disassembled
Well-known member
Over the past few months I was really trying to like both of the parkers that I bought (Fly Classic and Nitefly V4) but in the end the comfort and tone factors drew me to desire more from my instruments. I was hesitant to buy a PRS without getting to try one extensively first, but luckily a few weeks ago I finally had that oppurtunity. After I became confident the Custom 24 would be a guitar I could play comfortably I knew I had to have one, and thus is what you see pictured. The guitar plays great and sounds absolutely wonderful. The electronics are exactly what I wanted (toggle switch and coil tap tone pot) and was just a bonus that it came stock on the guitar I found. The tone is just gorgeous acoutsically: very bright and resonant and has great balls through my mark IV head and halfback 212. The nut is not setup for the 10's that are on it so I might try some nut sauce or similar lubricant to make sure the guitar is 100% functional.
I have had a love/hate relationship with ibanez and never really thought i would be interested in them after i unloaded my refinished early 90's RG550. I never thought I would buy another floyd rose equipped guitar again, for that matter either, but I became very intrigued after reading some reviews and watching some videos on the zero resitance (ZR) bridge that uses a ball bearing instead of the ancient knife pivot design. The stock ibanez zero point return system (ZPS) also solved some common issues related to standard floyd designs. The ZR bridge also comes with a intonation tool and makes intonating the guitar a snap (if you ever intonated a regular floyd you know how much a pain it is without the proper tools). I found that the ZR trem was only available on the S series guitars and that most S guitars were made in Korea and had a huge list of complaints. I pretty much threw out the possibility of using the new S series until I read the good news about the 2008 Prestige models: 24 Frets (first ever for an S series gutiar), improved ZR bridge, Neck radius is now 430mm to match the bridge, improved pickups, string retainer removed, the neck is thicker than the korean necks (and thicker than my old RG550). Since I live in Japan I plopped right down to my local Ishibashi and took one off the rack and started jamming on it. The playability was nice even though the action was a smidgen higher than I prefer, but that is easily fixed, and the intonation was great right. My big test was going to be the bridge and how well it held the tuning after some abuse. Well I had a korg rack tuner hooked up to the guitar and after I tuned everything up I gave it hell. At first the guitar went out of tune but then I realized the D+G locks for the strings were a bit loose but after I tightened those up....the most it would go out is like 1 cent but that is after some serious abuse.
The tone of the Ibanez is much better than the Parker nitefly and I think that's due to the mahogany body and the satin finish on the body and neck. The neck is smooth as butta' and plays great. I think I want to throw a humbucker sized single in the neck but the bridge pickup is pretty ballsy as is. The ibanez is a great all around instrument that I can go insane with on the bridge but fully expect it to come back to tune once I am done. The ZPS system works great on keeping the bridge stable during bends and tuning changes but it does stop the bridge from being able to do some Steve Vai like flutters; I think this is a good trade off though.
Enough talking! Here are some beauty shots (warning: I am not an avid photographer nor do I own good equipment)
Greg
I have had a love/hate relationship with ibanez and never really thought i would be interested in them after i unloaded my refinished early 90's RG550. I never thought I would buy another floyd rose equipped guitar again, for that matter either, but I became very intrigued after reading some reviews and watching some videos on the zero resitance (ZR) bridge that uses a ball bearing instead of the ancient knife pivot design. The stock ibanez zero point return system (ZPS) also solved some common issues related to standard floyd designs. The ZR bridge also comes with a intonation tool and makes intonating the guitar a snap (if you ever intonated a regular floyd you know how much a pain it is without the proper tools). I found that the ZR trem was only available on the S series guitars and that most S guitars were made in Korea and had a huge list of complaints. I pretty much threw out the possibility of using the new S series until I read the good news about the 2008 Prestige models: 24 Frets (first ever for an S series gutiar), improved ZR bridge, Neck radius is now 430mm to match the bridge, improved pickups, string retainer removed, the neck is thicker than the korean necks (and thicker than my old RG550). Since I live in Japan I plopped right down to my local Ishibashi and took one off the rack and started jamming on it. The playability was nice even though the action was a smidgen higher than I prefer, but that is easily fixed, and the intonation was great right. My big test was going to be the bridge and how well it held the tuning after some abuse. Well I had a korg rack tuner hooked up to the guitar and after I tuned everything up I gave it hell. At first the guitar went out of tune but then I realized the D+G locks for the strings were a bit loose but after I tightened those up....the most it would go out is like 1 cent but that is after some serious abuse.
The tone of the Ibanez is much better than the Parker nitefly and I think that's due to the mahogany body and the satin finish on the body and neck. The neck is smooth as butta' and plays great. I think I want to throw a humbucker sized single in the neck but the bridge pickup is pretty ballsy as is. The ibanez is a great all around instrument that I can go insane with on the bridge but fully expect it to come back to tune once I am done. The ZPS system works great on keeping the bridge stable during bends and tuning changes but it does stop the bridge from being able to do some Steve Vai like flutters; I think this is a good trade off though.
Enough talking! Here are some beauty shots (warning: I am not an avid photographer nor do I own good equipment)
Greg
I use to have an ibanez but the call of the parker was too strong.
