conFUSION

Final re-string entry of the year & possibly the final entry for 2018- Ibanez RGDIX6MRW. This is one of the extended scale length guitars I own (26.5"). It's tuned down to C# because who would spend good money on such a guitar for standard tuning, yes?

I kept this one aside especially for this guitar. Flatwound means I get less noise on the lower end strings should I choose to slide up/down for quick movements. Generally, I spend more time on the thicker strings in this tuning so it's a worthy investment.

This is how serious the DR people are when it comes to freshness. My thumbs up to them 👍👍

The guitar comes equipped with a pair of DiMarzio Fusion Edge humbuckers. I've been enduring these pickups & holding back from some performance appraisals but here goes:

• You might have probably read glowing reviews about them elsewhere but as far as I am concerned, after hearing them perform through my set up, these pickups are not my kind of pickups.
• They are DiMarzios so they must be good somehow, no? Brand name means nothing with regards to performance. The fact that they are in this guitar means somebody at Ibanez believes this is how this guitar should sound like given the specs. We can choose to disagree especially if they don't meet our needs. We buy this instrument because we believe it would suit our needs not because someone else thinks it sounds good according to their interpretations. 
• The bridge pickup does not hold low tuning well. Notes are muffled & sound fuzzy at higher distortion/ gain settings. No amount of external treble injection could cure this deficiency. From my perspective, it's a let down.
• The neck humbucker isn't any better when it comes to clarity. Unlike other dedicated neck DiMarzios, I can't even manifest a smooth top end here. Very frustrating.
• Because I had Beez instal a coil split switch here, there's an opportunity to hear the pickup in a tampered manifestation & I must say, there's a little more clarity in single coil mode. The neck humbucker sounds decent with tapped notes but we don't always tap our notes, in fact, majority of us pick more than tap so these aren't quite the winner from this standpoint. 

Maybe, being a Seymour Duncan fan through & through, there's no way I could bring myself to hear good things from the Fusion Edge but that's not true. I hold some DiMarzios in high regard but this one is simply below the liking point to begin with. There is no reason to keep them for long. 

Extended

Have not been playing in standard tuning for a week. Had a good time in extended territory. Nothing too excessive but a 26.5" scale length. According to the manufacturer, the Ibanez RGDIX6MRW sports a nitro Wizard profile. To the uninitiated, Ibanez necks are notoriously skinny & lack the beef for those with bigger hands. The 'Wizard' label is synonymous to a skinny adjective in the Ibanez realm but if you have handled an RGD Iron Label model personally, the neck is anything but skinny. In fact, it feels substantially beefy while maintaining the D-profile. A thick D-profile if you will, a profile more generous depth-wise. But the players out there won't be easily swayed by mere description, playing one in person will address this misconception. I'm just glad that I own this version of the RG. In fact, I prefer the RGD to the standard RG in terms of feel.

Low & behold

Last Sunday, just before I called it a day, I decided to give the Ibanez RGD321 some playing time. The RGD is Ibanez's extended scale guitar measuring 26.5" from nut to bridge. The objective of owning such an instrument is to enjoy lower tuning without dealing with string tension issues. I initially settled with a set of 10s sporting only a half-step detune, enough to play along Depeche Mode tunes 😄 Anyway, there was a re-think along the way- why go through an under-experience so to speak, with a guitar of such a potential? The nut was filed a wee bit to accommodate a thicker set of strings (11s) to sport a C# tuning.

Same set of tuning was done here with the RGDIX6 as well. Played on the same day, the IX6 offers a different voicing namely due to its DiMarzio pickups on board while the RGD321 above has Seymour Duncans in there.

Sometimes we only have ourselves to blame for not accepting things that were meant to be in the first place. You want to play standard tuning with the RGDs- no issues but they were not meant to excel in this application. It's like driving an off-road vehicle on tarmac on a daily basis & whining about the vehicle's under-performance. My RGDs will continue to manifest low tunings in the mean time. The extended scale length proves to be a challenge when when playing fast but I have other guitars to realize speed potential.

Happy mid-December, everyone. 👍

Beez is moving out

Master Beez in psychedelic mode, fixing a coil split switch in my Ibanez RGDIX6MRW. This was indeed my final visit (yesterday evening) to his current working premises as he is moving out to a new unit. More updates to come...

Siblings (from different fathers)

The primary reason why I bought the Ibanez RGDIX6M was the maple fretboard. Ibanez doesn't have too many of these around, I think I'm too desensitised when it comes to rosewood fretboards for Ibanez instruments. I already own an RGD model (seen there: RGD321), it's the one I play these days (tuned down, lots of distortion to go by) & my fingers are getting accustomed to the longer scale length (26.5"). I'm keeping those DiMarzio Fusion Edge humbuckers in tact in the mean time for variety's sake (not a DiMarzio fan).