Ibanez RG550 20th Anniversary

Black...You know the rest

Musical style = Melodic instrumental Rock/Metal, Fusion/Progressive

RG thru ZW-44 into 2203x with Carbon Copy and MXR 10-band in the loop out of 1960A cab.
Stock sound is not too bad. Pickups will be peplaced in the near future

Had to get a fret job. There were a couple/few of tall frets up towards the neck joint. For this Ibanez fails. Bought new 1-1/2 week ago incase your wondering.
The fit and finish are about what I expect from a MIJ guitar. The Edge Pro is very smooth and the guitar stays in tune very well.
The feel of the neck is to die for. this is what sold me on the Ibby.

For a bad fret job from the factory I give a "6"

I'm sure it'll be fine as I do not play out any more.

I've always owned USA guitars....Gibson, Fender, Jackson, Kramer, etc.
I even once had a USA Custom Ibanez from 1990 and loved it. Once I replace the p/u's (thinking Air Zone and Air Norton) I think it'll be the shredder I want

Overall I have to give it a "7" due to needing fret work off the rack.

All black 2007 Anniversary Rg550. Super thin wide neck that plays itself and amazing edge vibrato that will not go out of tune, period. Tried hard. H-S-H ibanez pickups. Bot mine new with the anniversary case ( nice) and case candy.

Great rock guitar!! Humbuckers sound good. No need to change as the neck pickup gets a fat tone without any MUD and the bridge cuts and pinch harmonics are a breeze without it being too bright. I hate super bright pickups. One knock is the bridge humbucker is a little noisy. The single coil sounds are a little bright and lower vol. The tone control is very effective fortunately for taming this without losing too much top. Positions 2 & 4 split the hum and combine the single. So no coil split switch. Sounds awesome with my boogie. Really pushes it to full gain. I agree that its a fairly flexible gtr with the decent single coil. This gtr excels at high gain sounds.

This is where I will give the highest rating and I feel this is the most important catagory in many ways. The quality of materials are top notch and the WORKMANSHIP is impressive. Very solid ax. Even the neck feels tough despite its thin profile. The huge frets are beatifully finished and bending is like butter. Contoured neck joint makes for easy upper fret access. The factory set up was perfect!!!. I haven't had to adjust anything. That's new to me. My American dlxe strat needed lots of setting up. I am used to setting up all my gtrs but gotta give credit to Ibanez for quality workmanship and not cutting corners. No obvious flaws, a beatiful instrument

Seems extremely solid. Electronics are very simple ( a good thing, less is more at gigs)

I have been playing almost 20 years and have fender carvin mesa boogie tube amps. My other axes are amer dlx strat, mim tele, guild X-79( if you don't know this gtr search!! One of a kind style thin neck w/ebony frtboard 2 hums) ibanez artist 1976, several roadstar II's, ovation deacon, mij squier strat 1985. The roadstar II is the first Ibanez I had and all the others since have been very nice. Next to my Artist 2618, this is my best gtr and is the one I take to the gig. Fantastic vibrato!! First one I have had that actually does stay in tune. Solid solid rock machine. I don't see spending 2000 on a jackson soloist or similiar when this is available.

Desert Yellow Basswood body, Maple fretboard, black hardware. Ibanez Edge Trem. Came with a nice set of accessories (Book on Ibanez history, set of picks, etc..) and a matching case. I don't have a complaint with the fit of the clasps on the case as others do, mine are fine. H/S/H pickups stock Ibanez, love 'em. Volume, tone, and 5 way selector switch give you a nice mix.

This is definitely a rock/metal rig.

Everything is A+, I still have the original factory setup and this baby still sings. There are no flaws on the finish or the bridge.

I haven't 'punished' this guitar but have taken it through it's paces, and it has responded well. This guitar is so well constructed I would be surprised if it didn't last for years.

I've been playing on this guitar for approx. a year, and haven't regretted the purchase for a minute. If I were to lose this guitar I would definitely have to have another. I looked at Schecter, and PRS that I can recall and for the price I thought this guitar was the best fit for me.

Basswood body,1987 original Wizard maple neck and fretboard (bolt on)24 frets, Ibanez V1,V2, and S1 pickups, 1volume,1tone and 5way switch,made in Japan,25.5"scale, Gotoh tuners,Ibanez Edge tremolo,strat like body, with the carved joint for easy fret access, mine was road flare red, came with a manual,case,pics,wrenches,tremolo bar, and strap.

All I could say its a very comfortable and rich guitar...soundwise and featurewise...lolz

All I could say is that this might be one of the most versatile guitars ever! Yo ucan get sweet mellow/rythmic tones from the neck to middle positions. I get everything from Paramore to Steve Vai's "For the Love of God" and even Ellegarden. Sweeps also sound excellent from this.

The S1 pickup in the middle is a fantastically clean pickup reminiscent of my strat's texas special, its not very loud, so i gotta turn up my amp when I use it,its beautiful though, bluesy tones come like nothing.

Now heres where the Guitar shines, the bridge pickup. It is Very powerful, warm and kills my other guitarists' burstbucker pro pickups anyday. I use this mostly for leads and it picks up every note and every note is very clean and definite. Its not muddy at all, sumtimes though, it could be too clear and catches my mistakes...lolz, not thats just me.haha. Anywayz it is a little bright, but the main thing is the versatility of all these pickups, the bridge one can capture basically any tone I wished. Go Ibanez!!!!

BTW I run through a Boss ME-50 and DOD YJM30 into my Marshall MG100HDFXR full stack, its red...haha. Now I know that the Me-50 and Mg100 are pretty much hated, but i gotta tell ya, the sound is amazing and works for me and my band,it just takes a lotta tinkering. Well anyways,I really only use my MGs clean channel and depend on the ME-50 for my effects except, I use the chorus and reverb from the amp.

Amp:bass-6
mids-8
treble-5

The only problem with the guitar in this problem, was the setup. The action was high for me, but its ok I had Erics guitar shop set it up and my gosh, it was perfect!!!! I dont like the action too low nore too high, i prefer it in the middle. So yeah, the action was high, probably cause it was a floor model...haha. everything else is fine, the Road Flare Red really grabs attention.

no problems at all. its great to know that the Wizard necks on this guitar are stronger than the originals. Still I'd like an original...haha

yeah i had the setup done, but i dont think that counts here. anyways Ive had no problems with this,so yeah.

All I could say is that this guitar is a True Shredders/Guitarists dream. I mean, if only other guitars played this well, Id probably be broke by now buying them...lolz.

Awesome. Good stock Ibanez pickups, black finish and pickguard, 24 frets, comes wihth picks, strap and case, nice thin neck for soloing Locking tuners so it stays in tune, Awesome strat style body, Sweet edge tremelo system just like the floyd rose, Made by team j-craft at the Ibanez prestige factory so you know your getting something of extremely good quality

The stock pickups are incredible. I usually like emgs but these are truly amazing. Goes into my Line 6 Spyder 3 pretty good ( not the best amp though, I plugged the guitar into my freinds marshall and sounded fantastic)

Came perfect right out of the box. I did not need to make any upgrades. The bridge worked sweet. No problems at all

I will know make this my primary live guitar when my band finally gets a gig. I could use this for an entire show if I wanted to. But since I sometimes change tunings I will need a backup or two that are set to those tuunings.

Never needed to contact them. Hope I never will. If I do then I hope they are good.

I have been playing for a year and a half now and this is my third guitar. My first was a Lyon by Washburn Strat copy- not a very good choice. The pickups went bad and started to buzz on it so I got a new guitar because the lyon was like 75 bucks and it would cost about 200 to get it fixed. That was an Ibanez rg350dx- INCREDIDBLE!! With that guitar I am now hooked on Ibanez. Only problem I had with it was the pickups were bad so I upgraded to EMGs. This Ibanez PRESTIGE was great out of the box. It needed no pickup changes or anything else. I love it!! I think I will start my own Ibanez colection. I still have a lot of guitars on my list: ESP KH-2, Esp M-2, ESP EX-400, Fender VG Strat, Ibanez S520EX, Ibanez S7320, Ibanez Jem, and mabe like ten more Ibanez rg prestige guitars. But no matter how many I get this will allways be my primary and favorite guitar no matter what.

Basswood body, 5 piece maple neck, maple fretboard.

I play everything but mostly shred and classic rock. My rig consists of a peavey 5150II, a Laney LC30, chorus, delay etc, etc...
This is a very bright sounding guitar with a cutting tone on the bridge pickup, actually very warm sounding on the neck pickup, and suprisingly there are a couple of very jangly sigle coil tones in between. Artificial harmonics jump out of it with very little effort, and the trem is insane, the maple fretboard can be a little unforgiving at first since it is so percussive which I like in a guitar. overall a very good sounding instrument esecially if you like the music from the era it was originally designed in.

Sorry Ibanez, the action from the factory was not good at all which is understandable and is usually an easy fix, not in this case. This guitar is very hard to set up if you want it to play like butter. I've been playing for 13 years, own other guitars with Floyds, and have never encountered such a difficult instrument to work with. I dropped the bridge dramatically, set the angle of the trem, but the neck adjustment is almost impossible, the string height doesn't seem right between the 3rd and 10th frets even when it is optiomal in the other positions. i believe this is attributed to the way the neck is built, it seems a little "scalloped" to me. The construction, however, is flawless, the machining was awesome and the paint is a perfect deep hue. ( I have the road flare red one). All knobs switched and pots were great as well, especially the tuners.

Given the colors offered, these guitars were meant for the stage, hardware seems good and the huge square neck joint is very solid and doesent seem to lend itself to shifting, basswood is very soft so I worry about dents and bangs and the neck is very thin so I couldnt imagine it would stand a drop from a few feet without breaking. But is you take care of it Im sure it will last, as I see plenty of the actual 80's models out there. I think I could gig without a backup, but probably wont.

no comment

Id buy another if it were lost, the thing I like the least about it is the fact that when you set the action very low your pick hits the middle pickup so it must be lowered which is not a really big deal but I have huge hands do I tend to pick closer to the neck. I was looking at the Paul Gilbert model since I was swearing off Floyds and going for a fixed bridge but after I played this beauty I knew that double locking trems will always be my guilty pleasure. Overall a great little guitar not to expensive for an actual Japanese model.