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I bought an AM-73 Artcore earlier this year - similar to the AS-73, but smaller body. Very versatile guitar, woody sound that works well for jazz, blues and rock. It is a short scale, like a Les Paul, so it doesn't have that Fender high-tension twang. I find this guitar to be a better all-around guitar than my 40 year old Gibson 330 semi-hollow - that one has a great P-90 sound, but only the one sound.
Note to Nabisco - I removed the pick guard form my Gibson over 30 years ago, and have had no problem with pick scratches. The Ibanez Artcore strings are fairly high off the body, so you'd have to really be windmilling like Pete Townshend to hit the finish during normal picking.
Another thought about the Artcore necks - the frets on the AM-73 (small body) are larger than the frets on the AS-73 The AM-73 neck is better if you like to bend notes.
The only weaknes of the Artcore guitars is the pickups. They are medium output ceramic magnet humbuckers, and tend to sound a bit sharp. I replaced my pickups with Gibsons, and the iprovement was noticeable - a more bell-like sound.
The Ibanez Artcore guitars are all very good guitars period - excellent Japanese design and Chinese workmanship. The low prices are a bonus I particularly recommend the AM-73 as an axe that covers all the bases. No mattter what type of music you love, this guitar will make you want to play more of it.
― Stephen Gillies, Saturday, 8 July 2006 03:55 (seventeen years ago) link
six years pass...
does anyone know if these are still as surprisingly good as they were back in 2006? (i'm looking at you, jjj.)
also, while i'm tentatively on the hunt - i figure what i'm looking for is something that will cover my gottschingy/balearic and jazzy leanings as well as my more noisy/droney leanings, i don't particularly know what i'm doing (and perhaps the hollow body could cause problems as the volume and desire for controlled feedback increases?) so does anyone have any other thoughts and suggestions in a similar price range?
― ohmigud (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 15 May 2013 20:13 (ten years ago) link
I got an AG86 last month. It plays pretty good. It sounds ok. It *looks* fantastic. If I was more serious about getting a good tone I think I'd swap out the pickups. I don't think I'd use it for noisy stuff though, the feedback can be piercing and uncontrollable.
― 29 facepalms, Friday, 17 May 2013 09:40 (ten years ago) link
When I was last looking for an inexpensive semi-hollow (to do extended/prepared stuff with as well as resonant clean fingerpicking and to run through electronics) 7 years ago or so, I ended up choosing a Hamer Echotone (which is something like a dead ES-335?). I'm really fussy about minimizing uncontrolled feedback + I didn't find the Artcore's tone very satisfying. The couple people that I've spoken to about the Artcore since then felt the same way. It has been a long time, though, so I'm interested in what you like about it, jjj. (My electric guitar life is complete now that I have a real ES-335 that I'll be paying off for three more years.)
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Sunday, 19 May 2013 00:52 (ten years ago) link
It was secondhand and admittedly, I was really looking for a secondary instrument I could scrape strings with etc at that point. Still wasn't that happy with the Artcores though.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Sunday, 19 May 2013 01:03 (ten years ago) link
three months pass...
I'm enjoying my AS-73 very much, it sounds quite implausibly nice for a £200 purchase. The volume and tone knobs are perhaps a bit insensitive (there seems to be a bit of a leap between levels of volume and tone at points) but besides that I could ask for nothing more.
― Waluigi Nono (Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 10 September 2013 18:01 (ten years ago) link
two years pass...
picked up an as-93 a couple of weeks ago - really enjoying how it plays and sounds. lovely flamed maple top, back and sides, too.
sadly i'm still a shitty guitar player