Giving Thanks For Groovy Vintage Guitars.
This article explores Vintage Ibanez guitars,Well one in particular anyway and what she boasts as far as appointments and playability ,plus a little interesting vintage guitar history. Ibanez got her humble starts by a company going by the name of " Hoshino" ,in the early 40's producing a spanish styled acoustic guitar that was named Ibanez. By the 1970's Ibanez ( which Hoshino had purchased the rights to)was known (good or bad) as the lawsuit guitars, for their blatant copies of more renowned guitars being produced ,Although most were cheaper imitations and copies ,the fact does remain that many Ibanez "lawsuit" era guitars were of comparable if not superior quality to the guitars the were produced to mimic. I will let you be the judge of that point. Now what we have here is a wonderful example of what Ibanez was creating in the early to mid 1960's. I have found an older picture of this very guitar on a German Ibanez website , and also a picture of the one and only Jimi Hendrix playing a very similar model ( upside down of course) in a sunburst color scheme as opposed to the white beauty we see pictured here.Knowing that every guitarist must start somewhere on the guitar food chain , and by no way implying that this guitar was ever owned or played by Jimi, the body shape and era that it was built is reasonable enough to inject that this was the type or at least close enough to the type that Sir Jimi cranked many a tune to the amazement of both audience and fellow band members alike. After playing her for quite a while now and coming to the conclusion that even though she is never going to be worth what the same era ,Fender or Martin, or Gibson guitar is worth ,I have decided that she is unique enough,plays good enough and has many nicely though out features that she is a keeper, and I can fully understand why Jimi played one similar to this mode. She just has such wonderful dynamic harmonic explosions tucked away in her, the neck is to die for and well since she is a little on the small body size , she is light enough to play for days. Her is the run down on some of her features..1 piece ash body with the pickups mounted directly on top of the body ( directly coupling for superior resonance) , the pickups themselves are unique in the fact that under the metal covers are 5,yes 5 huge round alnico I magnets that are so large as to only 1/3 of each magnet couples between each individual adjustable pole screw,that alone accounts for ( in my book anyway) for her tremendous tonal qualities. She is routed for the pots and wiring only beneath her 1 piece plastic pick guard located below the pickups. Another interesting and in my opinion superior design is the way her controls are laid out, no 3 or 5 way selector switch to bump and fiddle with while playing ,no sir ,this girl boasts one master volume control for both the front (neck) and rear (bridge ) pickup, this enables the player to dial in an indefinite array of tonal possibilities. As for a tone /treble control she has just the one master control for this ,which I like as it certainly adds to ease in playability and control of my sound.I do not see as to why the electric guitar manufacturers today don't do this as a standard feature.,The neck as I have stated is to die for, 1 solid piece of Mahogany ,perfectly sculpted for a fir like a glove to your fretting hand, and smooth as oriental silk, non bound (thank goodness) with a zero fret ( lord does she stay in tune) and a beautiful 3/8 of an inch thick slab of Brazilian Rosewood for a fretboard with a 10 radius, I love it and am seriously considering making an exact copy to place on a Tele.The only weakness and the only thing I have ever considered changing ( i wrestle with ) is the bridge setup. Now I am no fan of the cheap thumbscrew rosewood adjustable bridge on ANY guitar . let alone an electric, but, this one does stay where it is supposed to and does have compensation for proper intonation, but I would like to try a bigsy or Gibson style bridge and tailpiece but shudder at changing her from her original state, ah decisions decisions...She is one of the most in tune guitars I have and many friends alike agree all the way up and down the fretboard ,which makes my even happier that I acquired her.The headstock has an arrowhead shape with a single all encompassing string tree bar, metal Ibanez logo and ,(ugh) open back tuners, another point I have considered replacing, but hey like they say,"if it ain't broke ,don't fix it" Dynamically harmonic,sweetly sustaining,and extremely light in weight,yes this old girl ia as unique as it gets in the world of guitars. Who knows ,maybe the exact features that Jimi liked about his own 60 era Ibanez, before his change to an easier accessible American guitar? I hope you enjoy looking and remember to take the time to enjoy the obscure guitar for what they are and you as I may be delightfully surprised in what we find. As always this is just my News and Views. So may all your days be memorable, all your friends stay true and all your riffs be killer.Greg.
