My '81 Artist 300 lefty in cherry burstMahogany body with maple cap, three piece maple neck with ebony fingerboard and mother of pearl / abalone inlays. Although it looks like a neck through guitar it's actually of set neck construction. The nut is a 'half and half', half bone and brass, which is still used on the Ibanez John Scofield model. This one is heavy, from what I've seen online most of them are, it weighs 10.2lbs.Pickups are Ibanez' own Super 58s, excellent pickups, with 'Tri Sound', basically a three way mini switch giving humbucker/ single coil/ phase for each pickup. The action is very low and it sounds great, brighter than a Les Paul with more sustain than an SG. I picked up an '80 Ibanez AR-50 Artist earlier this year in a pawnshop.The main attributes of THIS guitar is the neck and the Super 70 pickups.The pickups sound amazing.
You can play heavy overdriven tones and still hear the notes in the chords.I don't have another guitar in my collection where the pickups will allow me to do that.The neck is really comfortable for me and makes it very easy to play up and down the neck.The MAIN drawback of this guitar is the weight. It's really heavy and I have to use a wide bass strap to handle theweight.If you can find a good deal on one, they are a great guitar for any collection.Here are some pics of my AR50.
My '81 Artist 300 lefty in cherry burstMahogany body with maple cap, three piece maple neck with ebony fingerboard and mother of pearl / abalone inlays. Although it looks like a neck through guitar it's actually of set neck construction. The nut is a 'half and half', half bone and brass, which is still used on the Ibanez John Scofield model. This one is heavy, from what I've seen online most of them are, it weighs 10.2lbs.Pickups are Ibanez' own Super 58s, excellent pickups, with 'Tri Sound', basically a three way mini switch giving humbucker/ single coil/ phase for each pickup. The action is very low and it sounds great, brighter than a Les Paul with more sustain than an SG.
I picked up an '80 Ibanez AR-50 Artist earlier this year in a pawnshop.The main attributes of THIS guitar is the neck and the Super 70 pickups.The pickups sound amazing. You can play heavy overdriven tones and still hear the notes in the chords.I don't have another guitar in my collection where the pickups will allow me to do that.The neck is really comfortable for me and makes it very easy to play up and down the neck.The MAIN drawback of this guitar is the weight.
It's really heavy and I have to use a wide bass strap to handle theweight.If you can find a good deal on one, they are a great guitar for any collection.Here are some pics of my AR50.
The best known of the 70's Ibanez models are the Gibson and Martin copies which were mosty Jumbo and Dreadnought bodies. These start with the 627 and 628 Concord models in 6 and 12 configuration and in natural and vintage finishes. These were D size bodies with reasonably narrow necks and a fine sounding instrument.