My first guitar

This is my first electric guitar bought way back in 1991; yes it's still alive & very functional to date. It's an Ibanez RG560. Back then, I knew nuts about guitars so I tagged along when my cousin wanted to get one for himself. At the dealer's, my cousin knew what he wanted so his RG550 pick was quick & painless, I had to do my shopping to know what's avaialble for me bearing in mind that there were limited guitars with a thin neck profile which I was comfortable with. After much handling, Fender & Gibson were struck off my list, leaving Washburn & Ibanez to be the likely candidates. I couldn't quite recall which specific Washburn guitar it was but the floating bridge's functionality was a put-off, leaving me with the Ibanez RG550 like my cousin's but the juvenile mentality back then prevented me from copying my cousin's decision so i went with the RG560 instead. In the late '80s/ early '90s, it was hype to have neon coloured accessories in one's guitar (further instigated by Richie Kotzen & company) so I did that to mine. The pickups you see here are:

• Neck: Seymour Duncan Lil' '59
• Mid: DiMarzio Fast Track 2
• Bridge: DiMarzio PAF

These are actually subsequent residents, I used to have (DiMarzio) Tone Zone in the bridge & another Fast Track in the neck but after trying the current residents in other guitars (notably friends') the preference was clear. Oh, the volume/ tone knobs & pickup switch had to echo the radical colour switch. The blue strings by the way, are recent installations.

This guitar has aged enough to display a maple hue contrast. The RG Wizard neck, despite its wafer-like depth, is durable, I never had any issues with it. The only wear here are the frets which was looked into by a local luthier, Malcolm. Instead of a refretting procedure, he did a redress which cost less & was completed under 30min.

The RG560's bolt-plate was a common implement in its time. To promote better access to the upper frets, Ibanez bevelled the body area which formed a contour blending with the lower cutaway's bout. As evident in the picture, there are prominent scratches which weren't my doing- recall the cousin of mine mentioned in the preceding notes? He borrowed my guitar for a wedding performance & was reckless enough to not remove his belt while playing hence the defacement by the buckle. I was stark raving mad when the guitar was returned to me back then but didn't surface my annoyance on grounds of family comraderie (actually it was my Mum's dictatoresque instructions), after all, he was the chap who helped me bargain for it in the first place. But this incident triggered my excessive expenditure on all things guitar...

The peculiar black duck is there for show.