Ibanez RG550

I'm not going to be specific in whether it's the original model or the 20th anniversary model, both had the same specs, other than the updated neck on the anniversary RG550 model, because of problems with the neck warping with the original model. So other than that, they're both the same guitar, which makes them both brilliant! I love this guitar, and I really want to get hold of one. It's the top of the range RG model, with all the top hardware. The other sublime feature about this guitar is that awesome paint job. The RG550 only came in three colours, Desert Yellow, Road Flare Red and Black, all of a matte finish, which took away the shine and made the guitars look fantastic on stage. There's a Paul Gilbert video on youtube introducing the RG550XX anniversary model (The XX signifies it's the anniversary model). He speaks about the power the original 550's had on stage, and how cool they looked back in the 80's, and how cool they still look today, even more so if you have an original RG550 with all that character, one of the early models, you're going to be the real envy of all your friends. Now, the travesty here is that the RG550 model has been discontinued a long time now, and the anniversary models are limited, but this should just increase your desire, if you can get hold of one of these, its value is only going to increase from the day you get it.


So lets talk about the defining features that made the original RG550 such a popular and fantastic guitar to play and own. The RG550 had a Basswood body, which made it very light, despite its size. Well how great is that? There's more guitar to own, without it weighing you down during live performances. This means they haven't had to compromise the looks of the 550 to make it play well and sound great. The Basswood gives a very unique tone, which made the RG550 so popular. I seem to drop his name a lot these days, but you can learn so much from him, Paul Gilbert uses a stock, off the shelf RG550 in the Road Flare Red, he used it for the whole of the Mr. Big reunion tour, it's the one with all the stickers on it, you've hopefully seen it before. Well when a top musician takes a stock instrument on tour and uses it regularly, you can clearly see it's a very good instrument. I'd certainly love to take one on a tour of the local area, aha.

The RG550 has a 5-piece wizard prestige bolt on neck, in maple, which looks fantastic with both the red and the yellow, personally I'm not a fan of black guitars in general, but whatever floats your boat. With the two really striking colours available, I couldn't imagine buying the black. I've mentioned before my preference for maple necks. From my perspective, they feel better, and they feel like they play a little quicker and smoother, but this again is only my personal preference, and despite this I don't actually own a guitar with a maple neck, because a lot of the time guitars with maple necks look a bit odd, but the RG550 really doesn't, not with the headstock that matches the body colour, it looks ace. The neck has 24 Jumbo frets, which is great, I always prefer to have 24, because it means you've got a whole octave on every string, rather than on a 22 where the last two notes are absent. The RG550 also has a Humbucker, Single, Humbucker combination, which combined with a 5-way pickup selector gives you great range and versatility. If you watch that Paul Gilbert 20th anniversary video, you'll see the quality and difference between each pickup combination. The pickups in the 550 are Ibanez pickups, the V1 in the neck, S1 in the middle and V2 in the bridge position. These are the top range of Ibanez pickups, but you may still want to change them out for DiMarzio's or EMG's as there are slightly better pickups out there, but not much better, the stock pickups are the best pickups Ibanez have to offer.

The RG550 also had the Edge Pro tremolo, which is fantastic and not to be confused with the Edge III Pro trem, which is prone to breakage and other problems. The Edge Pro is one of the finest trems Ibanez offer, a real sturdy and resolute tremolo. The RG550 also has a ultra thin carve on the back of the neck near the high frets to give easy access, this is what had to be addressed on the 20th anniversary models, but only a few original 550's suffered from warping, those that didn't are fantastic, and the anniversary models are beautiful and play perfectly.

This is one of the best RG models available, it's fantastic, it looks the part and plays the part, it has so much history behind it, and so much class, and is still a very sought after instrument today, which is constantly increasing in value. So what is your opinion on the RG550? Were you ever lucky enough to own one, or still do? Post some comments guys, what colour would you have this guitar in, what do you think of it? I hope you enjoyed the article, thanks.

Spear NF-Z

Right then, here we have the guitar I should of bought last time around, with hindsight. I'm now playing a lot of indie music, and this is a very indie looking guitar. To my eyes, it's a wonderful looking guitar, I love the Walnut/Mahogany body, naturally finished, which combined with the gold hardware looks fantastic. It looks like something Pete Doherty would play, which if you're in an indie band makes it top-notch. The pickups are standard Spear brand pickups, this could therefore cause a slight problem. The pickups look great because they're gold like the rest of the hardware, but if they don't sound good, you might want to switch them out, and then you'll have to find gold pickups to replace them with, too keep that fantastic look. The pickups could however be decent, combined with the guitar being a set-in neck, the sustain of this guitar should be very solid. It is also a semi-hollow body, which is fantastic, good versatility and great tone. That means it has the two swirls cut out of the body, which is just classic, like a Gibson ES or Paul Gilbert's PGM-301, I love this on guitars, I think it's really interesting and brings real class to the finished product.

The NF-Z offers you 2 volume controls, 2 tone controls and a 3-way pickup selector in the form of a toggle switch, giving you the ability to find the most accurate sounds and tones you want to create. Combined with a decent pair of pickups, this would be a brilliant guitar, for both looks and sound. Another thing I love about this guitar is the neck and the fret inlays. It's classic Les Paul, with those shiny Abalon Squares and it has 22 frets, which is standard. The gold machine heads also complete the hardware in the best possible fashion.

There are some little preferences I would've preferred if I designed the guitar. I like a whole guitar to fit together as one, so I like having the headstock the same colour as the body, and even the back of the neck if possible, unless you have something like a fender neck that is all maple. I know some people though really don't like having the back of the neck made of a body wood or painted. A lot of guitars don't have matching headstocks, but some do, and this is just a personal preference, the RG range from Ibanez is a good example, it has the best of both, and I think when you get an RG in a striking colour, with matching headstock it looks much better, unfortunately with my S470, the headstock doesn't match the body. With the spear, if the headstock was the same colour as the body, this guitar would look absolutely perfect, as it is, it's only 95% perfect, which still means I'd really love to own one. The NF-Z also has binding, like a Les Paul, this makes a guitar look a lot better in my opinion, it's like the icing on the cake.

This is a beautiful guitar, and should I start to take my indie playing into a band, it's a guitar I will be eager to acquire. Luckily, my local shop, Langdons is a Spear dealership. Spear make some guitars which are personal taste, but I believe this one is very universal, it's a classic design, it looks really classy and natural. So good people, do you love this guitar as much as I do? What do you think of all Spear Guitars? Please do leave comments, thanks!