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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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01-06-2020 09:30 AM
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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!!"
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Yeah cool
BTW
Have you seen these ?
AF75G | AF | HOLLOW BODIES | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars
wow
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Originally Posted by bohemian46
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Originally Posted by pingu
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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.
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Originally Posted by citizenk74
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Originally Posted by Zina
Great little guitar. A fully hollow thinline with a great neck and a wide tonal range. Really sang through the the Classic 50.
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Originally Posted by citizenk74
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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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Originally Posted by Hobbs
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Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Hobbs; 01-10-2020 at 08:27 PM.
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Originally Posted by Hobbs
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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.
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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.
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Anyone played on any of these new Ibanez Linden wood laminated guitars ?
How do they sound ?
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Originally Posted by pingu
How much do the acoustic properties of a hollow body guitar affect the amplified sound? Would heavier string gauge bring out more tone?
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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.
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Originally Posted by Steve V
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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.
Used Henriksen or Mambo amp
Today, 09:08 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos