Ibanez RG470

I think this guitar was made 1997 because it doesn't have the bubinga strip or the V8, V7, and S pickups, but it looks relatively new. If you want to see the features in detail, look at the other posts below, or go to www.ibanez.com. Mine, specifically, is black, and has the lower-end INF series pickups. The 24 frets are very wide, and it takes some practice to play accurately higher up the fretboard. Guitar Center threw in a case and some picks (The case is huge. It wasn't designed for this guitar.). This guitar has basically everything you need, but it doesn't come with anything really fancy like coil tapping, or active electronics.

I have only been playing for about a year, so I don't really have a particular style yet. I play through an older Peavey Rage (15 w) w/ no effects. This guitar was meant for hard rock and shred, though. My complaint is with the INF pickups. The 2 humbuckers are both weak and kind of hollow sounding, and the single lacks character. If you turn the distortion way up, you can get a passable sound, but it doesn't sound very good clean. I think part of the problem is due to my crappy amp.
I plan on changing the pickups like this: Dimarzio Tone Zone in the bridge, maybe a FRED in the neck, no idea about the single...possibly an HS3. I think this guitar will sound awesome with the new pickups (and a new amp), but for now it gets a 6.

I got the guitar used, and the action was pretty bad. It was easily fixed by the staff at Guitar Center, but I had to take it back 3 or 4 times because they didn't want to recognize it. Finally, on the fourth time, the guy fixed the Floyd Rose and adjusted the truss rod correctly. At least they didn't charge me for the set up. Since then, I have readjusted the Floyd, and the action is almost down to where I want it. I think the truss rod might have to be adjusted one more time, but I'll leave it alone for now.
Everything else is fine. There was some rust on the pickups, tremelo, and nut, but I cleaned most of it off. There is a small dent in the finish, but its on the back, so nobody will ever see it.
My overall rating in this category will assume that everything has been set up properly.

This guitar seems very reliable. The finish is thick, and should last for a very long time. Despite the thinness of the neck, you can feel how durable it is. The strap buttons are small, so it would probably be a good idea to change them. I've never played live, but it seems good enough to use in that situation.

There is no warrenty from Ibanez because I got it used. I can't comment on their customer support, but they do have a cool website. The people at Guitar Center are friendly, but a little less knowledgable than places with their own repair facilities. They have better prices than most of those stores, though.

I have been playing for about a year. I also have a Crate Electra strat copy (see my review), and a Peavey Rage amp. I wanted a really cool looking guitar with 24 frets and a Floyd. I was also thinking about an ESP LTD M200, but they were like $500 (new, of course). The fact the Satriani, Vai, Petrucci, and so many other great players play Ibanez drew me to their guitars.
Before I bought this guitar, I promised myself that I would try everything in the store until I found the perfect guitar. However, it's hard to do that when you're eager to get your new guitar home and start playing, and your parents are standing around bored, complaining about their aches and pains. This turned out to be the only guitar I tried, and I wasn't thrilled with the feel. I picked it because I liked the body style, the black finish, and the price. I really wish I had spent some time trying everything out. Fortunately, everthing turned out okay, and I am happy with my purchase. Next time I buy a guitar, I'll let my parents stay home, and I'll be prepared to stay awhile so I can get exactly what I want.
As for this guitar, I love the stability of the tuning with the locking nut and the Floyd, the speed of the neck, the cool tilted back headstock, the ease of access to all 24 frets, and the black finish. I don't like the stock pickups, but that's about all. I kind of wish it had a neck-through body to increase sustain, but that would add significantly to the price. If this were stolen, I would try to find a higher end model, like a 570, or a Jem. I am giving this guitar a 9, because it has basically everything I wanted in a second guitar, for about $350. Stock pickups are made to be taken out, anyway.

This is a great guitar for its price. I got it in a Royal Blue color which I love. I havent had any problems with it so far except that its a pain to tune and change the strings. One thing about it is that you can only use 9 gauge strings unless you want to adjust the tremolo system. I love the low action for the neck. Makes good playing for lead. Great guitar if you like metal.

The guitar sounds great. I play pretty much everything except country and it sounds good with all of them. I use a Fender Strat for clean sounds and this for the heavy. I have the Infinity pickups on my guitar. But the newer Rg 470's come with the Vintage pickups which are supposedly better. The pickups give great sound but I have recently replaced them with emg 81 pickups in the bridge and neck. The emg's are awesome. They blow the stock pickups away.

I havent found any major flaws in the guitar. This guitar can withstand a beating. The paint is still great on it. Its still in one piece....

No problems so far. Ive had it for a year.

Havent dealt with them.

I would give the guitar a 10. It is a great guitar for lead and metal. I have a Fender Stratplus with it and I would say I play this guitar a considerable amount more. I wish I would have waited to get the Vintage pickups but i dont guess it matters since I replaced these pickups. If it were stolen I would probably buy a JEM but oh well.

This guitar is sweet. It has 24 frets and has a Wizard II neck.. Its really thin, so you can really thrash up and down the fretboard. The frets are jumbos, which i really like. they're good for hammering. The pickups are H/S/H. They're standard Ibanez RG pickups, V7, S1, and V8. It has the floyd tremelo which is the best feature any guitar can have, regardless of brand or make. This has alot of features for a great price.

This guitar has a great sound if you like to grind. But, if you put it on the single pickup or neck pickup, you'd be amazed at the quality of the tone that you get.

I had the guitar set up especially for my playing needs, but when I was trying it out in the store, the action was pretty good. Everything was in excellent working order except that the pickups are rough along the edges of the fretboard. If those were fixed, I'd give it a 10.

This guitar was built to take anything. It's a tank. I could drop it every night, and it would be fine.

I've been playing for 4 years, and I've never played anything that was as good as an Ibanez. They're reliable, durable, and they sound great for an affordable price. I would recomend this guitar to anyone who is a serious guitar player. If i had to replace it, I might get a 570 or a 7 string, but definately an Ibanez.

Korean made. American basswood body maple neck with rosewood fingerboard (Ibanez Wizard ii type). 24 Jumbo frets.
H/S/H Ibanez pasive INF series pickups with 5-way selector. Ibanez Lo-trs ii Floyd rose trem (locking nut obviously)
The guitar shop Threw in a hard case. Tools included
Only one tone knob could be ,limiting to some players. Tone and volume knobs need to be a little more sensitive. But don't be scared this is a great guitar.

Because of the 5 pickup positions which incorporates humbuckers as single coils in some postitions you can get a wide variety sound to suit most styles. This is a guitar for musicians who want to play accross a range of styles ON ONE GUITAR.
Middle single coil pickup is a tad noisy but put it through a descent amp (I use a Laney VC 50) and this is not really a problem. It also has a bit of a low output.
With the back pickup you can acheieve a real screachy shred kinda noise. The next selection forward mellows the shred sound out a bit. The middle single coil sports a kinda "Ren and Stimpy" theme tune sound. The last two selections go form beefy to beef city. I'v played this along side mates Les Paul I can honestly say that I can almost match the beefy crunch that it puts out.
Likes: - Versility of the guitar Dislaikes: - Could lose a bit of noise (I plan to fit DiMarzios)
I give it an eight simply because there are guitars that sound better

All the actuall production is fine acceppt that the middle P.U is a little lose in the cavity. The style of the trem where a screw down nut attached to the arm itself that screws down over a thread on the bridge means it comes lose quite quickly.
The set up was good, I lowered the action. But I like STUPID low action. Lets face it the action is so easy to adjust it dosen't matter what the factory set up was like.
I don't know what string thay were on it whan I got it but BOY WERE THE TOUGH. I mean I seriously abused that trem ala Vai btu teh bugger woulden't go. I ended up replacing when they when dead!!!

This guitar is tough, but thin neck may break easily it your being a fool with it and chucking it all over the show. Hardwear seems to be lasting well.
Strap buttons are solid enough.
I don't know if anyone reading this has seen the submit form for reviwes but is says
Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
I would NEVER use a guitar at a gig without a backup no matter what the hell it was.

Haven't delt with them

I love this guitar it is Brilliant for the price. For the price I got it for it really is top quality!!
I give it a 7 because I've recently played a JEM 7v (Vai model)
THAT WILL ROCK YOUR POTATOES

Made in Korea strat-stile guitar. It features 24 jumbo (I think) frets, Floyd Rose TRS-II bridge, non-locking tuners, gold hardware, basswood body with flamed top natural finish, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, 1 volume, 1 tone, 5-way selector, H/S/H pick ups configuration, Ibanez INF1/INFS1/INF2 (from neck to bridge). The tuners are quite bad. Luckily the nut is locking.

I play this through a cry-baby, a Boss ME-30 and a solid-state Marshall VS30R, and like to play "powerful" rock (Van Halen, Satriani...). First of all I wonder why they put that useless single-coil in the middle. It's VERY weak and I can't manage to figure out its timbre because of this. I haven't experienced other pick ups, but I might say the neck one isn't bad at all. When clean it sounds good even to my single-coil-used-to ear. At high-gain distorsion I don't like the loss of personality typical, in my opinion, for any neck humbucker (except Gibsons). The bridge pu is quite trebly, yet it hasn't got much harmonics and has got almost no bottom end... yeah, quite crapy. I'm waiting to test it with a valve amp, but I believe I'll have to change it. The 2 and 4 positions are weak due to the single coil weakness.

I think this guitar lived in my guitar-shop for a long while and has been somehow manipulated. I had to make a complete set-up by myself and I still have some problems with the low E that buzzes on every fret if you don't strike it very gently (but I read about this in another submission). I had to tighten the truss-rod quite a lot. My action now isn't low because of the buzzes and also because of 22nd fret bending problems with a lower action. The look of the guitar is wonderful, it looks similar to a PRS thanks to the amber finish. I won't give a rating for this category because of the manipulation suspect.

I haven't played this guitar at live volumes yet, but I think it would be ok. I think the gold color will go away quite soon from the hardware, instead the finish looks tough.

I sent an e-mail to the company about truss-rod regulation. They first told me to ask a repair technician and then gave me the Ibanez standard action regulation. Make your own deductions!

This is not a high-quality instrument, but neither a bad-quality one. I love its look and style, and hate my problems of low E string buzzing. The TRS-II bridge does its job, but the guitar doesn't stay in tune forever.

My RG470 was completely stock Made: Japan Frets: 24 Solid Body: Basswood Pickups: H/S/H Floyd Rose tremolo Schaller tuners Rosewood fretboard
Good quailty materials for a good price

I bought an RG470 because I thought I was looking for a sound simular to some of my favorite artist (Satriani, Vai, Petrucci) Ibanez made their guitars out of quality materials and it was a great value.
I went from a Strat to this and I really started missing the neck positon single coil, these pickups have power, but they aren't very touch sensitive. Plus, I found out after about 6 months that I really dislike the Floyd Rose, the little clamp at the top of the neck seems to mute the sound a bit. Can't bend with this low action either, .009's have a thin winny sound that sucks for anything aside for metal.
It stayed in tune, but getting it in tune was always a hassel.
For what it is, it's good. But it wasn't what I wanted. If you're playing a Strat style guitar now, don't sell your old guitar till your sure you like this.

Very reliable, I've droped it a few times, banged it up. Still sounded the same.

I've been playing for about 8 years. I would not by an RG470, or any other RG style guitar again, This guitar helped me find my love for vintage tremolo's and my disgust for low string action. You can't get that SRV or Eric Johnson tone out of this, but you can do Paul Gilbert or Steve Vai
If you like low action and are into Metal/heavy rock and play a lot of lead this guitar would be a good choice.

Ibanez RG series. Basswood body, 24 frets, dot inlays, two humbuckers and one single coil. Lo-profile (lo trs 2) double locking trem. Nice purple-blue finish. I think it's what Ibanez used to call "jewel blue" before they changed it to be more blue that purple.

This guitar sounds good. I bought it used for $350. I had one before some years ago, when they first came out with this particular model, which was around 93/94. This one is the same year. Anyway, it sounds really good. I did replace the bridge pickup with a Dimarzio "Tone Zone". It's my first Dimarzio and I love it. I play metal and this guitar/pickup combo is great. The sound is versatile enough for regular rock, and some jazz, too.

Well made. I think my favorite feature is the rounded off neck heel. Very good invention. The hardware is tough and durable. Good quality wood on the neck and body. Rather quiet guitar, no noise. Only thing I don't like it that Ibanez makes the fretboard flat on the higher frets and more rounded on the lower ones. If you sight down the neck you can see the change. A flat fretboard is difficult to deal with when soloing from the 15th fret on up to the 24th. I think Ibanez needs to take a lesson from Jackson and make them rounded all the way down. I'm going to rate this section a little higher despite what I've said because I have large hands and long fingers so I don't have the same problems with the flat fretboard as my smaller friends do.

This guitar is well-built. YOu could easily play live with it. Just replace the stock pickups and you'll be set. You could get away with the stock ones, I suppose, but they definetly aren't Dimarzios or Duncans. I understand that the new Ibanez RG470s come with the V1 and V2 pickups. As I recall those pickups sounded good right out of the box. You should always have a backup no matter how good your guitar is. You never know what will happen.

Never needed any.

I've been playing for 5 years, off and on. I would buy this guitar again, even the new ones. If it were stolen, I'd be upset, but I'd just go get another one.

1996 model, made in Korea (printed on back of headstock). Strat-style solid basswood body (with sharp "horns); high gloss finish. Maple neck w/rosewood fingerboard (24 frets jumbo frets, pearl dot inlays). Ibanez calls this neck their Wizard II neck, and it has a huge radius, so it plays nothing like a traditional Stratocaster neck. Bridge is Ibanez' LO-TRS II (Floyd Rose licensed) double-locking type. Non-locking tuners. Pickups are stock Ibanez passive Infinity series: H/S/H, with Split-5 5-way selector. 1 volume and 1 tone knob (all hardware is black).

Versatile guitar! Neck INF1 pickup delivers full-bodied, fat clean tones that are great for blues and jazz playing (or Smashing Pumpkins sound w/tone control at full low with a high-gain amp; very thick distortion). The bridge INF2 humbucker produces a tight, balanced sound with moderate output. There are much hotter pickups, but these are some of the best stock pickups I've heard; much clearer and tighter than Jackson's Duncan Design. Some players may find the bridge pickup lacking in its bass response, but I think your preamp settings will give you any tone you want with this guitar. I play heavy rock mainly, with a Dunlop Cryababy wah and Boss ME-6 multieffect/preamp through a 65W solid-state Fender Eighty-Five 1 x 12" combo. Great sound for the price; even sounds good unplugged.

Action was good enough for me to fee comfortable; low, but no harsh string buzz along the neck (however, low E string is susceptible to buzzing when picked hard). Very accurate fingering of frets 12-24, which impressed me! Fine intonation, and I love the LO-TRS II bridge. It takes a beating and stays in tune really well. If not for my tuner's LEDs, I probably wouldn't know if a string was a little sharp or flat; the effect of brutal whammy bar use is THAT subtle.
The bad news: The first time I changed strings, I removed the backplate to adjust tremolo angle, and I noticed a 1-inch crack in the body. Apparently one of the backplate screws was drilled in at a sharp angle, splintering off one side of the tremolo cavity. Talk about disappointed! Unacceptible! Ibanez did right the situation (see below).

I've only gigged with my RG470 once, after having for only a week. It didn't go out of tune once in a two-hour set under very hot lights and a lot of sweat. The hardware is durable enough. No loose switches or knobs. Trem arm seems to be either full swing or completely stiff at first, but after a few months it's breaking in to where it's swings, but isn't loose. Barrel is easy to adjust. Finish is holding up fine against shirt buttons, pick scratches, and such, but I bet it wouldn't take many belt buckle scrapes to scratch the paint on the back. For this reason, I never wear a belt when I play this guitar. It's too pretty to risk it (Jewel Blue looks great under bright light; looks purple under most indoor lighting.) I know I can definitely depend on this axe and not need a backup with fresh strings.

Dealer wasn't much help at first with the crack on inside of tremolo cavity. They said if it didn't affect playabillity, it wasn't worth fixing. But it was in the back of my mind that I bought a brand new guitar that was cracked. So I took it back after e-mailing Ibanez from their cool Web site, when I was told it shouldn't have ever left the factory in that condition. The second time around, dealer was helpful. I paid $20 for shipping, but I got my guitar back in two weeks in great condition. Not only did Ibanez repair the crack, they also reinforced the tremolo cavity with a strong carbon graphite adhesive, which also shield the wires from electrical interference in the same way that foil does. My rating of 8 is for the dealer's reluctance to service the guitar the first time. If not for that, I'd have given Ibanez a 9 or 10. They need to watch their business partners carefully.

I've been playing electric guitar for 13 years, and this is my first "real" guitar. I've only owned $200 entry-level guitars prior to buying my RG470. The RG470 is everything I want in a medium-priced workhorse axe. It's not top-of-the-line by bar, but it stays in tune, has comfortable low action, offers tonal versatility, and has eye-catching good looks for strong stage appeal. These guitars list for $699 without a case. Because two music stores both wanted my business, each counter-offered the other until one couldn't reduce the price any more. I feel lucky for paying only $499, which included an Ibanez hardshell case. If lost or stolen, I'd definitely buy another (probably the RG450 or 550 only for looks -- I like the pickguards). Compaired to Yamaha RGX and Jackson DX2 and PS4, the Ibanez RG feels more solid and sounds better.

It has 22 frets, 3 seperate pickups. (Double-Single-Double). It has 2 knobs 1 volume,1 tone. I think it is maple wood. I am not sure though. It comes in black,blue,red Probably more. Its a cutaway with a medium size neck. Bridge is tremlo. It has quick tunes and nuts to hold the strings at the head. The neck is medium with medium size frets. Guitar I think was built in the US not sure though.

The sound is fairly good. It can go from clean to dirty and still sound good. This guitar in my opinion sounds really good in "Drop D" tuning. I use a mesa boogie subway rocket. Big muff distortion and a Cry Baby wah-wah. Yes it can get noisy. The sound is rich as long as you have a good amp(I guess like any guitar) The guitar can do pretty much anything from clean to dirty to country style to blues. Likes:The 2 double pickups..Selector swicth to go to different pickups. The quick tunes. Dislikes: The guitar needs repaired and setup more often then other guitars.

The guitar could have been better built. But it holds up pretty good. The guitar came with no flaws. I have had it for 2 years and all i have needed to do is set it up and replace the nuts and the head and the screws at the pickups.

Yes this guitar is played very well live. The guiitar last pretty long. The finish is awsome I play all the time and it doesn't have a scratch except if you bang it off a wall or something. It won't get scratched. The strap buttons will last pretty long. yes I can depend on it. Umm..I always use a backup at a gig so I can't say I trust any guitar...but if I had to I would.

I have never dealt with the customer service so i wouldn't know how they are. It has a 1 year warranty.

I have been playing it for 2 years. If it was stolen I would buy another guitar because..I like new things I love the guitars pickups. But I hate the guitars action. It is not too great. Maybe its me but if it's not the action sucks. Umm thats really about it with this guitar. nothing else much to say.