Ibanez JEMJR Steve Vai - White

I have a few dozen guitars, the closest thing I own to this is a 1980s American made Charvel. I have rack mounted gear, a Mesa Boogie amp and a Crate bedroom amp I like. I've been playing since the 1980s. I had classical guitar lessons in my youth.Mine came from Chicago music and was the best packaged thing I've ever received from Amazon. Quick and safe UPS delivery.Inside the box is: the guitar, a guitar cord, a 195 page manual, 5 Allen keys, and some stuff from Chicago music (picks, cloth, sticker). The guitar tags are barcode which matches the serial number, Diadario XL tag, and one stamped and dated for each stage of manufacture (spec, electrical, setup). My guitar was built a few days after my birthday last year.Let's get the negatives out of the way: the slot in the pick guard for the 5-way selector switch is horrible! I'm including a photo of it. It's wavy and too long and wide so you see the metal mounting plate for the switch. These were black smudges UNDER the plastic static-cling covers! There were black smudges everywhere. After playing for a few minutes my hands were black too! I think it was the polishing grit from the fret work? The side of the neck has dots (which is really nice) but the two dots at the 12th fret are different sizes and the two dots at the 24th fret are misaligned from each other! I'm just glad they're there because I get lost staring at the tree of life, lol!So, buy a strap and one of those Scotch 3M white sponges for cleaning.The setup was great. No buzz. No extra height, the strings seem to be the same height above the 1st free as above the 24th fret: perfect!The frets are smooth. The fingerboard is barely radiused and is almost flat. The neck is very shallow, not a D (Gibson) or C shape, it's very shallow. This is obviously for very technical playing.The whole guitar is extremely light weight. Bizarrely light, which had me worried it was cheaply made. Unplugged the guitar is loud.This guitar is the LOUDEST one I've ever played! The pickups are wound super hot (loud). I was getting feedback with my little Crate amp at 4. I put it on 2 and put the guitar through a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal and a delay pedal into the distorted amp for a super saturated tone. Then I played "Surfing with the Alien" and was happy.When I got the guitar it was in tune. I just tightened the locks near the headstock at the 1st fret, then slightly tuned using the big knobs at the other end. Push whammy down, pull up it's still in tune. The manual had a few dozen pages explaining how to deal with the tremolo system: read it or you'll snap strings. It's smooth, it works and it doesn't squeek like the one on my Charvel. The actual whammy bar is bent upward SO THAT IT DOESN'T SMASH INTO THE VAROUS TUNING KNOBS ON THE TAILPIECE unlike the ones on a few other guitars I've played.The pick guard, truss cover on the headstock, tree of Life inlay and the two humbuckers glow under UV light. The middle pickup turns dark magenta/purple.The back of the guitar is beautiful and technologically impressive: where the body meets the neck, the body is rounded instead of sharply squared off like every other bolt on neck guitar if ever seen: smooth playing up to the 24th fret instead of smashed fingers at the 17th fret. The bolts are counter sunk in deep holes. The output jack is sunk in diagonally in a creative way and makes it easier to wrap your cord around the bottom of your guitar strap so you don't accidentally unplug yourself by stepping on your cord.The guitar is very bright sounding, even when unplugged. You get the wild and crazy Steve Vai clean tones, plus the usual distortion (depending on your amp).If you need double locking trem and know what that entails (bend one string and they all go sharp), Metallica style Palm muting is tougher, string changes take minutes instead of seconds then you're going to love this guitar.The neck is very, very flat and sterile feeling. A similar guitar for twice the price are the new Charvels, or the $200 old Charvettes off of eBay: more meat on the neck and you can palm mute like crazy and bend single strings like Danzig ala "Twist of Cain".This guitar makes me want to learn new things (Vai, Satriani, etc). It sort of feels like a piano. It's like a Squire Strat that doesn't hurt your hands. It's a technical learning and practicing guitar, not really a jam guitar.The monkey grip is for huge hands. It's kinda nice to have actually. The pointy wings of the guitar are sharp (as in pointy). The paint is so thick it looks like plastic dip coating (in a good way).Well, I've owned this guitar for 15 minutes and need to get back to it, lol.-Mike

I love the guitar. It comes set up pretty much, but still needs some work. I like the sounds of the pickups - the center single coil has a unique sound. The bridge HB rocks nice. They were somehow able to squeeze more tone out the the neck HB than I've seen in any other RG Series. Typically you have to eliminate the last two frets two achieve a Les Paul type tone; positioning of the pickups with relation to the strings. They weren't able to faithfully achieve that tone, but it's closer than I've experienced with other 24 fret guitars. The tremelo bar has a nice fastening system that allows you to adjust how loose the bar is regardless of its position and has a height position that doesn't interfere with the volume and tone knobs while still being very functional.The bad? The neck isn't slick enough, that will need to be dealt with. The fret wire isn't slick enough either so bends take more effort than you may be used to. That limits your speed. I need my frets to feel like glass. A guitar like this, you'd expect the fret to feel like glass.Some fret buzz on the low E - even though the action is a bit high. I knew it would need some adjustment - hoping to be perfect out of the box is expecting too much.EDIT 1/21/2017: So, I've had this thing for about a year now and started noticing about two months ago that when I'm playing hard, sometimes the high E string will snag on the end of a fret if it happens to lip over the edge of the neck. I have to stop what I'm doing and physically un-stick the string from behind the fret. Wierd. This didn't happen when it was new. Dealt with it for a while. All the frets seem to be notably prominent when running my hand up and down the neck. Never noticed this before. As mentioned earlier, not really impressed with the slickness, or lack thereof, of the frets themselves - so I've decided to take it in for some work. I've played some high-dollar guitars in the interim and their frets are noticeably more glass-like. Making the ones on this guitar seem like sandpaper. No reason this one can't be like the others. So I take it in to get serviced; the guy says the fretboard/fingerboard has shrunk. Says it was manufactured on a smallish Asian island where the humidity was higher and now since it's been in Arizona for a year the neck has contracted and the fret wire is beginning to stick out from the edges of the neck. So he's going to file those even with the neck again and polish the frets so they're like glass like I'd like them..

I was trying to decide between the Jem Jr and the Jem Premium and decided to go with this one. There was no real issues, trem bar seated well, playability is typical of the Wizard series necks and very minimal scratches (assuming from transport.) I haven't plugged in up yet but the intonation seems off as there's fret buzz on the low E. Again, this isn't a major issue but in my opinion should have been caught during the included inspection checklist. All that said I would give this a solid 4/5.

the best guitar for the money, not many guitars are good for 500 and look good for 500. this guitar has been on my mind for about a year now and I got it a few months back, it holds up, with no problems; light weight; and I am planning for modifications, the frets are still shiny, and all set up when I got it. recommend hella

This guitar feels amazing and is so easy to play. I thought the wizard neck would be too thin for my liking at first, but the width compensates for this , which works for those with big hands like myself. The pickups sound great and it gives you those great ‘strat’ tones without the hum of single coils. For the price, it’s hard to beat this choice. The guitar looks great and the vine of life inlays add a sophisticated feel. Can’t recommend it enough

This guitar has a very nice tone and just beautiful itself but.. D A E strings are buzzing on frets. I tried to adjust it myself first then paid to professional in the music store to adjust it. He did it twice but not successful. I'll return it to amazon and buy it again. I hope another guitar will not buzz.