Ibanez AGS83BBG Review

with 24 frets, 2 medium gain pickups, an extremely durable body and thin ibanez wizard-like neck there isn't much about it that you can complain about either way. Since i switch between clean and death metal distortion, i opted to replace the bridge pickup with a dmarzio d-activator for better distortion, although the default pickups lasted me for several years.

the guitar is built extremely well. the bobenga body and mahogany neck are nearly indestructible. there was a day where i had slung it over my back and walked outside. the strap broke and the headstock dove straight into the tarmac driveway. it only suffered minor scrapes to the headstock with no real damage. in fact it never even lost tuning. I did raise the pickups a bit to get better gain.

i bought it for 500 plus tax, and haven't felt the need to get a new guitar since.

The action is a bit high for metal, so i dropped it a bit to make it a bit easier to play. it has a certain "string pop" that gives the strings some substance which i find solid body's often lack which is great for my style of play. The body looks and feels amazing, and doesn't weigh a ton but doesn't at all feel cheap.

the tone is much softer than a solid body, giving it a "sad" kind of sound.

using a Line 6 toneport and podfarm i have gotten around most of the issues with lower gain, but i opted to get a gigh gain pickup to make it less noticeable.

if you like playing metal that has cleans and distortion and only want/need one guitar this will do great. but don't expect extreme distortion or proffesional level cleans (although both are great.

for a mid priced guitar you wont be disappointed.