I've got some Premium timestamps for you this week: 00:00 Hello! 00:21 Introduction to the Ibanez S1070PBZ 01:40 Specs and info 06:10 Today’s rig and plan Clean Sounds 07:26 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings 07:48 Funk rhythms 08:00 Ringing open indie pop chords 08:13 Neo soul pop riff 08:33 Strummed country chords 08:53 Ascending droning indie chords 09:06 Soul rhythms 09:18 Poppy barre chords 09:33 60s rock rhythms 10:02 Blues progression 10:13 Cowboy chords/tone control test 11:08 Strummed folk pop chords Overdriven Sounds 11:24 Fat indie rock rhythm chords 11:55 Choppy barre chords 12:04 Kings Of Leon inspired riff 12:19 Southern rock picked arpeggios 12:49 Upbeat indie barre chords 13:13 Volume control roll off test 13:33 Garage rock riff 13:50 Descending barre chords 13:56 Indie octave chords 14:22 AC/DC inspired riff 14:37 Airbourne inspired rock riff 14:48 Quacky rock riff 14:57 Groovy classic rock riff 15:12 Driving rock riff 15:26 Classic rock riff 15:38 Hendrix inspired riff 16:02 Classic rock rhythms Higher gain drive sounds 16:20 80s rock riff 16:42 Van Halen inspired rock riff 17:03 Classic hard rock riff 17:21 ZZ Top inspired riff 17:31 Hard rock riff 17:48 Melodic hard rock lead 18:09 Glam rock riff 18:31 Alternative rock riff 18:54 Green Day inspired punk rock riff 19:07 Pop punk melodic lead riff 19:23 Pop punk riff 19:36 Punk rock power chords 19:49 Less Than Jake inspired punk riff 20:00 Progressive rock riff 20:16 Modern rock palm-muted chords Heavy Distortion sounds 20:43 Arena glam rock riff 21:06 Metal chugging riff 21:24 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang 21:36 Heavy metal lead sound 21:53 Hardcore punk breakdown 22:09 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff 22:22 Slayer inspired thrash riff 22:32 Hardcore punk riff 22:44 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff 23:26 My thoughts 24:58 First impressions and looks 25:39 Weight and balance 25:58 Build quality and hardware 27:09 Playability and neck 28:07 Sounds and pickups discussion 30:25 What I don’t like so much… yet? 31:15 I discovered a new tuning by mistake 32:44 What other similar guitars are out there? 34:16 My conclusions on the Ibanez S1070PBZ and why you should buy it
LAZY is one thing you are not, sir. This was the most thorough tone review I have EVER seen. (And trem systems aren't for everyone). Thank you for your time!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed the vid... and yes, I agree. I love the idea of having a guitar with a trem like this, but not the work it can sometimes entail. My Tele is just so easy to get on with ;) Cheers for watching and rock on!
Hey there, thanks a lot! Glad you found the vid useful and I hope you get to try one of these soon. It's a super fun guitar, great to play and sounds awesome!
I ordered this guitar on blue last night. My first guitar back in 1985 had a Floyd Rose double locking tremolo system. They have their pros and cons. When properly set up they will not go out of tune using the bar. The only draw back is it’s more time consuming to change tunings - especially if the bridge is floating.
I think the S Series is making a comeback in recent years as the fancy woods and finishes are unique and different. Its perhaps the lightest guitar ever with the Gibson SG. If you don't like the thicker heavier RG body or Jems then the S is the one. The only thing I don't like is the pickups. The Air Norton has too much bass and the Tone Zone is midrangy and there are better Dimarzios like Super Distortion, Fred or Evolutions.. The balance is good though in volume as the Blue Velvet is a louder single coil than usual although trebly.
I definitely think this is a good point - and more and more players I know seem to be going for lighter, easier to play guitars. So something like the S Series is ideal (they're less prone to neck dive than something like an SG too!). I really liked the pickups in this one, but I know what you mean... I think there's different options in the range, though, and hopefully Ibanez builds it out even more this year!
I approve of this one, feel free to pop it in the post when you're done with it mate 😉 Do wish that Ibanez would bring back the SZ line though, one of these with a LP-style bridge would be delightful.
I have been eyeing the S premiums for 3 years now, these look really comfy and light and I love all the specs... Only reason I haven't bought one yet is cause I don't like the colors. Wish they made this in Frank Gamble neon colors.
Yep, when I saw these I did wonder why they haven't pushed the boat out with a few more adventurous colors... maybe they will as and when they have proof that this model/range is selling well... Hope for your sake they do it soon!
I'm so glad to see the S Series getting some love again, it's been a bit forgotten recently, Ive an older RG1070pbz, same spec but on the RG body and a 2009 EGEN18TVF which is really just a S Series... blend the 2, great workhorse
Yes, I totally agree. I must admit that when I was researching this guitar and the S Series in general before making this video, I had no real idea about it - it's definitely way under that radar compared to most other Ibanez models, which is a shame. They are such good guitars in every respect. I like the sound of that RG1070PBZ... will have to search one of those out too at some point! Cheers for watching and rock on 👍
@@RichWordsMusic they used to have a zr trem, no knife edges, it was a ball bearing hinge, it let you adjust the height without slackening strings, sadly a patent claim killed it. The S series is such a comfortable guitar to gig with.
@@Fergieguitar oh.. so that was the reason they don't carry it anymore. I have an old S470 that has the ZR and it is absolutely great holds tune and never have to worry about destroyed knife edges
The S series is my favorite guitar for me and I may end up picking one of these up. I wish they would make these in custom colors. I would love to see this guitar with the blue chameleon finish. Regardless, it looks and plays, phenomenal and definitely going to be picking one up.
Would you be shocked if I told you I never even knew what a flutter was til I researched Floyd Roses while preparing this video? I'm now a convert, by the way 😅 It's a beast of a guitar, I must agree!
i have the same guitar, in blue, i always wanted an s series and since this is the only one that has ss frets i decided on this one, i like it but it has issues, the trem bar comes loose with little use, if your pickup selector is in the middle position the trem bar will hit it, the trem itself doesnt stay in tune any better than the non locking gotoh trem on my japanese AZ 2402 prestige, in fact the AZ is pretty much better in every way than the s, except for the looks, the s is a work of art to look at, and the body shape is beautiful, but as a players guitar, the AZ is far superior
This S1070 is very expensive for a premium model - especially when all I ever read about with Indonesian built guitars is the poor quality control, whether that's strandberg, Ibanez or whoever else. But you're not really comparing like with like. You might be right to suggest, in this case you'd be better finding a prestige that's under £2k and spending the extra money. Most of the time when you compare premium with prestige the price difference is much bigger. The downside with the AZ is the fatter neck, meaning you're unlikely to want an AZ if you're shopping for an S or RG. i.e someone looking at S and RG likely wants one of the 17-19mm wizard necks rather than the 21mm AZ. Unless you really don't care about neck shape and thickness - but, for me, an AZ is not more playable otherwise I'd probably already own one. But yeah, I'll accept that a prestige guitar is better than a premium one - it'd be more newsworthy if that wasn't the case wouldn't it? The bottom line is the Indonesian factory is very good at making shiny pieces of wood that look pretty - and that tends to be reflected in Ibanez's choice of finishes for their premium models (even the premium AZ look prettier than the prestige AZ) But if you want a guitar you want to play rather than look at then getting something made in japan is a better bet, especially where the hardware differs as well as the build quality. The flaw with Ibanez is that there's so much that would be good if they had a prestige version (e.g quest series, this guitar) but they aren't making them. So what does someone who wants a thin neck, thin body buy? And even among AZ guitars I mostly see retailers with stocks of AZS and the AZ that are copying telecaster and strat. The original ones that the Martin Miller sig and Tom Quayle sig were based on seem to have disappeared - plenty of the 'pretty looking' az premiums though. I can find the AZS cheaper than this S1070, a bargain for a prestige model, but I think it suggests that few were interested in a telecaster inspired AZ guitar.
@@michael1 The problems i have with the s series are in the japanese models as well, it is just the general design of it, and i think the 1070 is expensive because of how much work goes into it, the ss frets, the 13 piece neck, the maple top, the reasons why for me the AZ is better than the s are personal, its way more versatile tone wise, in full humbucker mode its negligable which sounds better, but even here the AZ the option to both humbuckers together, where the s doesnt, you can also split the humbuckers seperately where on the s you cant, and the quacky strat sounds sound much better on the AZ to my ears, this could all be fixed with a push pull tone pot though which i will look into for the future, the neck shape is very different on both guitars but i dont have a problem with either one, s long as i can get a reasonably low action i am good to go my hand seems to adapt to any neck shape with a few hours of playing
@@darkestfugue The problem is, all the box ticking, SS frets, looks pretty, wizard neck, maple top etc etc mean nothing when the quality control is so bad. It's like Harley Benton make guitars with SS frets too - stainless steel really isn't something that makes guitars cost £2k any more. It'll soon be standard on every guitar (the only company that needs to switch is Fender - once their mexican factories are creating stainless steel then all the cheaper Charvels et al will have it. Ibanez already have stainless steel on much cheaper guitars than this. Chapman have it. Yamaha have it on their revstar standard. It's not something that doubles the price of a guitar. Similarly they're making the neck out of a lot of pieces here because they have a load of spare scraps of wood lying around - it's not improving the quality - it's a cost saving measure. And more work is meaningless in Indonesia - the whole point about building there is that work costs next to nothing. More work in Japan or the USA costs money. When you build overseas the whole point is to make labour cheap. I wouldn't pay £1500 for this - and I wouldn't buy one anyway because these factories cannot make guitars consistently of good quality. That was almost worth a gamble if you were paying £800 - £1200 rather than £1600-2200, but it's not worth paying £300 less than a prestige version is it? The hardcase you get is probably worth £100-150, so you're talking about spending £150 more in real terms to get a guitar that's going to be built to a higher standard. It's less than you'd pay a luthier or tech to fix your premium when it arrives broken. The bottom line for me is, there's no point making an expensive guitar in Indonesia - you may as well make it in Japan at that point. Even if the quality was identical (which we know it isn't) because no one values a guitar that's made in indonesia but the japanese version will hold its value. You know, Yamaha get that, their revstar standard is £700 or £1700 for a Japanese one. They arguably have significantly better QC in their Indonesian factories than Ibanez so there's very little reason to get the top tier. But if the standard was £1400 and the professional £1700 there'd be no point buying the standard - you'd get the hardcase + japanese build for sure. The whole point about the Indonesian stuff is - it's supposed to be cheap, supposed to be a bargain and this guitar isn't that - and the really annoying thing is there isn't a prestige version to buy. It's like there's some problem preventing Ibanez creating prestige guitars for this year (maybe the last couple of years?) and to counter this they've made premium guitars more expensive, i.e to help their revenues. But every model of premium or quest I look at I just see people receiving junk, broken controls, issues with their neck or trem and so on. I'd be gutted if I paid £1500 for a guitar that arrived broken.
@@michael1 well I don't know what to tell you but my Japanese AZ was certainly far from perfect when I got it, it had a high fret that needed addressing and there was various other niggles, the s series Ii a immaculate, not a single issue with it build wise, so in my experience the premium outshone the prestige, of course not every example is the same, the AZ is still a better guitar though but that's due to the design not where it's built
@@michael1 well I don't know what to tell you but my Japanese AZ was certainly far from perfect when I got it, it had a high fret that needed addressing and there was various other niggles, the s series Ii a immaculate, not a single issue with it build wise, so in my experience the premium outshone the prestige, of course not every example is the same, the AZ is still a better guitar though but that's due to the design not where it's built
I just bought one, it's my first Ibanez and it's my first floating trem (I'm a bit intimidated by that as well honestly). It’s still in the mail and I'm a bit worried if I’ll like it or not.. I have 30 days to like it and I'm a bit worried that I should have went with the RG but we shall see how it goes! I'm worried about it being to thin and having no place to rest my arm.. Did you have any issues with that? I have played a Jiva before about a year ago and I really liked it, I don't remember having any problems. Also, This guitar matches you well and looks good on you! It looked like it was made for you lol
Oh, nice! Hope you love it and bond with it straight away when you get it. If you had a Jiva and enjoyed that I think you'll be totally at home with the S1070 body straight away. Despite being really thin it is extremely comfortable. The design is super ergonomic... the guitar just sort of meshes with your body straight away. It's like the opposite of my beloved, sharp-edged Tele 😉 To be honest, I think I could grow to love the Edge Zero II... I mean, it will certainly take some getting used to, and I got scared just watching videos on how to tune the guitar, but I reckon that once you 'get' it, it becomes second nature. Still, definitely a lot more work than with a standard guitar - and although part of the reason for having a locking trem/nut is so it WON'T go out of tune, this one did after I gave the bar a bit of a hammering. I say give it your best shot and you'll know well before the 30 days are you whether you want to keep it. It's a wonderful sounding and playing guitar, so I think you may just! I agree with what you say about me too, by the way... I was super surprised at how well the S1070 fits me, despite on paper not being my thing at all! Cheers for watching, and let me know what you think once you've tried the guitar for yourself!
@@RichWordsMusicI absolutely loved the guitar, but unfortunately, I can't stand how much work has to go into the Floyd Rose style Tremolo, so I'm returning it. I spent more time messing with it and being frustrated trying to tune it than actually playing it. After I actually got it perfectly in tune and balanced, a string broke.. I was done... If it had a regular tremolo or a hartail It would have been perfect. I might look into a cheaper Hardtail S series guitar, or something else entirely. Very disappointed, because everything else I really loved!
@@SingPsalms Or just learn how to set up a double locking trem. You'll have a killer design, and another skill in your arsenal. It's really not that hard.
I've got some Premium timestamps for you this week:
00:00 Hello!
00:21 Introduction to the Ibanez S1070PBZ
01:40 Specs and info
06:10 Today’s rig and plan
Clean Sounds
07:26 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
07:48 Funk rhythms
08:00 Ringing open indie pop chords
08:13 Neo soul pop riff
08:33 Strummed country chords
08:53 Ascending droning indie chords
09:06 Soul rhythms
09:18 Poppy barre chords
09:33 60s rock rhythms
10:02 Blues progression
10:13 Cowboy chords/tone control test
11:08 Strummed folk pop chords
Overdriven Sounds
11:24 Fat indie rock rhythm chords
11:55 Choppy barre chords
12:04 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
12:19 Southern rock picked arpeggios
12:49 Upbeat indie barre chords
13:13 Volume control roll off test
13:33 Garage rock riff
13:50 Descending barre chords
13:56 Indie octave chords
14:22 AC/DC inspired riff
14:37 Airbourne inspired rock riff
14:48 Quacky rock riff
14:57 Groovy classic rock riff
15:12 Driving rock riff
15:26 Classic rock riff
15:38 Hendrix inspired riff
16:02 Classic rock rhythms
Higher gain drive sounds
16:20 80s rock riff
16:42 Van Halen inspired rock riff
17:03 Classic hard rock riff
17:21 ZZ Top inspired riff
17:31 Hard rock riff
17:48 Melodic hard rock lead
18:09 Glam rock riff
18:31 Alternative rock riff
18:54 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
19:07 Pop punk melodic lead riff
19:23 Pop punk riff
19:36 Punk rock power chords
19:49 Less Than Jake inspired punk riff
20:00 Progressive rock riff
20:16 Modern rock palm-muted chords
Heavy Distortion sounds
20:43 Arena glam rock riff
21:06 Metal chugging riff
21:24 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
21:36 Heavy metal lead sound
21:53 Hardcore punk breakdown
22:09 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
22:22 Slayer inspired thrash riff
22:32 Hardcore punk riff
22:44 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff
23:26 My thoughts
24:58 First impressions and looks
25:39 Weight and balance
25:58 Build quality and hardware
27:09 Playability and neck
28:07 Sounds and pickups discussion
30:25 What I don’t like so much… yet?
31:15 I discovered a new tuning by mistake
32:44 What other similar guitars are out there?
34:16 My conclusions on the Ibanez S1070PBZ and why you should buy it
LAZY is one thing you are not, sir. This was the most thorough tone review I have EVER seen. (And trem systems aren't for everyone). Thank you for your time!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed the vid... and yes, I agree. I love the idea of having a guitar with a trem like this, but not the work it can sometimes entail. My Tele is just so easy to get on with ;) Cheers for watching and rock on!
came for the guitar, stayed for your playing
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed the riffs!
Hey mate. Just come across this review, as I'm looking exactly for this guitar. This review was comprehensive and easy to follow. Great job.
Hey there, thanks a lot! Glad you found the vid useful and I hope you get to try one of these soon. It's a super fun guitar, great to play and sounds awesome!
good to see the S-series is back again in the lineup of ibanez
Agreed, they're so underrated!
I ordered this guitar on blue last night. My first guitar back in 1985 had a Floyd Rose double locking tremolo system. They have their pros and cons. When properly set up they will not go out of tune using the bar. The only draw back is it’s more time consuming to change tunings - especially if the bridge is floating.
I think the S Series is making a comeback in recent years as the fancy woods and finishes are unique and different. Its perhaps the lightest guitar ever with the Gibson SG. If you don't like the thicker heavier RG body or Jems then the S is the one. The only thing I don't like is the pickups. The Air Norton has too much bass and the Tone Zone is midrangy and there are better Dimarzios like Super Distortion, Fred or Evolutions.. The balance is good though in volume as the Blue Velvet is a louder single coil than usual although trebly.
I definitely think this is a good point - and more and more players I know seem to be going for lighter, easier to play guitars. So something like the S Series is ideal (they're less prone to neck dive than something like an SG too!). I really liked the pickups in this one, but I know what you mean... I think there's different options in the range, though, and hopefully Ibanez builds it out even more this year!
I approve of this one, feel free to pop it in the post when you're done with it mate 😉
Do wish that Ibanez would bring back the SZ line though, one of these with a LP-style bridge would be delightful.
Ha ha, I'll see what I can do 😉 I'd also love to try one of these with a fixed bridge... I'm still intimidated by the Edge Zero!
Excellent review!
Cheers, glad you enjoyed it!
THANX for another of your exceedingly thorough reviews.
And thank you for watching! As long as you guys enjoy them (and I do too) I'll keep doing them if I can 👍
Again ... an EXCELLENT review on your part!!!
Thanks so much, really glad you enjoyed this one too!
i have one in white and its been my go to since
Lovely guitars indeed! I'm not cool enough to rock a white one though ;)
I have been eyeing the S premiums for 3 years now, these look really comfy and light and I love all the specs... Only reason I haven't bought one yet is cause I don't like the colors. Wish they made this in Frank Gamble neon colors.
Yep, when I saw these I did wonder why they haven't pushed the boat out with a few more adventurous colors... maybe they will as and when they have proof that this model/range is selling well... Hope for your sake they do it soon!
@@RichWordsMusic while we are on the topic of Sabre series... Just picked up an older S series bass MIJ!
Pretty guitar, too!
Oh yeah, it's a stunner! When you turn it around in the light you see how complex and changing the top is too...
I'm so glad to see the S Series getting some love again, it's been a bit forgotten recently, Ive an older RG1070pbz, same spec but on the RG body and a 2009 EGEN18TVF which is really just a S Series... blend the 2, great workhorse
Yes, I totally agree. I must admit that when I was researching this guitar and the S Series in general before making this video, I had no real idea about it - it's definitely way under that radar compared to most other Ibanez models, which is a shame. They are such good guitars in every respect. I like the sound of that RG1070PBZ... will have to search one of those out too at some point! Cheers for watching and rock on 👍
@@RichWordsMusic they used to have a zr trem, no knife edges, it was a ball bearing hinge, it let you adjust the height without slackening strings, sadly a patent claim killed it. The S series is such a comfortable guitar to gig with.
@@Fergieguitar oh.. so that was the reason they don't carry it anymore. I have an old S470 that has the ZR and it is absolutely great holds tune and never have to worry about destroyed knife edges
@@KimmyR3 yep, It's a loss to guitar players. I had one and sold it with the plan to get a Japanese made one with the same trem...then they vanished.
@@Fergieguitar yeah, sad they're gone. mine's kinda beat up (bought it 2nd hand) and been looking for ZR parts for ages to no avail.
The S series is my favorite guitar for me and I may end up picking one of these up. I wish they would make these in custom colors. I would love to see this guitar with the blue chameleon finish. Regardless, it looks and plays, phenomenal and definitely going to be picking one up.
ibanez is very good at multipurpose a humbucker and some combo get quite stratty i like the quantum alnico 5 they make
Yep, you can play anything with this one guitar! So it's a great choice if you're after a single workhorse for every style.
Ibanez 🙌 FTW! Mmmm soo smooth
Embrace the fully locking free floating trem. I gotta have my flutters!!
Would you be shocked if I told you I never even knew what a flutter was til I researched Floyd Roses while preparing this video? I'm now a convert, by the way 😅 It's a beast of a guitar, I must agree!
Very nice guitar from Ibanez. Greetings Pavel CZ.👍👍👍
It is indeed, cheers Pavel!
Wow..Made in Indonesia..
Is that a bad thing? I've never played an indonesian guitar so I'm curious
A great guitar.
It is indeed!
i have the same guitar, in blue, i always wanted an s series and since this is the only one that has ss frets i decided on this one, i like it but it has issues, the trem bar comes loose with little use, if your pickup selector is in the middle position the trem bar will hit it, the trem itself doesnt stay in tune any better than the non locking gotoh trem on my japanese AZ 2402 prestige, in fact the AZ is pretty much better in every way than the s, except for the looks, the s is a work of art to look at, and the body shape is beautiful, but as a players guitar, the AZ is far superior
This S1070 is very expensive for a premium model - especially when all I ever read about with Indonesian built guitars is the poor quality control, whether that's strandberg, Ibanez or whoever else. But you're not really comparing like with like. You might be right to suggest, in this case you'd be better finding a prestige that's under £2k and spending the extra money.
Most of the time when you compare premium with prestige the price difference is much bigger. The downside with the AZ is the fatter neck, meaning you're unlikely to want an AZ if you're shopping for an S or RG. i.e someone looking at S and RG likely wants one of the 17-19mm wizard necks rather than the 21mm AZ. Unless you really don't care about neck shape and thickness - but, for me, an AZ is not more playable otherwise I'd probably already own one. But yeah, I'll accept that a prestige guitar is better than a premium one - it'd be more newsworthy if that wasn't the case wouldn't it?
The bottom line is the Indonesian factory is very good at making shiny pieces of wood that look pretty - and that tends to be reflected in Ibanez's choice of finishes for their premium models (even the premium AZ look prettier than the prestige AZ) But if you want a guitar you want to play rather than look at then getting something made in japan is a better bet, especially where the hardware differs as well as the build quality. The flaw with Ibanez is that there's so much that would be good if they had a prestige version (e.g quest series, this guitar) but they aren't making them. So what does someone who wants a thin neck, thin body buy? And even among AZ guitars I mostly see retailers with stocks of AZS and the AZ that are copying telecaster and strat. The original ones that the Martin Miller sig and Tom Quayle sig were based on seem to have disappeared - plenty of the 'pretty looking' az premiums though. I can find the AZS cheaper than this S1070, a bargain for a prestige model, but I think it suggests that few were interested in a telecaster inspired AZ guitar.
@@michael1 The problems i have with the s series are in the japanese models as well, it is just the general design of it, and i think the 1070 is expensive because of how much work goes into it, the ss frets, the 13 piece neck, the maple top, the reasons why for me the AZ is better than the s are personal, its way more versatile tone wise, in full humbucker mode its negligable which sounds better, but even here the AZ the option to both humbuckers together, where the s doesnt, you can also split the humbuckers seperately where on the s you cant, and the quacky strat sounds sound much better on the AZ to my ears, this could all be fixed with a push pull tone pot though which i will look into for the future, the neck shape is very different on both guitars but i dont have a problem with either one, s long as i can get a reasonably low action i am good to go my hand seems to adapt to any neck shape with a few hours of playing
@@darkestfugue The problem is, all the box ticking, SS frets, looks pretty, wizard neck, maple top etc etc mean nothing when the quality control is so bad. It's like Harley Benton make guitars with SS frets too - stainless steel really isn't something that makes guitars cost £2k any more. It'll soon be standard on every guitar (the only company that needs to switch is Fender - once their mexican factories are creating stainless steel then all the cheaper Charvels et al will have it. Ibanez already have stainless steel on much cheaper guitars than this. Chapman have it. Yamaha have it on their revstar standard. It's not something that doubles the price of a guitar.
Similarly they're making the neck out of a lot of pieces here because they have a load of spare scraps of wood lying around - it's not improving the quality - it's a cost saving measure.
And more work is meaningless in Indonesia - the whole point about building there is that work costs next to nothing. More work in Japan or the USA costs money. When you build overseas the whole point is to make labour cheap.
I wouldn't pay £1500 for this - and I wouldn't buy one anyway because these factories cannot make guitars consistently of good quality. That was almost worth a gamble if you were paying £800 - £1200 rather than £1600-2200, but it's not worth paying £300 less than a prestige version is it? The hardcase you get is probably worth £100-150, so you're talking about spending £150 more in real terms to get a guitar that's going to be built to a higher standard. It's less than you'd pay a luthier or tech to fix your premium when it arrives broken.
The bottom line for me is, there's no point making an expensive guitar in Indonesia - you may as well make it in Japan at that point. Even if the quality was identical (which we know it isn't) because no one values a guitar that's made in indonesia but the japanese version will hold its value.
You know, Yamaha get that, their revstar standard is £700 or £1700 for a Japanese one. They arguably have significantly better QC in their Indonesian factories than Ibanez so there's very little reason to get the top tier. But if the standard was £1400 and the professional £1700 there'd be no point buying the standard - you'd get the hardcase + japanese build for sure.
The whole point about the Indonesian stuff is - it's supposed to be cheap, supposed to be a bargain and this guitar isn't that - and the really annoying thing is there isn't a prestige version to buy.
It's like there's some problem preventing Ibanez creating prestige guitars for this year (maybe the last couple of years?) and to counter this they've made premium guitars more expensive, i.e to help their revenues. But every model of premium or quest I look at I just see people receiving junk, broken controls, issues with their neck or trem and so on. I'd be gutted if I paid £1500 for a guitar that arrived broken.
@@michael1 well I don't know what to tell you but my Japanese AZ was certainly far from perfect when I got it, it had a high fret that needed addressing and there was various other niggles, the s series Ii a immaculate, not a single issue with it build wise, so in my experience the premium outshone the prestige, of course not every example is the same, the AZ is still a better guitar though but that's due to the design not where it's built
@@michael1 well I don't know what to tell you but my Japanese AZ was certainly far from perfect when I got it, it had a high fret that needed addressing and there was various other niggles, the s series Ii a immaculate, not a single issue with it build wise, so in my experience the premium outshone the prestige, of course not every example is the same, the AZ is still a better guitar though but that's due to the design not where it's built
I just bought one, it's my first Ibanez and it's my first floating trem (I'm a bit intimidated by that as well honestly). It’s still in the mail and I'm a bit worried if I’ll like it or not.. I have 30 days to like it and I'm a bit worried that I should have went with the RG but we shall see how it goes!
I'm worried about it being to thin and having no place to rest my arm.. Did you have any issues with that? I have played a Jiva before about a year ago and I really liked it, I don't remember having any problems.
Also, This guitar matches you well and looks good on you! It looked like it was made for you lol
Oh, nice! Hope you love it and bond with it straight away when you get it. If you had a Jiva and enjoyed that I think you'll be totally at home with the S1070 body straight away. Despite being really thin it is extremely comfortable. The design is super ergonomic... the guitar just sort of meshes with your body straight away. It's like the opposite of my beloved, sharp-edged Tele 😉
To be honest, I think I could grow to love the Edge Zero II... I mean, it will certainly take some getting used to, and I got scared just watching videos on how to tune the guitar, but I reckon that once you 'get' it, it becomes second nature. Still, definitely a lot more work than with a standard guitar - and although part of the reason for having a locking trem/nut is so it WON'T go out of tune, this one did after I gave the bar a bit of a hammering.
I say give it your best shot and you'll know well before the 30 days are you whether you want to keep it. It's a wonderful sounding and playing guitar, so I think you may just! I agree with what you say about me too, by the way... I was super surprised at how well the S1070 fits me, despite on paper not being my thing at all! Cheers for watching, and let me know what you think once you've tried the guitar for yourself!
@@RichWordsMusicI absolutely loved the guitar, but unfortunately, I can't stand how much work has to go into the Floyd Rose style Tremolo, so I'm returning it.
I spent more time messing with it and being frustrated trying to tune it than actually playing it. After I actually got it perfectly in tune and balanced, a string broke.. I was done... If it had a regular tremolo or a hartail It would have been perfect.
I might look into a cheaper Hardtail S series guitar, or something else entirely. Very disappointed, because everything else I really loved!
@@SingPsalms Or just learn how to set up a double locking trem. You'll have a killer design, and another skill in your arsenal. It's really not that hard.
@@alementary4065 I actually returned it and got a very nice Fender MIJ.. I might try it again a another time. I think I could figure it out now.
like it
Awesome, thanks for watching!
Isnt there a massive finish blemish on the lower side binding .?
I didn't remember this but I just looked at the pics I took of the guitar and it's a knot in the wood...