The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    New for 2020 I think ....

    https://www.ibanez.com/eu/products/d...g85_5b_01.html

    looks like it could be a great poor mans GB10 type guitar

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    This guitar and many other Ibanez guitars, including endorsed models, are made form Linden.
    I declined buying an otherwise acceptable endorsed Ibanez because the backs and sides are Linden.
    Linden makes for a good price , I would pay more for maple.

    Linden is known as basswood is commonly used for framing in cheap furniture, bases for stuffed and reclining chairs, and sofas, and for carving .
    The widest variety of Linden is found in Asia.

    Here is a comment I found about its use in musical instruments.
    "I'm not a big fan of Basswood, It's boring looking and isn't especially good for any type of particular tone.
    Very very Inexpensive it is used by many companies as a cheap substitute for Alder.
    Schecter, ESP, Jackson, Yamaha, Peavey, Epiphony, and the rest of the corporate geeks.
    You can dent it with your fingernails. and it has zero personality.
    Blandwood might be a better name!!"













  4. #3
    Yeah cool

    BTW

    Have you seen these ?

    AF75G | AF | HOLLOW BODIES | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars

    wow

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by bohemian46
    This guitar and many other Ibanez guitars, including endorsed models, are made form Linden.
    I declined buying an otherwise acceptable endorsed Ibanez because the backs and sides are Linden.
    Linden makes for a good price , I would pay more for maple.

    Linden is known as basswood is commonly used for framing in cheap furniture, bases for stuffed and reclining chairs, and sofas, and for carving .
    The widest variety of Linden is found in Asia.

    Here is a comment I found about its use in musical instruments.
    "I'm not a big fan of Basswood, It's boring looking and isn't especially good for any type of particular tone.
    Very very Inexpensive it is used by many companies as a cheap substitute for Alder.
    Schecter, ESP, Jackson, Yamaha, Peavey, Epiphony, and the rest of the corporate geeks.
    You can dent it with your fingernails. and it has zero personality.
    Blandwood might be a better name!!"












    For being made out of sh!twood, Ibanez’s sure do play nice!


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  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    Yeah cool

    BTW

    Have you seen these ?

    AF75G | AF | HOLLOW BODIES | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars

    wow
    That tailpiece is one of the most elegant pieces of hardware I have ever seen. BTW, I have an AG95, and I'm extremely fond of it.

  7. #6

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    I have an AG85, built in 2004. It's made from Bubinga, a very nice sounding wood. Basically, it was an AG95 with chrome hardware and ACH pickups instead of the Super 58s. I didn't want gold hardware anyway and I thought it sounded plenty nice with the ACH pickups. I've since upgraded the neck pickup to a Super 58. That's the pickup I use probably 80% of the time or better.

    My AG85 plays like a dream. It sounds excellent unplugged, which is a clear indicator how it's gonna sound amplified.

    I build guitars (classicals) and I use basswood as kerfing strips inside my guitars. It's too soft for anything else. I like it for kerfing strips because I use it as a continuous band, not slotted the way most kerfing strips are. I like that cleaner look. I would not consider basswood to be a usable tonewood. But perhaps there are different varieties of basswood, and some will work OK as tonewood? I don't know.

    The above Ibanez looks very interesting to me, mostly because of those floating mini humbuckers it has. That would seem to indicate a livelier top, since nothing's mounted in it. But if the top is made from basswood, that's simply a waste.

    I picked up my AG85 a few years ago for a really good price -- $350 shipped to my door. I found it, with a hardshell case at Guitar Center online. $300 and another $50 to ship it. Considering what the AF75 is selling for these days, I was stoked. Still am. So anyway, there are deals to be had out there on the used AG85s. So if you're concerned about the materials being used in the new ones, buying used is a viable option.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    That tailpiece is one of the most elegant pieces of hardware I have ever seen. BTW, I have an AG95, and I'm extremely fond of it.
    I was thinking the same thing! I've an AFS75T (the thin-line with the vibrato - this one: http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/a...03/025-8-7.jpg), and have been wanting to get that tailpiece instead since I saw it in their catalogue. Complicated affair, though.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zina
    I was thinking the same thing! I've an AFS75T (the thin-line with the vibrato - this one: http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/a...03/025-8-7.jpg), and have been wanting to get that tailpiece instead since I saw it in their catalogue. Complicated affair, though.
    I had that same guitar, except in "tourqoise" which turned out to be more like surf green, which I liked just as well. I removed the wiggle stick and put on a generic trapeze I had lying around. Gigged with it for a couple of years to good effect. I was going to donate it to the local high school, but my youngest grand-daughter fell in love with it and so....

    Great little guitar. A fully hollow thinline with a great neck and a wide tonal range. Really sang through the the Classic 50.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    Great little guitar. A fully hollow thinline with a great neck and a wide tonal range. Really sang through the the Classic 50.
    I'm glad someone knows how good it sounds; musicshop people zone out when we're talking jazz and they hear which model I play. Did you also think it sounds good unamplified? Mine fills a whole dormitory without effort, and I wonder if that's a lucky fluke. Does your grand-daughter struggle with the full scale? If I had the $€£ I would ask Ibanez to build a short-scale version without pick-ups; and without a cut-away even. But everything else the same, especially the neck.

  11. #10

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    Basswood comes from Linden trees, and it is soft and easy to work with. A side effect of being soft is that it also dents easy. Because it doesn’t have much of a grain or color, it’s most commonly used on instruments that have an opaque paint-job, though this isn’t always the case (as in the photo above). Basswood has a warm, balanced sound with great mid range and good sustain.


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  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hobbs
    For being made out of sh!twood, Ibanez’s sure do play nice!


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    I believe it's a relatively recent switch,

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
    I believe it's a relatively recent switch,
    Prob when they switched to Indonesia. What were they made out of previously? Mine is Chinese... made ~5-6 years ago..


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    Last edited by Hobbs; 01-10-2020 at 08:27 PM.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hobbs
    Prob when they switched to Indonesia. What were they made out of previously? Mine is Chinese... made ~5-6 years ago..
    Mine is also Chinese. Built in 2004, and the wood is bubinga. It's an African wood and it has very nice acoustic properties. I can hear its "woodiness" when I play it.

  15. #14

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    I have a considerable amount of basswood, which is linden. 8x8s, 10x10s 4 to 8 feet long.

    I have used this for years in carving/sculpting.

    When cut to guitar top sizes, or backs or sides, it does not "ring" when tapped, it thuds. It is not what I would consider a "tonewood".

    I will wager that the "linden" used in the Asian guitars comes from the many 100s of varieties of local Linden.
    I will also wager that the Linden used in the Asian guitars is laminated, not solid.

    Years ago poplar was used in inexpensive guitars ( and other products) and now Linden is the substitute. It is much less expensive and plentiful.


    Full disclosure: I an other life I hustled rare and exotic and domestic woods for musical instruments. Though I specialized in Pernambuco for violin bows and rosewoods form Central America and dalbergia spruciana from Brazil, I also dealt in the America spruces and western big leaf maple.

    I have a bit left from this enterprise.
    Linden/ basswood does not, in any way, compare with any if these tone woods.

    Ibanez and other companies are now using Linden, much like they began using NATO a few years back. And
    what they call "beech" which is usually trees from rubber plantations.

    Instrument makers/companies have long used whatever was closest if possible. Example, the now revered Adirondack spruce used by Martin, Gibson, et al. It was available, and cheap.
    Then came sitka spruce, available and cheap. Then western red cedar, principally for classical guitars, pioneered by Ramirez.. The reason, European spruce was getting scare and expensive and western red cedar, especially from Canada was dirt cheap by comparison. Next to spruces it is flabby and soft and brittle, prone to splitting and cracking, but it sounds good on day one. Hence popular.

    It's a matter of economics, not necessarily acoustics.

    I will concede it may not make much difference in an electric or acoustic electric.

    Still, I'll pass. I'll pay more for better wood.

  16. #15

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    Regarding cheap and plentiful for the Asian builders, there are varieties of rosewood from SE Asia that, far as I know, are still relatively cheap and plentiful. Problem though is the recent CITES ruling that has laid down a blanket ban on all species of dalbergia. Maybe not stupid, but definitely lazy and short sighted because there are varieties that aren't endangered, like East Indian, for example, which is one of the finest tonewoods you can buy. There are also various African species that aren't endangered, that are still relatively cheap, and which make good tonewoods. So I'm baffled at any decision to use basswood as a tonewood. I can't think of a "hardwood" more ill suited to the task.

  17. #16
    Anyone played on any of these new Ibanez Linden wood laminated guitars ?

    How do they sound ?

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    Anyone played on any of these new Ibanez Linden wood laminated guitars ?

    How do they sound ?
    Well this kind of sucks. I just ordered a brand new AF75 constructed of the questionable “linden” ply. I was sold on the AF75 not just for the low price, but because of all the good reviews and YouTube videos, and it seemed like a good first hollow body. I didn’t pay attention to the fact they changed to inferior wood. Were all those good reviews from the “better” version of the AF75, but now the new ones sound like garbage? I get that Ibanez had to change woods for whatever reason, but I would like to think they’d only put their name on a guitar if it sounded good.

    How much do the acoustic properties of a hollow body guitar affect the amplified sound? Would heavier string gauge bring out more tone?

  19. #18

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    Well, before you judge whether or not a wood is a "tonewood" you have to play an instrument made from it first.


    I am mindful that Bob Benedetto once built a very fine archtop guitar out of construction-lumber-grade knotty pine. He did so to demonstrate that the sound of the instrument is most due to the skill of the luthier rather than the wood. Heck, Gibson used balsa wood in the Howard Roberts Fusion model. Allan Holdsworth had one of his electric guitars made from basswood by either Charvel or Ibanez.

    "Tonewoods" are often chosen not for acoustic properties but visual properties, such as flame maple- we do tend to hear with our eyes. An instrument made of beautiful woods will tend to be perceived as sounding better than an instrument made from plain woods even though in a blindfold test that may very well not be true.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve V
    Well this kind of sucks. I just ordered a brand new AF75 constructed of the questionable “linden” ply. I was sold on the AF75 not just for the low price, but because of all the good reviews and YouTube videos, and it seemed like a good first hollow body. I didn’t pay attention to the fact they changed to inferior wood. Were all those good reviews from the “better” version of the AF75, but now the new ones sound like garbage? I get that Ibanez had to change woods for whatever reason, but I would like to think they’d only put their name on a guitar if it sounded good.

    How much do the acoustic properties of a hollow body guitar affect the amplified sound? Would heavier string gauge bring out more tone?

  21. #20

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    Too bad it's charcoal black, if it were at least black transparent, I would have considered it. I like to see wood on the jazzboxes.