Ibanez 540R

My 540R is a custom made guitar made for me in 1990 by Ibanez USA North Hollywood CA. 22 frets and solid top, 5 poss. selector, volume & tone, PAF, SDS1, SUPER DIST, DiMarzio originals, passive electronics, rosewood figerboard, solid black satin body, with the satriani ergonomic shape, original Floyd Rose, sperzel tuners locking, jumbo frets rosewood, solid prestige case.

Rock, Ballads, Pop.
2 Bandit Peavey 100 watts each, ART SGX 2000 Express, DBX Compressor, DBX Graphic EQ, DBX Aural FX, ART X-15 footswitch.
Not noisy at all.
Very rich full sound.
The sounds depends on my processing configurations... very extense variety.
I should made it with 24 frets.

The action I??m the one who set it up. I use it higher than normal.
The pickups also was me who adjust them.

if perfection exist... this guitar was perfect.

I use my 540R for my performances on stage... also my Prestige. but the 540R is more versatile cuz can be a mellow guitar... not the Prestige.
still like new after more than 17 years running.

I got my Prestige... but not for backup... just for heaviest sound... Seymour Duncan configuration.

very friendly.

??till now, no repairs.

I guess after 18 years, there??s none.

I??ve been playing for over 30 years... and that??s my main gear, dont need another yet!

i??ve been tempted to get a Parker guitar... but not decided.

Ibanez is more versatile than other guitars.

24 frets.

I think these were made in Japan. 22 frets, rosewood fingerboard, basswood body, Ibanez tremelo licenced under floyd rose, 5-way selector. Pick-ups are 'ibz' which are made by DiMarzio for Ibanez in a S/S/H configuration (C1/C1/F1). One tone & one volume control.

First let me give my set-up: 540R or les paul standard or SG>wah>Mesa 100 watt 3 channel Nomad>with chorus and delay in effects loop. I like to keep it simple and this set-up rocks! I bought this guitar new in 1989. I can remember wanting a JS series guitar and the shop owner showed me the 540R for about half the price. Pretty much the same materials of construction (except for the pickups) and body shape. I played it and it sounded great in the shop so I bought it. Now being the only owner of this guitar for 15+ years I can say it has been a great buy for me. This thing STAYS IN TUNE. I MEAN REMAINS IN TUNE. I have dive bombed this thing to hell put it in it's case for a year took it out and it still was in tune! I have used this guitar in a cover band and it has done everything I have asked from it. It sounds great for rock, blues and most metal. Sounds great on Satriani songs too! These pickups are very good (not the best) and with the 5-way selector you can get a variety of sounds. If you keep new strings on it -- you'll be fine.

The Guitar shop made sure it was set up when I bought it. In 15 years I had it set up 4 more times. I like these IBZ pickups and the best quality this guitar has is it's ability to stay in tune. The paint job in quality too. Mine is Jewel Blue.

I play it in a cover band and it delivers for me. Twice I was going to sell this guitar to get something more glamorous 'With a Name' and twice I turned down the deal. I cannot bring myself to sell this thing. It is a guitar that has grown on me and I appreciate it for what it does even though it is not as popular as say a JS or JEM.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing for 30+ years have owned gibsons, Ibanez's, B.C. Rich's, Fenders ... you get the picture. This is a very versitile guitar and for the money a fantasitc value. There are better -- but not a whole lot better (be ready to drop 1 or 2 grand) and personal taste comes into play when selecting a guitar. This is a good rock guitar that stays in tune and those who play live know that not having to worry about your guitar being in tune is a huge benifit!

Made in Japan, 1990. IBZ USA pickups, manufactured by DiMarzio (F1 humbucker/bridge (today known as PAF Pro), C1 single coil/middle, neck), 5-way selector switch, Original Edge trem, basswood body (?), rosewood fingerboard, 22 jumbo frets with standard dot inlays, fast'n smooth natural neck, finish: Jewel Blue. I've had this guitar for a few months.

I play several styles of metal: prog/thrash/death, and also some other stuff like jazz/prog/shred. This guitar can handle them all. The bridge pickup (IBZ USA F1) sounds amazing, but I'm going to try a Steve's Special soon simply because I think it would suit me better, nothing wrong with the F1 though. It's a great pickup, good for shred and riffage. The single coils in middle and neck (C1) have the MOST PERFECT CLEAN tone! It's very "soft" and pretty quiet, chords sound almost acoustic... Good for soloing too, flip the lead channel on your amp on and you can play Malmsteen-ish stuff also. You get this cool scooped tone in the neck position. I think with the Steve's special in the bridge the sound would be 10. Oh and my amp is an ENGL Powerball 100w + ENGL cab loaded with Celestion Vintage 30's.

I wouldn't know about the set-up, but everything is high quality.

Looks sturdy as fuck. It's almost 16 years old and the finish is nearly flawless. There's only 1 scratch in the back and one microscopic one on the front. I've seen five year old Ibanezes with five times more worn finish. Solid strap buttons, hold the strap very well. But still, Dunlop strap-loks are the way to go in my opinion. The Original Edge trem kicks ass! Stays in tune, even after hard use. It's as good as an original floyd. And it blows any newer Ibanez trem away (Lo-pro edge, Edge pro).

Again, I wouldn't know. This is pretty irrelevant to me.

Been playing for about four years. I know, it's not much but I know A LOT about gear by now.. To sum it up this is an amazing instrument (I would probably cry if it was stolen).

I have a custom version circa 1986 ?
White with conal knobs, and 2 No IBZ USA C1 single coils and 1 No IBZ USA F1 mother at the bridge, all passive.
Plus usual stuff for 540R.

I like Satriani style so this suits me fine , but it is also the most fantastic blues guitar sounding nothing like you would think, having the most sluriest sweet expresive tone Ive ever heard, knocks my USA strat dead for expression.

The neck is perfect, thin like an old fender and Ibanez wizard feel and speed.
Action can be set to as low as you dare.
Finish is JS style , very modern - I like it.

Selector switch is 100% quality.
Very reliable to date but would not take a beating like a strat or Les Paul, but it would not sound so alive if was build like them.

Never had the need to contact any support.

Been playing 35 years and have had most of the classic guitars and equipment. To date no other guitar to me has sounded this good but not just any old setup will do it demands a particular one and if you dont get it its just another guitar maybe a bit tinny and cheap sounding, but set it up right simular to a strat with tasty overdrive/compressor through a classic valve setup and there is nothing to touch it in my opion, sounds even better when using smaller size speckers like 8/10 inch. If you come across one and you plug it stright into an amp without some toys, it ok ish, but spend half an hour with a processor and a driving amp and you'll love it.
Believe or not when playing Jazz I put my Gibson away and set the 540r to neck pickup and fat setup and the string definition is stunning, Great Guitar, a masterpiece in my opinion. You can get these for as little as #400.00 !! They were cica #1200.00 new.

i bought it in ebay(GXR370).
-22 frets
-2 knobs (volume, tone)
-5way pick up selector
-Edge III bridge
-allen wrench
-guitar case

My music is progressive metal, and one thing i notice is its very hard to do sweeping arpeggios and picking stuff......

mine was second hand, so a couple of scratches on the back. the action was bad, but a little adjustment would the trick. great thing
about this guitar it never goes out of tune. the only thing i hate in this axe is its neck, the fucking thing is fat!

well actually i dont use this guitar when gigging, i use my rg
the reason i bought this guitar is i collect old ibanez guitars. in the past this guitar was named 540r, and know GXR370
( http://www.ibanez.co.jp/world/country/frame_philippines.html )

ive been playing for 8 years, i own several types of RG and a couple
of RG PRESTIGE. IF YOUR GOING TO BUY THIS GUITAR OR ANY GUITAR WITH
A FLOYD ROSE, FAMALIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE BRIDGE!!

This is the radius body shape that became the Satriani model in '93. Basswood body with a H-S-S pickup configuration. IBZ/USA C1 stacked hum canceling "single coil" in the neck & middle positions. IBZ/USA F1 humbucker in the bridge position. Lo Pro Edge Floyd licensed double locking tremolo. 1 vol, 1 tone. 5-way PU selector switch. Input jack on the side. Maple neck w/ 22 fret rosewood board w/ dot inlays. "Custom Made" is written between the 20th & 21st frets. Headstock is angled back, unlike the straight headstock on the Satriani. Conventional square heel with mounting plate (they switched to the "all access" neck joint the following year.

I play a variety of styles including fusion, funk & jazz. This guitar covers rock funk and fusion sounds very well. The F1 is described as a "responsive, versitile humbucker with warm, classic tone and added output". The C1 is a "vertical humbucker with traditional single coil sound but without the noise". The setup is quite versitile - the 5-way switching in conjunction with the tone control can yield all sorts of useful sounds. The bridge PU delivers a typical slightly hot PAF solidbody tone - rich and singing with some bright harmonic overtones. I doesn't quite have that midrangey, mellow tone that I like, but it is still quite pleasing. The single coils give you typical bright strat like sound with absolutely no hum. The neck is good for clean shimmering chord work. You can even approach a passable jazz tone by rolling off the tone. The middle position fakes a decent strat tone, and the bridge middle position, which combined 1 coil of the humbucker with the middle PU gets a very nice jangley strat "in-between" tone, with a slight amount of hum. This position is one of my favorites - its a good honest overdriven tone. The bridge tone gets a little to much of that slick '80s zingy sound sometimes (think Van Halen or Santana). It actually comes pretty close to Gambale's sound. I will attempt to remedy this with an aftermarket PU. Aside from the PUs, the inherent tone of the guitar is very pleasing, And I like it more than the sound of the Sabre.

The greatest thing about this guitar is the body shape. I think this is the most playable, ergonomic, comfortable guitar ever made. It is small, and very well contoured. The airfoil shape tucks right in under your forearm with no sharp edges like a LP or even a Sabre. It's almost a shame that this has become the Satriani model, because that endorsement might scare less radical guitarists away. This is just a great playable guitar. The build quality is typical '80s Japanese made Ibanez: very good. The finish is thick, hard and mirror smooth, the neck is fast, straight and stable. It's impossible to tell what the original factory setup was like, but the setup is good for a 10 year old guitar, but could probably use a tune-up. The action is not as low as I'd like, but a good fret dressing could fix this. It is very easy to bend notes on this guitar, but I don't find it to be nearly as fast to play as a fixed bridge guitar - this could just be the nature of a floating trem setup.

This guitar does feel very solid. More solid than either of the Sabres I've owned (one Korean, one Japanese). The Sabres somehow feel a bit flimsy in comparison. The Lo Pro Edge bridge is one of the best - you can abuse it and wail on it all you want, and it doesn't complain. The paint is tough and trick - I buffed it out with polishing compound and it looks like new. This is a good rugged players guitar.

Ibanez actually responds to customer service calls, but they know very little about their older guitars which are not being produced today.

I bought this because I wanted a basic whammy equipped guitar to compliment my fixed bridge guitars. It is very well suited to overdriven lead style rock/blues - I use it for fusion. At the moment, it's my number one. I'm still not in love with the Floyd style bridge, I think that a they are best suited to radical, dive-bomb style playing, and a traditional vibrato is better for the subtile embellishment that I use it for- this is personal preference, but worth mentioning I think - a Floyd is not always the best choice. Some Radius guitars came equipped with a tremsetter, maybe this is my solution. I will also be experimenting with pickups, but the stock PUs are an excellent pro level setup. All in all, I'd compare this to a guitar costing $1000 or more new. This is very attractive, considering you can pick up a radius for a quarter of that price. This is still one of the bargains in the "vintage" Ibanez line - it has not yet become collectable like the Artists and Artstars.