Ibanez Musician

Bought it used, I think it was built in the early 80's, Japan. Well, it's Ibanez... 24 frets, rosewood fingerboard. 2 humbuckers, 2x vol., 2x tone. 3 -way selector. Passive electronics, original mics, I think. I don't know about the neck or the body woods, it's pretty light though.

I play hard rock and heavy metal. Ibanez Musicians works for me perfectly! I use Peavey TKO (bass amp, I know..) and a Johnson JT50 Mirage. Musician is not noisy in any way, i think. The sound is clear and strong and I like it very much. It could have sharper, edgier attack when muted with my palm, but otherwise, I really like it soundwise. I'm thinking of replacing the bridge mic to a screamin' demon or some other heeevimeeetaal -mic.

Like I said, bought it used. But even as it is almost 20 years old, it still looks as if it was built yesterday! The only thing that bothers me is that the volumeknobs seem to work "on/off". There's nothin in between, so changing from heavy, distorted sound to a cleaner, mellower sound by turning down the volume, it's impossible. Any suggestions anybody? (find my e-mail address on the bottom of this review). And the front shoulder-strap-houlder (or what do you call it)is positioned in a stupid place. It is as if my Ibanez was falling on it's forehead all the time. Off balance. But that's easy to fix.

It seems pretty solid. I wouldn't stand on it, though: The glued-on neck is quite far from neck-thru...

I've been playin for 15 years. I have a Charvel 3, Washburn MG 75, Gibson Explorer, and this Musician. If someone would steal this Ibanez, I would hunt him down and kick his ass! It's very easy to play: light weight, easy access fingerboard with 24 frets. I've grown very keen to it. With all it's little faults I mentioned before, I really love my Ibanez Musician!

MADE IN 1979 IN JAPAN, 24 JUMBO FRETS, MAPLE THROUGH NECK WITH WALNUT HIGHLY FIGURED BODY WINGS, MOTHER OF PEARL DOT INLAYS, STANDARD LES PAUL CONTROL CONFIGURATION WITH THE EXCEPTION OF TWO MINI SWITCHES FOR COIL TAP AND PHASE REVERSE. IBANEZ BROWN PICKUPS NOT SURE OF THE MODEL. IBANEZ TUNERS AND BRIDGE WHICH MOUNTS ONTO A BRASS BLOCK.

I PLAY THROUGH A PROAMPLIFIERS VSQ 65 1X12" ALL VALVE COMBO AND THIS GUITAR SINGS THROUGH IT, THE PICKUPS ARE SERIOUSLY POWERFUL. THE BASIC HUMBUCKER SOUND IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A LES PAUL AND AN SG.
WITH THE COIL TAP AND PHASE SWITCHES YOU CAN OBTAIN A VAST ARRAY OF SOUNDS ALTHOUGH YOU HAVE TO TWEAK THE AMP'S TONAL SETTINGS TO ACHEIVE THE BEST RESULTS WHEN THE HUMBUCKERS ARE COIL TAPPED.
MY FAVOURITE SOUND IS NECK HUMBUCKER WITH THE AMPS CLEAN CHANNELL UP REAL LOUD ON THE EDGE OF DISTORTION VERY WARM AND DARK SOUNDING.

I GOT IT SECOND HAND AND THE SET UP WAS SPOT ON ITS WITHOUT DOUBT THE BEST GUITAR I HAVE EVER PLAYED AFTER 20 YEARS OF PLAYING AND OWNING ALL THE TOP BRAND GUITARS I HAVE TO SAY I,VE FOUND MY SONIC SOULMATE.
THESE LATE 70'S IBANEZ GUITARS ARE SUPERBLY MADE AND FINISHED.IT FEELS LIKE A TOP NOTCH CUSTOM SHOP BUILT GUITAR AND ALL FOR #495 POUNDS.

IT WEIGHS A TON, I'M SURE ITS HEAVIER THAN MY OLD LES PAUL. IT FEELS REALLY STURDY AND HAS SURVIVED THE LAST 23 YEARS WITHOUT ANYTHING MORE THAN A COUPLE OF LAQUER CHIPS. YOU COULD PLAY A GAME OF CRICKET WITH IT BEFORE TAKING IT TO A GIG IN THE EVENING WITH NO WORRIES.

NO IDEA I DONT EXPECT TO HAVE TO CONTACT THEM.

I WILL NEVER SELL THIS GUITAR. I'M NOW CONSIDERING BUYING SOME OTHER 70'S IBANEZ GUITARS AS THE BUILD QUALITY AND SOUNDS ARE SUPERB.

-Made in 1980 in Japan.
-Solid top,
-2 volume / 2 tone with coil taps
-2 humbuckers with coil taps, passive
-5 piece laminated maple neck through the body. Rosewood fretboard
-solid bridge
-

The stock humbuckers are pretty high output and a little dead. This tends to blur arpeggios when distortion is used.
Without distortion the rhythm pick-up has a ton of overtones. Even with the split coil the rhythm pick-up is rich sounding. This works well for finger picked backing tracks.

The lead is uneventful.

Fit, finish, adjustments, everything was great from the factory. Shielding was especially good.

21 years later as my main guitar, the hardware is beautiful. As for the finish... it's great except for my own "distressed" additions.
It even survived a flood without a problem.

Never talked to them.

I've been playing for 25 years. I think I molded to this guitar after all that time. It just molds to my body. The contours are perfect r sitting and standing and it hangs in front of me not beside me like my Strat (that's my 2nd guitar). I prefer the Ibanez. The neck is much like a Les Paul, but it does't weigh 150lbs like a Paul.
I did change the lead pick-up to a Seymore Duncan PAF.
Sustain is good also.
If it ever dies, or gets stolen, I'd definitely look for another. Barring that, what else does Ibanez have?

I have a 1978 (K78 first 3 characters of serial No.) Ibanez Musician, maple/chestnut (I think) 5 piece through neck, 2 Ibanez humbuckers, Mahogany body with ash front and back, natural finish - the grain of the ash is nice, but the maple is plain except for one bird's eye visible only from the back. There are 3 each side Ibanez tuners - G replaced by a Gotoh, but the only difference is the logo, do they manufacture for Ibanez? Pickup selector switch changed for a Gibson, which doesn't fit the hole so works forward & back instead of up & down.

It has a great sond for blues, and a good jazz sound from the neck pickup if you roll the tone down to 3 or 4. It is really versatile and can play almost any style (unless you want that country telecaster twang). But when you add a bit of distortion then it really begins to sing, especially through a boss CE2 chorus.

Bought second hand, can't comment, but there is a hole in the bottom horn so it's been played left hand, it now has non standard brass nut.

Everything works well except for pickup selector, which I've replaced, otherwise every thing is standard and still working. A really dependable guitar, it could do with a dependable player.

Nothing to add from what have already been said by the other owners of this great bass.
Mine was manufactured in Jan. 1981, it's a fretless thu neck, active, dark finish one. I've got 3 knobs for the bass, 3 others for the active circuitry and 2 switches: one Active/passive, the other...? If somebody know, e-mail me: Dr.wasa@infonie.fr .
The fretless nec is perfect, very seldom dead points.
I bought it 2750 FF, so about $450-500.

Any style is affordable, exept slap maybe because it's a fretless, but you can manage to get something good.
I got an Hartke 120W basskick.

Nothing to add...

According to the fact this has been used for 20 years, I believe it's comparable to a Fender, and it's much more original...!

Too old, maybe they don't remember of it...

It's hard to find a guitar with more fetures that a Musician. Mine was a 1978 model. A truely gorgeous guitar. I picked it up in Mississippi at a pawn shop for $315. It was flawless. The intonation Hadn't even been set. It looked like someone bought it and stuck it in the garage for 20 years.

It's on the larger side and very heavy. Made of mahgoney and other woods in a neck through design, a 24 fret rosewood( or similar ) fingerboard, and brass hardware. It had a dual humbucker setup like a les paul with the 3 way switch in the typical les paul spot. Other controls consist of a volume knob and the pre-amp controls. These were pre-amp volume ( i guess you might call it gain ), a small pre-amp on/off switch and three other small switches . I never reeally used these three as they only seemed to remove all the bass from the tone. in also has separate bass-mid-treble controls for the preamp. These were knobs much smaller than the volume and preamp boost knobs and were far enough down the body to be out of the way. The tuners were brass with pearl tuning pegs . They had an ibanez designed locking system . Once you get the guitar tuned you tightened up these little nuts that were around the pegs and it locked them up. The bridge was just your standard les paul tyle bridge ( brass ) .

It had a beautiful silver case . very strong with green velvetly interior specificly made for it.

It has a very clean, rich sound. I used it with a Gallion-Kruger ML250
. I mostly player rock or blues , but this guitar really is veritile enough to play anything. It sounds great clean and with a ditortion pedal and the preamp cranked you can get a real metallica like distortion. The solid heavy wood gives it great sustain.

The preamp did cause a little buzz when it was on though.

When i got this guitar in 1990, it was in suck great shape, once i git the intonation set it was like a brand new guitar. It played as well as any les paul or sg i'd ever played.there was no buzzing from the frets and it was set up so you could reach even the 24th fret without any trouble.

I only had it for about 8 years ( I put it up for sale at a local music store for $899, and after a couple days I though to keep it and when I went back for it, it was sold. Oh well! ) and just played with buddy , I've never played professionally, but I never had any problems with it.

It's really hard to say since I dont think it was ever really played until I bought it in 1990.

never had to deal with it.

This is an all arond solid guitar built at a time when ibanez was trying to get over the Copycat stigma and really putting quality into there guitars. I still wish I hadn't sold it. It was a real pleasure to play.

This appears to be a late '70s to early '80s instrument (Japan) built when Ibanez was serious about matching the quality of Fender and Gibson. It is a double cutaway (looks lie a '70s Alembic shape), has 24 frets, bone nut, ebony board, an ash/mahogany sandwiched body with a maple/walnut laminated neck and neck-through-body design. Two brown humbuckers (Super 88s), 3-way pickup selector, volume and tone, and then an elaborate tone boost set-up consisting of 3 small toggle switches.The finish is clear and the wood grain pattern is exceptionally beautiful. It is a beefy, heavy guitar similar to a Les Paul. This was Ibanez's golden years, in my opinion, and they didn't skimp on quality much with this instrument.

The guitar sounds beautiful and has a range of sounds from a funky strat sound to a sustaining Les Paul. Of course the Mesa/Boogie Mark II I play it through helps with the sustain, too. The humbuckers can sound a little bright like a P-90 depending on the settings but you can still dial in a nice fat sound, too. The only effects I currently use are a Boss chorus pedal and an Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer.

Every thing is pretty top-notch or damn close to it. The ash body has beautiful figure in it and the maple neck is solid. The neck feel is similar to a Les Paul or early slim-necked SG, nice and fast. Everything is original on the guitar- twnety years old and well cared for.

The instrument has been well cared for for over twenty years. Only a couple of nicks in the body finish. All metal parts are gold plated. The only wear on the gold is on the bridge from right-hand damping over the years. A very dependable solid body guitar that I would not hesitate to use in a live gig.

I bought the guitar used so I have never dealt with the Ibanez people.

I've been playing guitar for about 20 years with numerous guitars (mainly Fender and Gibson). I picked this guitar out of the used rack at a local music store. It was there mixed in with the "metal head" crap guitars. A motley crew of cheesy poplar bodies and bent whammy bars as ever I saw. An old bandmate of mine has a '70s Ibanez Les Paul copy that is superior to most actual Les Pauls of the same era, so I knew this Musician was a good guitar. My favorite thing about the guitar is the quality and care that went into building it. I am a die-hard Gibson and Fender man and I've never been big on Japanese guitars, but you can't argue about the quality and workmanship of this piece. You can tell when you pick it up, feel its heft, look at the quality wood and components, and play it through a good ballsy tube amp like a Marshall or Mesa. I only hope Ibanez reads this and gets the message because I haven't seen much of anything good coming from Ibanez in a long time.

Late 70s, fretted, neck-through. Bought near mint in mid 80s for $300US$. I'm a professional player and this is my main bass. Aside from the caveats below, I really love it.

The original Ibanez PUs sounded pretty anemic and were oversensitive
to magnetic hum fields. Replaced with Bartolinis, total improvement. Sound is full, warm, and punchy if needed. I play many different styles and I can always get the sound I'm looking for.

I usually play without the onboard active EQ (it's slightly noisy), but the bass-mid-hi controls add and cut *very* deeply and that's fun for special effects. It's easy to get a super deep reggae sound or a twangy guitar sound, and with tons of mid boost I get something like a hip-hop acoustic bass feel. The battery is in the same compartment as the electronics, and the cover is held by many little wood screws. I think Ibanez used a separate battery compartment in later models.

The finish is a thick glossy plastic coating which cracks instead of dings. The back of the neck is covered in the same material. The body shape is pretty unartistic though comfortable and balanced when sitting. I don't like the look whatsoever, although other folks have admired it.

The bass is very heavy and wouldn't be fun for an all-day standing gig. Most of my work is sit-down, so this isn't a problem.

The neck is thick, something like a P-bass but with more mass. Prior to the Ibanez, I played a J for many years and it took some mental adjustment. The thickness and the impervious plastic coating make the neck very stable. The bass stays in tune extremely well and the intonation is solid. The frets are very low and have barely worn, although I play fairly lightly. The fret factory finishing was absolutely gorgeous, no rough spots. The neck plays fast and can be adjusted for very low action, though I don't usually set it that way.

The bridge has lots of mass and sustains well. Unlike a Badass, the strings change without threading through the back of the bridge. The tuners are stable but unremarkable.

This is at the high end of mass production basses and the quality is at the low end of boutique basses. Either way, it's terrific and I'd immediately buy another if it were lost.

Every so often I check out other instruments and haven't found anything affordable that I'd rather have.

1984 model, made in Japan. 24 fat frets, neck through design. 2 pickups (H/H) with 2 tone and 2 volume controls. Plus, this model had active electronics, which were superb! Finish was done with Mahogany and Alder woods while the neck through section was done in Ash. Finished in a Walnut stain, the bass still looks good after 16 hard years. Bridge is very similar to a Badass brass bridge and the tuners are Ibanez original sealed Schaller style. I bought it new in 84` and it came with the Original case.

I play various styles (funk and jazz) and I can make this bad boy sound like a lot of different guitars. I play through a Fender Bassman and I use a Peavey multi effects pedal, which I use for reverb and chorus.I have D`addario medium gage strings which sound fantastic. Very quiet guitar with no bad noises coming through. Nothing bad to say about the sound, really.

I have never (in 16 years) changed the action on this guitar. I brought it home from the store and it played like a champ from the start. The finish, however, did have a few small flaws in it. the back of the body had a few small marks like dust under the varnish and it has worn alot more than I had expected a finish to wear. Beyond that, I think it looks pretty good.

Great bass for live gigs. This puppy has stood the test of time for me and I love it. Never even had the strap slip off. Just don`t let the battery die.

Never dealt with Ibanez, but they do have a nice web sight.

Besides this I have a mint Aria Pro II SB-1000 and a Peavey T-40 fretless which I record with. I would have another one in a heartbeat if mine were ever stolen. What do I love about it? Everything. The neck is wonderful. Narrow and flat.

I'll begin with a summary. This guitar is a thru-neck, mahogany body, ash top. and twin humbucking pickups (sealed units) Gibraltar bridge, Ibanez branded deluxe tuners, rosewood board, vaguely PRS shape, large 3+3 Headstock with classy rosewood veneer and gold logo. There is a clear gloss finish which has aged nicely. Mine has a few belt-buckle marks but nothing significant. Mostly it's original, except for a missing tringle thingy behind the tailpiece ( I'd like to know if someone knows where I can get one of these), and a dimarzio humbucker has been (rather crudely) affixed in the bridge position. 24 jumbo-fret neck (5 piece laminated maple, walnut and mahogany) I think this guitar was made in Japan, and it's part of an early Ibanez line that I think looks to be superior to the current line. Except for the wear, and the modifications, This guitar has been kept in fine condition. I truly think that an unmodified one would be worth a full 10.

I play mainly blues-rock, and in conjunction with my also recently aquired Squier Pro-tone Strat, covers nearly all musical bases that I may call on. It does everything it's construction would lead you to believe, even though I think that the original neck humbucker sounds more like a p-90. The bridge dimarzio sounds great, and gives a great boost to the sound, while covering blues, rock and metal roles easily. It's really more versatile than a les paul, but if I had to be nit-picky, it would be that the guitar has only a two-way pickup selector, instead of the regular three-way. This means that you can only select the bridge or the neck unit, and I kinda miss the combination of the two. Also, the last owner has changed the wiring so there is only one tone and volume knob (it's got four pots, which I assume are 2 volume and 2 tone knobs, so two pots are sitting unconnected) I know it's a simple operation to remedy this, and I will do soon, but it still slightly mars what was otherwise a very versatile guitar.

Can't really comment here as the guitar is 20 years out of warrantee. Even though I havent altered anything (intonation was spot-on, action was fine etc), I cleaned it up, wiped the muck off the fingerboard, polished the frets etc and it plays fine.

This is a solid guitar that I would take out gigging without worrying about it. I'd still take the strat with me, but only because it's there, and I like the variety of having two different guitars. The thru-neck feel very solid and smooth right up to about the 22nd fret, and the 24th is well within reach.

No dealings wit Ibanez, I bought this guitar at a pawn shop called Cash Converters,in Australia, who incidentally are a pack of dickheads. Firstly the guitar was Aus$300 which I knew was a bit of a bargain, but I knew the could do better. The guy said he would do it for $270 cash, which I borrowed off my mother and came back to collect the guitar. The lady didn't want to sell me the guitar at that price, saying that 'that was then, this is now'. Then she relented and said I could have it for 270, but not with the case. I was ready to walk out, but she gave in and threw the case in, so I changed my mind. So, I ended up paying $270 for the guitar, case and spare original pickup, but they refused to give me the standard 90-day warantee. Good price, but the service at that place sucks. I've even seen them selling a second-hand epiphone for $50 more than a brand-new one. The have no clue.

I've been playing only 5 years, but have in that time bought and sold around 10 guitars, including epiphones, Onyx's, Gibson's, and gear by Digitech, peavey, Korg etc. At the moment I own a Fender Strat Elite, a Squier Strat Pro Tone, and this Ibanez. I'm pretty happy with myself at the moment, considering I just bought the Protone for $220Australian.