t want the heavy nature of mahogany, this makes the guitar feel real while playing it.
The neck, on the other hand, is made of maple, which is the choice of many guitars.
The Wizard III design allows players to access frets easily, offering more speed and comfort. In addition, the thin, flat and sturdy neck profile allows greater playability, especially for challenge-seeking players.
Feel and Ease of Play
It has a rosewood fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets and white dot inlays, perfect for bigger note bends. With the scale length of 25.5 inches, playing up and down the fingerboard is made rather easy.
It feels more solid and very comfortable even with long hours of practice and jamming. It’s lightweight. The neck is fast and the frets are smooth.
Reliable Ibanez Quantum Pickups
This features two Quantum pickups, which give a lot of wonders to the guitar sound. It offers accelerated bass response and power output.
Hums and fret buzzes are completely eliminated thanks to these humbuckers. So, you’ll play with ease without worrying about any humming and buzzes.
Hardware and Electronics
This guitar has a fixed bridge, so, it won’t allow adding of a tremolo bar. However, it does its job well. The rise of the bridge gives a pretty decent action and making the strings more stable.
The nut is plastic, but it holds the string in place very well. The tuning machines are also well-built, although they don’t seem expensive, at least, they don’t appear cheap, especially on the performance.
It makes the guitar strings stay in tune even for long hours of use.
In the electronics department, you got that Quantum pups. Although they may come in a short lifespan, they won’t be bothersome.
For the controls, they are quite simple, especially for newbies. You got one volume knob and one tone knob and a five-way pickup selector switch. The latter provides access to a variety of coil and sound combinations.
Great Sound Quality
The Quantum pups also provide a mid-heavy tone with emphasis on high-end articulation. It gives clarity to power chord-style riffing, lower tuning, and lead playing.
Although it is able to play rock, this thing is more suitable for playing metal shredding. Check out this sound demo on Ibanez RG421.
A Good Guitar for Beginners
If you’re going to look for musicians proudly using Ibanez guitars you will see a lot of them.
So, if you are still new and want to invest in guitars, go for the trusted. Since Ibanez guitars are trusted by legends, don’t you think it’s also a perfect guitar for you to follow in the footsteps of the legends?
Also Read: Best Electric Guitar for Beginners
Drawbacks
The hardware may be too simple and limited.
This is perfect for beginners, but if you want to upgrade and extend your capacity, this may not be a great partner. Unless if you really have to pay for upgrades.
For me, if I were to choose, I’ll go for Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro.
The price may be quite different, but look at what other things you can do with the Custom Pro.
This is just my humble opinion. You shouldn’t be taking this by heart since you have your take on the story as well.
Verdict
Best affordable guitar. Nicely built. Great for metal and a few other music styles.
A guitar well-built and constructed by the experts. It’s packed with basic things one needs in order to learn how to play electric guitars. Furthermore, it’s also very affordable.
Is it a VALUE FOR MONEY GUITAR?
For beginners, I will say yes. For one, it’s simple and very easy to learn. However, if you are progressing faster and you want to make music as a living, this is way too basic for you.