This guitar is manufactured by CORT Indonesia under Ibanez specifications and strict quality control measures. The owner finds the factory setup a little bit quirky. Playable, yes. Stability of tuning, a little bit finicky as tested and reviewed by others after doing dives and bombs. It get easily de-tuned.
Same issue with its bigger brother, Prestige line, made in Japan.
The issue can be viewed here:
My goal is to custom setup this beautifully made guitar
for the pleasure of its owner, Rock Mount Studios, and making sure the
tuning issues are resolved as well.
Enjoy the show!
For details, regarding specifications of this guitar, it is found here:
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| Fresh from its guitar case, factory setup. |
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| Included tools and extra tremolo spring and snap-in trem bar. |
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| the all NEW Super all-access-neck-joint (AANJ) with concave curve to ensure maximum playability as the player reaches the upper frets |
The following section is where the fun begins!
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| Ibanez in cooperation with Seymour Duncan, behold the Hyperion Pickups! |
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| Elixir strings 10-46, tremolo system and GOTOH tuners |
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| Protecting the SD pickups from dirt or debris as i work on it |
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| GOTOH HAPM Locking Tuners Fancy too much engineered locking tuners. It's a "luv it or hate it" changing strings affair. :) It features height adjustable posts, hence, HAP. And MAGNUM locking system. a string locking system that utilizes string tension when to lock the strings. HAPM technology by GOTOH! |
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| Ibanez proprietary dyna-MIX 10 Switching System. The downside of this 5 way switch is once it is broken, you cannot replace with a regular 5 way switch. It must be replaced with an Ibanez exact replacement 'coz of the circuit board and the way it is configured with the Seymour Duncaan Hyperion pickups wired to it. I traced the wiring for this switching system and i find its sibling, the dyna-MIX 9 switching system more simpler. This one uses a passive circuit to create the "POWER TAP" mode. The dyna-MIX 9 uses a super 5 way switch which can be applied to other guitars. Kudos to the one who came up with wiring trace for the dyna-MIX 9 switching. Different strokes for different folks, as they say it. dyna-MIX 10 for HH pickup configuration dyna-MIX 9 for HSS pickup configuration |
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| D500k control potentiometers. Both for volume and tone. |
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| Volume control pot using a small value capacitors (pF range) to retain the highs when the volume is dimed. |
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| The ALTER Switch. Engaging it will allow the pickups to be in POWER TAP mode. |
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| Tuner posts with different string holes. Smaller string hole and height are for strings 1 to 3 Bigger string hole and height are for strings 4 to 6 |
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| Staggered height of tuner posts. |
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| Too much excess lacquer on the tremolo cavity edges. Needs scraping and sanding. |
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| Now a smoother cavity edge and less lacquer. |
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| Scraped and sanded lacquer finish out of the tremolo cavity |
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| Tremolo base plate parallel to guitar body. |
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| Utilizing 4 springs for tremolo floating setup. This ensures stability. Factory setup is using only 3 springs. I find it to spongy. |
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| Finally, it's done! (First time to take a selfie with my "patient".) |
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| Rock and Roll, Ready! ROCK MOUNT Studios, here I come..... |
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
