Resolved

The pickups in this SML721 are a pair of DiMarzio Fusion Edge. I've had both bitter & delightful episodes with the FE & in this guitar, it's the former. The neck humbucker is especially disappointing; darn muddy & quite pointless for my kind of music / tone. It took me a while to finally replace the pots of these guitar.

Pics: ESP

That's right - pots. The default pots were working fine & required no replacement but they were suspiciously under-performing. I came to this realization after looking at the specs of my guitars with FEs in them. Those guitars did not sport the default pots as I did away with them due to corrosion / oxidation. I bought a pair of BOURNS pots from Davis GMC which are currently the OEM for ESP & they are indeed the rightful solution to this issue.

I asked Beez what could possibly be the issue with the default pots as they were working fine since Day 1. He told me budget pots might sometimes be labelled erroneously like in my case, the default pots might be a 250K version instead of the preferred 500K for humbuckers. That might be the case here & it turned out to be a simple fix. Beez fixed these into my SML521 a few days ago. After hours of playing, I must say that BOURNS is living up to its reputation for being good. As good as GOTOH & CTS, to name a couple which are benchmark brands for this purpose.

S-Sunday

Another day of staying indoors & playing guitar. This is the SML721 featuring tilted frets. Tilted, not fanned because the first few frets are not tilted so there's no fanning out.

I happened to come across a pair of DiMarzio Fusion Edge pickups which were purchased (for a good price) & installed here. The FE has a hit / miss reputation & these are definitely a miss in this guitar. The last time I hear good stuff coming from the FEs were from an extended scale RGD. These have to go soon.

My final pack of DR 9s went into this guitar. For the kind of music I embrace, DR strings are the best but they cost a little more than the other strings brands out there. I will only purchase them during seasonal discounts.

Price watch (99)

Didn't realize this blue version (SML721) is already available here. This version is $20 more than its previous red-ish version. 

The new S520AH is also in; $50 more than the previous weathered finish version. 

It's plain to see that prices are moving up without substantial changes to the instruments' specifications; exchange rate, shippings costs going up, etc. - we understand. This day & age, we should make efforts to acquire instruments from dealers who have the buyers' interest in mind (slim chance) as opposed to marking prices up to make their ends meet, excessively for some. I'm not implying the dealer for these instruments featured above are as such. It's something to take note of.

Pics: Ibanez

Ibanez 2025 (2)

The disrespect for the S-Series continues this 2025 with no new model offered. This SML721 was listed as new but we know 'new' here refers to the colour. The SML721 had been around since 2023.

Pic: Ibanez

Purple Sunday

Just got the wiring for this sorted out. On the way home, finally met the guitar GOAT 😅

It's like this - The replacement pickups for this guitar are DiMarzios. This guitar features Ibanez's dyna-MIX10 switching system. DiMarzio pickups have to be wired in another way, not conforming to Ibanez's colour code. In this case, DiMarzio's Fusion Edge humbuckers actually follow the Ibanez color code. So there. We were made to figure out an unnecessary permutation of wirings only to realize that the original combo is the correct one to begin with.

Just play

This guitar (Ibanez SML721) used to be unplayable. Fret issues mainly. Someone who handled the rectification procedure might not have understood how to approach the issue to begin with. It might be from the factory, might be from the store but more importantly, whoever did it, stopped trying. That was crucial. When I took over, I approached it like how I did with the rest facing such issues:

• Straighten the neck first, which didn't happen. Action was disproportionately high at the 8th - 13th fret area
• Action comes next. That's right, check if the action conformed to the recommended settings in the manual. Get this done before any fret attention procedures.
• Shim. If the action is still disproportionately high at the upper fret area, neck shimming should be done. 
• Level checking. Mark out the problematic frets that contribute to buzzing / choking.
• Hammer time. That's right, the fatal mistake here is to start filing / crowning the fret. Some frets are merely popping out, all they need is some knocking into place & that might just be it. 
• File / crown the problem away. If that doesn't work, filing / re-crowning should be the final approach. Remember, this is irreversible & should be done after an exhaustive diagnosis had been carried out. 

I noticed that minor rectifications were required over time & that improved the guitar's playability progressively. Some remediation procedures would only kick in after a few rounds of diagnosis & patience is the order of the day. This is why I strongly advocate for owner rectification as opposed to sending the instrument over to a tech every time. Let the expert handle the issue only if expert knowledge / skills are required. 

Any further tinkering done to this guitar? Of course.

• 5-way selector made way for a 3-way version
• Seymour Duncan pickups
• Locking tuners made way for non-locking ones

That's the story of my Thursday; looking into minor improvements & just playing till it's time to stop. Indoor Thursday, so to speak.

Revival Thursday

Not too long ago, this guitar was unplayable. It's been looked into & the following tweaks were done...

The primary fault was the chronic fret buzz. It seems that someone tried to file the frets down to get rid of this but was unsuccessful. There were black marker stains on many frets. It's the typical (& correct) approach of identifying problematic frets & marking them down for filing. The stains would be gone when the filing's done but in this case residue black stains were not taken care off.

A closer look revealed a need for proper neck tilt. I managed to shim the neck (hence the visible maple bit you see above) to raise the rest level as well as rectify the tilt angle. The neck was also bowed & that was easily attended to via a quick truss rod tweak. Action was re-set for a set of 9 - 42 but there's residue string buzz. Culprit - popped out frets. These were hammered in. Only 2 frets underwent minimal filing. I wonder what happened to this guitar along the way & the way it was re-set up disappointed me because it was still unplayable but put up for sale. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

The default Ibanez Quantum pickups meant nothing to me. Seymour Duncan JB / Jazz are the replacements. The gold pole pieces - inexpensive tweak to match the hardware livery of the guitar. Adds zilch to tone, of course.

The 5-way selector is the circuit board type to supplement the coil split option. The terminals are well-labelled but you need to follow the replacement pickup manufacturer's colour code which might be different from the Ibanez pickup colour code (seen above).

This gap between the saddles might be minimal but it caused string misalignment (against the pickup pole pieces). Noticed the other saddles are seated properly without gaps in between? Well, so much for QC.

Also replaced - tuners. The default ones were locking version but it added weight to the headstock & the neck dive was intolerable. Easy fix, yes?

Review quickie: Ibanez SML721

This is an easy appraisal; the guitar brought in for review was not fit for review. In fact, it was semi-unplayable. There was excruciating fret buzz from the 11th fret onwards, across the board. However, the instrument's physicality was top notch but the playability / set up totally let it down. I passed the guitar to two other individuals to concur my diagnosis on the matter; they agreed. 

Upon closer inspection, there seems to be marker / ink stains on many of the frets. Looks like someone tried to cure this issue (maybe by filing the frets) but was unsuccessful. Also, the overall action was too low so that didn't help either. No ratings for this appraisal because no actual appraisal took place. One word: Bad. 

Pic: Ibanez