Ibanez RG421AHM-BMT 4-stars Reviews

I have been playing this guitar for half a year now, played only at home. I apologize for my English.

Cons: the body is assembled from 3 pieces of ash, maybe I'm wrong but the photo seems to be from one piece; the paint on the bridge at the places where the palm touches slightly rubbed, in comparison with the squier bullet Stratocaster (my previous guitar) it seems a little heavier, the weight of Ibanez RG421 is 3.4 kg.

Pros: beautiful; convenient to play; It was originally well rebuilt; 1.5 mm above 6 frets, the scale is building; good splitting no backlash.

In general, I really like the guitar

very bright and reasonably priced guitar

My first impression when I took this guitar out of the box was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL! Ash body with see-through marine tone lacquer, thin maple neck, ergonomic body shape with a good balance and fantastic upper frets access. It looks and feels just beautiful and can make you absolutely happy with a 'new toy' for a couple of hours :)

The fretboard is really wide, which is still, after a week spent with this guitar, not absolutely comfortable for me. Frets are well treated with no sharp ends and no buzz. Initial setup was not perfect, but it took 15 minutes to make the guitar comfortably playable. Fixed bridge looks and feels solid and has no tremolo tuning stability problems fo floyd setup headache. Tuners are basic and do their job - they are not as stable as locking machines could be, but for home practice they are fine.

In general, buid quiality is decent for a basic-level guitar. I've noticed only a couple on scratches on the neck not far from a neck joint + frets needed polishing. Pickup selector and pots work fine.

As for the sound, it is really unique. The guitar is very resonant unplugged and has a lot of highs and bass. In my view the pickups do not fit the wood (body and neck) for this guitar: ceramic magnets give a lot of sharpness but have scooped midds while ash body and maple fretboard itself give quite sharp and dense sound lacking full 'mahoganish' mids. So as a result riffs sound very articulate and sharp, but overall the sound is not full, middy and fat as you expect, especially for leads. I suggest this guitar lacks a couple of good Dimarzio or SD pickups with alnico magnets, designed especially for bright ash-maple guitars.

My verdict: decent quality beautiful guitar that requires some sound improvement investment.