Looking for some Ibanez advice.......

Log Out | Topics | Search Moderators | Edit Profile

Author Message Jackotter Username: Jackotter Registered: 07-2005 Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 11:34 am:    Hey everybody... i've been lurking here for a while and am taking the plunge so be gentle... I am a relatively accomplished acoustic player looking to expand into a hollow body Ibanez Artcore. My budget is about $300-400. Anybody have any suggestions as to what might work best for me? Thanks for your time. Wildfield Username: Wildfield Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 11:50 am:    Ibanez Artcore electric archtops are a very good value. I owned the AF85VLS for a little while. Overall a nice budget archtop. I was able to setup the guitar to be very playable. I did not like the stock pickups and ended up replacing with SD Classic 59's. The Artcore line is definitely a great line for student model archtops - excellent entry level jazz guitar. I recently purchased an AG195 on closeout for $669 as mentioned in another thread. The super 58's sound superb in my opinion. Excellent quality - neck feels fantastic and sound is also great. It's out of the budget you mentioned, but I thought I'd plug it anyway. Jackotter Username: Jackotter Registered: 07-2005 Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 12:26 pm:    Wildfield: thank you for your post. How difficult (diy?) is it to replace pickups? I could probably stretch the budget a little in order to NOT have to do that. Whaddya think? Craigjc Username: Craigjc Registered: 11-2002 Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 1:05 pm:    I recently bought an AF75 and love the guitar. Blew away every other brand in the price range. Pickups are not bad, but not fantastic, either. That's just my opinion, though. Replacing the pickups can be tricky, only because you have no cover plate to access the controls. Getting the controls back into their holes is the toughest part, but not impossible. I recently rewired my AF75 because I wanted a master volume and more tonal possibilities. Also dug into the lead humbucker and tapped it so I could switch it to a single coil. My hint for getting the controls back into the holes is...send a small diameter string or dental floss though the hole (from the outside of the guitar). Tie it to the shaft of the control, and pull the control back through the hole using the string. My opinion is to get the guitar based on liking the things you can't replace (like the neck or its acoustic tone). "Guitar Tech" Craig Jackotter Username: Jackotter Registered: 07-2005 Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 1:58 pm:    Wow. Some really great advice. Thank you. Wildfield Username: Wildfield Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 2:31 pm:    "My opinion is to get the guitar based on liking the things you can't replace (like the neck or its acoustic tone)." - Craigjc Excellent point. I couldn't agree more. As for replacing pickups, I have found it is fairly simple. However, I have never replaced the wiring and therefore have never removed the volume and tone pots. In the instances where I have replaced p/u's, I have simply spliced the new p/u to the existing wiring. In one instance, I was doing an experiment to listen to several different p/u's on one guitar. I spliced in RCA jacks on the p/u's and in the guitar, so I could swap out the p/u's fairly quickly. That worked out very well. For me, things only got complicated when purchasing p/u's that had wiring for a coil tap. However, careful attention to the instruction sheet allows you to overcome the confusion of having 4 wires on a p/u that need to be somehow connected to the 2 wires in your guitar. Darryl Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 1:43 pm:    It's not that hard to replace PUs on a hollowbody. The dental floss is a good idea, and I use this technique on the tone pots. To replace pickups, you only need to get to the vol pots, which are closest to the f-hole. I've found it is possible to take the pots out, do my soldering, and then reinstall the pots without using any string. You can fish them through with just your fingers. If this doesn't work, you can always fish a piece of string through and tie it to the shaft to help get it back in. It's really not as hard as it may seem, and you can always pet a pro to put it back together for you. Just use a good soldering iron, and cover the top of the guitar to protect it from dripping solder and flux. Splicing into the existing leads will work, but it is not the cleanest or most professional way of doing it. The remaining leads on the original PUs will be very short. I always like to keep things so that I can always return them to stock. These guitars may not have any collector value now, but neither did the vintage models in their day. -Sven

Add Your Message Here Post: -Color- Black Red Green Blue Yellow Purple Orange Cyan Gray White -Font- Arial Courier Symbol Times Verdana -Size- Smallest (-2) Small (-1) Normal Large (+1) Largest (+2) Enter Item number: Username: Posting Information: This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here. Password: Options: Enable HTML code in message Automatically activate URLs in message Action: