Ibanez Artcore series guitars

Sub-question: what about the versatility of a guitar like this? Part of why I'm looking at hollow-bodies is that they sound great for the new-wave stuff I usually play. But since I'm not planning on owning multiple guitars, I wonder if it'll turn out too warm and rich to ever get a decent sharp/slicy sound out of it. (And I worry that playing a big hollow-body means I'll never feel comfortable really letting loose on it.)

I say go for it.

holy crap, you're a fag.

http://www.dcmusicusa.com/ARTCORE%20BASS%20IBANEZ.jpg

(I realized yesterday I have some kind of aversion to the single cut-out, and I have no idea why -- I'm either against asymmetry or Gibson, one or the other.)

Roffle. Unless you pick with a cold chisel you should be okay. Neal's old flat-top seems to be holding up tol'able...

http://www.geocities.jp/metropoleclub/a/512b/05122305.jpg

You will wear out the frets and pickups long before your bore a hole into the guitar from playing.

(b) I'm not worried about boring a hole in the thing, just scratching all fuck out of it -- if the paint and finish are strong enough that that's not a problem, hooray. But I used to play on a full-hollow with no pickguard, and it always made me uncomfortable with really letting loose on the thing, because you can really feel the dinging, and eventually the wood got scraped up to the point where, when the guitar fell off a stand, it cracked open a little right below the strings. So forgive me for worrying, and thanks for the reassurance.

Nabisco OTM! And congrats on the new semi-hollow! Pix!

Only problem now is that it can be too warm and full for the little practice amp I record with (25-watt) -- even with the bass tone turned all the way down, that low-end can wind up overwhelming things. Chords lose clarity and get boomy; distortion stews everything together into mud. Switching to bridge pickup helps, obviously, but then there are twang issues to deal with.

This seems like much less of a problem with a decent-sized amp, turned up to a decent level, but I keep wondering about the versatility thing. Think it's worth buying a good equalizer pedal, to strip out the muddier frequencies? Or should I be (gasp) rethinking the hollow-body altogether?

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.

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?

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.

I never thought much of these. I'm surprised/intrigued by the love here.

love my AG86 to death, and miss it dearly as it gathers dust in a texas closet.

i still stock about 8-10 of them at the shop. hard to beat at that price point imo.

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.)

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.

My other cheaper semi-hollow is a second-hand Hondo 945 Deluxe. I know Hondo doesn't really have a great rep but I was always pretty happy with that one!

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.

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