Ibanez 3120TW

You've heard it all before, most notable features are:
1. Ibanez "The Edge" trem
2. Evolution Pickups

Ibanez Lo Pro Edge Floyd Rose:
I have 4 Ibanez guitar & 2 spare Whammy's "the Edge" (version 3 of their killer trems) is the worst piece of shit Trem I have ever hard. I've gone through 2 try to keep this guitar in tune & bar no - these trems suck. They look so good! but they're SHIT! My guitar guitar has worked on Briam Mays & GN'R's guitars & he just could get it to stay. A fully qualified Fender, & Maton Tech!! - I mean, if can???t make it right mere mortal twats like me have no show!

Anyway - replay it with the Edge Trem, or Edge Trem Pro - problem solved;


The EVO pickups are not bad. Better than I thought.

Slightly above vanilla
But that's why you buy it - It's humbuckers in a 24" length??? I designed fort comfort & speed. Nice Mahog bod, maple cap but still - the smick tone is amp generated with this axe

Killer. Well crafted. No plastic. Great work. very tactile
Liquid Shred - & easy on the eye. I have two 58 reissue Les Pauls - & this flame is as good as theirs for less than half the price & better built & finished. Better wood to do a density/humidity & "ping" test. SUPERIOR!

Tough toy - Bar that f***ed whammy sheit! So dissapointing.

Who needs it! If it was fucked when I bought it - I would have taken it back. If I broke it after - then tough. Ibanez like all US companies don't support anything outside the US of A. Apprently the other 5.95 billion of us dont' exist

18 years a playing - a FEW cd's countless shows. 12 amps 10 guitars I build play & repair guitar & amps. I love Ibanez & get constant s**t for it - considering most of my amps are tube, I build tube amps & have Gibbo's, Ric's & Fenders - I still love a tough, fluid, spikey killer f***ing shred guitar - & they are great.

Nice all round sound - even if a bit vanilla, comfortable - forgiving & for ever giving. I still my first ever serious axe - an 1991 RG550 with a huge spilt behind the nut - & I have dropped it 3 times from height & that spilt ha not moved - that is quality.

The best of the 80's & 90's guitars bar none. Japanse Craftmanship well defined & presented

This one how ever - I wouldn't replace if stolen. It's had less than 6 hrs playing & I'm prepared to sell it... along with my strat, my seven string & bass. It just gets no air time & i'm getting old & should stop hording gear. NO other reason.

-Made in 2002
-24 frets
-Mahogany body with flame maple top
-1 Volume 1 Tone and 5 position switch
-DiMarzio Tone Zone in the bridge and PAF Pro in the neck (Passive)
-Maple neck and Rosewood fingerboard
-Flame maple top in twilight blue finish
-RG body style
-Ibanez Lo Pro Edge Floyd Rose
-Non locking tuners
-25.5" scale

-This guitar suits my musical style perfectly (shred, prog metal)
-I'm using this with my Carvin X100B and Rocktron Intellifex
-The guitar is DEAD quite. Every thing seems to be shielded extremely well.
-The sound is warm and lush with a great percussive spank from the maple top. The pickups are extremely versatile. I can get anything from warm jazz with the neck pickup to raging metal with the bridge pickup. There are some nice parallel and split coil options as well.
-The pickup combination is very good. The guitar can work for may different styles. They pickups are hot enough to do metal, but are not distortion pickups.

-The guitar had an awful setup. The action was extremely high.
-The pickups were not properly adjusted either. They had to be raised up a bit.
-The finish and fretwork was top-notch. You can feel that this is an expensive guitar. It just looks and feels superb.

After I had it setup professionally, it was absolutely fantastic. One of the best guitars I've every played.

I give it a 9 for finish and fit and a 4 for action and setup.

-The guitar is absolutely gorgeous. I pamper it like I do with all my guitars.
-The Lo Pro Edge is very solid and awesome for any whammy action. It stays in tune perfectly. Even with some violent tremelo stuff.
-The finish is very thick and perfectly polished. Awesome finish.

Never dealt with them

I've owned this guitar for 6 months now and its a great instrument. It feels like a guitar of its list price ($1499). Its definitely a quality ax.

I love the tone and its versatility. I love the hardware. I love its look and playbility. The oiled neck is extremely comfortable. The necks shape fits my hands better than my Jacksons. Jacksons tend to run wide. I have small hands and the narrower neck in the 3120 works very well for me.

All in all I find it comparable to a USA Jackson. Its roughly of the same quality as my USA Jacksons. The difference was the setup. USA Jacksons come with impeccable setups while this one was really lousy. The setup is really the only gripe I have with this guitar.

You can go to the Ibanez website to see this model and features, so I'll go into the pros and cons below(after all, that's what forums are all about..).

I play all styles and this guitar covers them well. For a two humbucker guitar, it is extremely versatile. Individual tastes vary depending on the gear you run it thru, so of course this is subjective. As a reference for you, I run it thru a Marshall JMP-1, Korg A-1, and a Marshall 9100 power amp into a Marshall 1960 Vintage 4-12 slant in stereo. You'd need a strat to get an authentic strat sound, but the 2nd position is convincing. The 3rd position and 4th can get an almost "telelike" tone when played clean with a little extra growl. The 1st and 5th positions are full series. The 4th is the neck pickup paralell. The middle three positions sounds very fendery. I like the Tone Zone in the bridge position. It sounds great with full on distortion, but using lighter overdrive this pickup gets a great Steeley Dan/Carlton tone.

The neck pickup is the PAF Pro. To my ears it sounds a bit too brittle and sterile next to the Tone Zone. The PAF Pro is not in my opinion, a good match for this guitar. I figure the trade off that Ibanez was trying to work out is the ability of the guitar to be able to reproduce straty blues tones as well as sparkling clean which this does well. Dimarzio suggests an Air Norton neck pickup paired with the Tone Zone in the bridge for better balance. I may replace the PAF Pro with one and if I do I'll keep you posted.

I tried three of them and picked the one that appealed to me. The maple top was perfectly bookmatched, but the grain patterns were wierd and haloed in a concentric circle. But as I am a little on the wierd side as well, It suits me. The top should have been rejected and I'm surprised that it passed inspection.

The side position neck markers could stand to be larger and almost dissappear on a darkened stage. The fretboard dots are dark and are of no use for visual reference. I had the side dots redone by a luthier.

But aside from that, the fit and finish of this guitar is superb.

It has served me well so far. I've had it one year. No major complaints.

I have been playing for 20 years. I played Ibanez Roadstars in the 80's and loved the necks (nice and flat, great action). Since then I have played a few different brands due to the fact that in the late 80's early 90's, The RG series had bad necks and I couldn't rely on them. I was pleased to see that they have gotten much better.

The biggest gripe I have with Ibanez is that SHITTY TREMELO ARM!!!!
What were they thinking? Nylon washers? They have been using the same lousy system since they started with floyd rose type locking trems. I have to put superglue on the outside of the washer and sand it smooth just so it is tight enough to stay where you leave it and not flop all over the place. replacing them is only good for a week of heavy use, and then it is loose again. They should use the finger tightened style or the G+L style arm system. Very simple, and bulletproof. They redesigned the system for a lower profile(well thought out), but kept the same flawed arm (oh well)......

I normally take a new guitar and have my luthier paint the cavities to reduce noise and this one was noisier then most. I know that it is labor intensive, but this should be done to all guitars. It make a HUGE difference.

I would definately buy another one but would probably order one from the custom shop to rectify the problems. In the long run, It would have been cheaper to do so. Given the playability and sound of this guitar, it's worth it.

Check out the other reviews for info on this...

The guitar itself sounds really good... Idon't like the combination of its woods and pickups. I think that ibanez didn't want to release a real rock guitar and found hotter combinations to be too much. The way I see it, the tone zone is muddy. Maybe this is due to the mahogany body. I think Ibanez should have chosen more of a treblier pickup to go along with this kinda wood. The paf pro I don't like either, sounds to thin for my taste. It feels like you are always short on tone and sustain, dunno why. For me, this guitar really started to shine when I changed its pickups for hotter, heavier ones. I put the X2N (oh my god...) on the bridge position and the SUPER2 (orgasm...) on neck. With such hot pickups, both trebly, the guitar sound jumps at you and you can really hear how the electronics and the woods interact to achieve an overall incredible sound. I'd say these pickups are the perfect choice for this guitar. After all, the RG is and should be a high energy guitar, right??

Really good guitar. Could be better in some aspects, such as pickups and woods, but that would be a custom guitar, and you would have to pay twice as much. Great value for the price...