Ibanez S470

So, here's a more hands on review of the Ibanez S470, why? Because it's my primary guitar, I've been playing it a long time now and know it well. I still love this guitar like the day I first bought it, because it does everything. I bought this guitar just after Christmas 08, and play it by the day, and it still plays like it did when it was new. I bought this guitar because of its range and versatility, I wanted to have all the most modern and technical features I could, so this was the only guitar that was in my price range and had all these things available to me. It cost me £380, which is its standard retail price here in the UK. So, what're all those features that make this guitar so great? Well, where to start... The S470 has a ZR tremolo (ZR stands for Zero Resistance). This is a recently developed tremolo from Ibanez, it's called a Zero Resistance tremolo because it runs on ball-bearings rather than a knife edge like the trems of past, such as the Ibanez Edge III Pro or a standard Floyd Rose. This gave it extra smoothness, tuning stability and reliability. The Edge III tremolo's are quite prone to breakage, search through the Ultimate Guitar forums or Jemsite and it probably won't take you any more than 5 minutes to find a thread about someone's broken Edge III trem. The Knife edge is how it sounds, the strings run on a sharp edge, this meant strings could also be easily broken by an overly vicious pull up on the whammy bar. The ball-bearings cancel this out, they run really smoothly, which also adds to the quality of the sound when using the trem for Vibrato or tricks. The ZR trem also has a stopping bar in it, which decreases the range of the Tremolo, in exchange for tuning stability. As a live musician, this was a great selling point for myself. One of the key facts about the ZR bridge, which I can confirm is true is that if you break a string, all the other strings will still remain perfectly in tune, which can be a savour in a live situation, and I can confirm, it really is! Now you may be thinking, well ok, but then I can't do some of those crazy divebombs and flutters, not true. That stopping bar in the ZR can be removed, which then makes the tremolo just like any other, you can start doing mad things with it, just be careful or your string bill might start costing the same as your gas and electricity bills.

Other major selling points? Well, the S470 has a Humbucker, Single, Humbucker pickup combination with a 5-way pickup selector. This gives you great range, for all styles of music, and can save you a fortune on pedals and effects. The bridge humbucker gives you a really raw heavy sound, but when you flick up to the neck pickup, you get a beautiful clean sound, it's like strumming an acoustic, it's wonderful. The pickups that come as standard are Ibanez Infinity pickups. Now I'm an honest guy, these pickups aren't great, and I would recommend changing them out for something like DiMarzio's or EMG's, when it comes to quality of parts, Ibanez perhaps aren't the finest ambassadors. The Infinity's are good for a beginner, or someone just stepping up to their second guitar, but if you're an experienced guitarist, who often plays live and loud, you may notice lots of noise at high volumes, which is far from ideal. Don't let this put you off though, changing pickups is very easy, and not really all that expensive if you're patient and do your research.

The S470 also has other things you'd expect, it has a Wizard II neck, which is great for soloing, it has shark tooth inlays, which look great. It has a locking nut, classic Ibanez headstock, volume and tone controls and 22 frets. The last major selling point of this guitar from my perspective was how thin and light it was, yet how despite this, it doesn't lose any tone or sustain. It's made from mahogany, so you still get that great thick tone, but it's very thin and light, which is great live, you come off stage at the end of a gig with your shoulder still mobile. It also makes the guitar look very sleek. I consider this guitar like buying a new gadget, I saw it as the top gadget in the guitar market, like those more nerdy of you that like I want an iPhone because of all the extras it gives you over a normal mobile, all those things that you don't really need, but you want to have anyway, so once in a while, you can use them. This guitar has all the top range parts, and I wanted the most guitar I could get for my money, with the least limitations, and this was the best value item I could find, by quite a margin.


I've got the Cool Ice Blue finish, because it was slightly cheaper, but you can get a Blue Moon Burst or Red Viking finish, which is quilted maple top, and both look fantastic, looking back I should of saved up more and got one of those. I highly recommend this guitar, especially to anyone stepping up to their second guitar, it's fantastic and allows you to play all genres of music, it's the least restricting guitar on the market, in my opinion. It just has so much to it, allowing you to play anything.

So good people, what do you think of the Ibanez S470, or any guitar from the S Series range? Some of those prestiges look and play fantastic, if only I were richer. Leave comments and give opinions, I'd love to hear it, thanks.