NGD: Ibanez RGA8

[Drache713]

Okay, so it's not exactly new guitar day seeing as I've had this for a few days now, but what the hell! I didn't want to take pics of the whole unboxing thing, so I just took various pictures out of the box which you may see below:

And as far as a brief review so far...this guitar is amazing for the money. I didn't have too much of a problem switching from 6-string to 7-string originally, but switching from 7-string to 8-string is proving a little more difficult, although I'm sure it will be just fine as I spend more time with it. The fretwork on this is actually nicer than the fretwork on my Ibanez RG7421, no dead spots, no high frets, no sharp protruding edges. The neck feels amazing, I am gonna take some steel wool to it just to make it feel a LITTLE smoother, but it's flat with pretty soft corners, think like a 7321 but nicer here. 27" scale I get along with fine, ideally for an F# i'd like around 28 5/8" or 30", but then the high strings would suffer and I like my high strings on a 25.5" scale, so I feel like 27" scale is a nice compromise between the two. Weight seems good, perhaps SLIGHTLY neck heavy, but nothing bad at all. Once the new strings I ordered arrive I'm still gonna give it a complete setup and clean up like I do for all my guitars. I haven't had a chance to really test the pickups through my actual 6505+ rig live in a band setting, but at first impression they don't seem too bad at all. Bridge is super nice, EQ toggle switch is pointless. You can easily get up to the 22nd fret, but you have to work a little to hit the 23rd or 24th fret, which is fine for me since I rarely go up that high anyways.

A couple of pieces of clarification...yes, it will lay in the UV1000C case, NO the case will not shut! I really want to grab a hardshell case for this very soon, hopefully Ibby comes out with one ASAP! Also does anybody know what gauge strings come stock on this thing? The high end is little too tight for my liking, and the F# is WAYYYY too loose! I just ordered a set of La Bella strings 9-12-15-22-30-40-54-72 which I think will work perfect on the 27" scale...my other concern is if I will be able to fit the 72 in the tuner, does anybody know how big of a string will fit in these tuners? If it won't fit I will have to learn how to make the tuning peg hole larger, or learn how to strip the winding from the string to fit it in.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

And as a heads up, don't be surprised if you look like this after playing the guitar...don't say I didn't warn you!

 

[XtremeMetalGod1]

awesome as hell, im thinking of getting the 7 string versioin of that, just wondering tho will it be a pain in the ass to rewire the guitar so i can fit blackouts?? or should i just take it to a pro?

 

[Drache713]

Shouldn't be too bad, if I do decide to upgrade the pickups (pending results of playing through my live rig) I'm going to switch them out for Blackouts, all you would have to do is put the 9V battery in the electronics compartment (plenty of room) instead of the battery box already on the back of the guitar. I wouldn't even try to wire up or figure out the EQ toggle switch with Blackouts, to me it's pointless and I would just not wire it up anyways! But if you've never changed pickups before or done any kind of soldering, you might wanna take it to a tech. I've been doing it for years now so it's second nature to me.

 

[Guitarwiz2k]

Shouldn't be too bad, if I do decide to upgrade the pickups (pending results of playing through my live rig) I'm going to switch them out for Blackouts, all you would have to do is put the 9V battery in the electronics compartment (plenty of room) instead of the battery box already on the back of the guitar. I wouldn't even try to wire up or figure out the EQ toggle switch with Blackouts, to me it's pointless and I would just not wire it up anyways! But if you've never changed pickups before or done any kind of soldering, you might wanna take it to a tech. I've been doing it for years now so it's second nature to me.

Congratulations on the new Axe mate!

I was wondering how it would sound with blackouts, since I've not made my decision as yet, but I was told by my tech here, you can run both batteries. Just run the blackouts with their own 9v, snip the power lines and output lines for the ibby, leave the EQ with it's 3v, then just run the audio lines replacing the Ibby lines.

The switching should be the same. And the output, "If Ibby's are truely active, will just seem like a little hotter signal coming from the blackouts. But I love the sound of passives, so I'd have to see someone else do the blackout route before I make any moves away from passive. I'm still pondering BKP's or Agile Pickups.

 

[Drache713]

Congratulations on the new Axe mate!

I was wondering how it would sound with blackouts, since I've not made my decision as yet, but I was told by my tech here, you can run both batteries. Just run the blackouts with their own 9v, snip the power lines and output lines for the ibby, leave the EQ with it's 3v, then just run the audio lines replacing the Ibby lines.

The switching should be the same. And the output, "If Ibby's are truely active, will just seem like a little hotter signal coming from the blackouts. But I love the sound of passives, so I'd have to see someone else do the blackout route before I make any moves away from passive. I'm still pondering BKP's or Agile Pickups.

Hmm interesting, sounds like it could work in theory...I might have to do that if i get Blackouts! Thanks!

 

[Guitarwiz2k]

No problem, I'd love to see it in production... Hopefully if possible, could you take some photos when you've completed the work?

I've not aquired the funds to go either way as yet myself, but I anticipate a great improvement either way.

 

[Apophis]

Congrats !!!

 

[Drache713]

Added an additional pic for humor...the byproduct of amateur Photoshop skills, a post by another forum member recently about their Scleral lenses, and my obsession with the show Supernatural...

 

[BigBaldIan]

Congratulations!

 

[Drache713]

So I took off the strings, polished the frets, oiled the fretboard and put new strings on, and she looks amazing now...















but now she doesn't SOUND good! I've got the action set at about 1.7 mm on the high E side and about 2.2-2.4 mm on the F# side, i've got visible clearance in the 7th-9th fret area using the string as a straight edge fretted at the 1st and 24th fret so I know the trussrod is okay, I haven't set the intonation yet though...and I am getting dead frets on the 5th fret high E, 6th fret high B, and 6th/7th fret on the G/3rd string. Every other string seems okay. I don't know what to do here, how do I fix dead frets? I've never come across this before! should I set the intonation and then see if the buzzing goes away before I do anything else?

Also, for those that are curious, the 72 low F# string did not fit through the tuner, and it is actually double wound, so it came partially unwound at the end, I was just able to wrap that part around the post like normal. The F# string sounds drastically different than the other strings, probably because it is double wound.

 

[Drache713]

Anybody have any suggestions/methods/techniques to fix these dead frets? I'm dying here!

 

[Drache713]

Another update:

I set the intonation...well, it turned everything was actually intonated perfectly except for the F# string, that was the only one I actually had to intonate. I bought a rubber mallet and tried to hammer the frets down to eliminate the dead frets/buzzing, but unfortunately no dice, still dead fret/buzzing on the high E string at the 5th fret and on the High B and G strings on the 6th fret. Do I need to take it to a luthier now to have the frets leveled and/or crowned or something? If so how much does this type of work typically cost?

 

[rob_l]

BIG CONGRATZ!!!! SWEET!

I have a soft spot for RGAs and the mathing black RGA7 and 8 set was tooo tempting.. As soon as they got here I had BlackOut - 8s waiting on it.

 

[technomancer]

Those look really cool. Makes me wish I got on with the flat-backed Ibanez indo necks better

 

[Drache713]

I've emailed some luthiers around town and a few have contacted me back...but they said you can't just level down a couple of frets if it's buzzing in one area, you have to level the entire neck. Is this true? I only want to fix the couple of problem frets since they are only like 1 fret on 3 strings...I'm going to try and add some additional neck relief and raise the action a little bit tomorrow to see if that helps, but we will see. I really just want this guitar to play correctly, especially since it is brand new!

 

[Ben.Last]

I've emailed some luthiers around town and a few have contacted me back...but they said you can't just level down a couple of frets if it's buzzing in one area, you have to level the entire neck. Is this true? I only want to fix the couple of problem frets since they are only like 1 fret on 3 strings...I'm going to try and add some additional neck relief and raise the action a little bit tomorrow to see if that helps, but we will see. I really just want this guitar to play correctly, especially since it is brand new!

They're either retarded or they're just not explaining what they mean very well. You want all the strings at the same level. Meaning that you would level down the ones that are higher to the same height as the ones that are shorter. You wouldn't be grinding the lower ones down at all.

Let's try this visual:

|iii|iiiii

Imagine those are the frets. The 2 taller ones would need to be ground down to the height of the others so that it's like this:

iiiiiiiiiiii

Making them all level

You wouldn't grind them all down so it's like this:

.........

They're all still level, obviously, but in an asinine way

 

[Guitarwiz2k]

I wonder if the set of strings you put on are at a lighter gauge than the originals for some string tensions, which may just take a careful trussrod adjustment of the rod nearest the troubled strings.

As far as the guitar tech, he is accurate in saying he'll have to level all the frets.... It may not actually touch all the frets that are lower, but what they do is, put it on a type of plainer and equalize all the frets so their tollerance is gradual. This way in a sence, you've leveled out the entire board; but from a string standpoint, no fret will be higher than it uniformally should be.

As I said though, check to see if the strings you put on could be a bit lighter than the old ones. I'd first check the hight adjustment to see if you can't raise that side just a half turn with the hight adjusters, just to see if it will get rid of the dead spot. If not adjust the trust rod next, then finally if all else fails, the dreaded Fret job. But the guitar is new, so it really shouldn't need a fret job, just a good adjustment; especially since you put a whole new set of strings on.

So I took off the strings, polished the frets, oiled the fretboard and put new strings on, and she looks amazing now...

but now she doesn't SOUND good! I've got the action set at about 1.7 mm on the high E side and about 2.2-2.4 mm on the F# side, i've got visible clearance in the 7th-9th fret area using the string as a straight edge fretted at the 1st and 24th fret so I know the trussrod is okay, I haven't set the intonation yet though...and I am getting dead frets on the 5th fret high E, 6th fret high B, and 6th/7th fret on the G/3rd string. Every other string seems okay. I don't know what to do here, how do I fix dead frets? I've never come across this before! should I set the intonation and then see if the buzzing goes away before I do anything else?

Also, for those that are curious, the 72 low F# string did not fit through the tuner, and it is actually double wound, so it came partially unwound at the end, I was just able to wrap that part around the post like normal. The F# string sounds drastically different than the other strings, probably because it is double wound.

 

[Drache713]

Oh yeah they are definitely a lighter gauge then what came stock (well, except for the F# ), I raised the action a little and added some more neck relief (it only has one truss rod, not dual truss rods ) and that helped a little, but it's still there a little. I'm having a local custom luthier/builder/tech take a look at it in the next couple of days to see if he can fix the couple of high frets.

 

[Guitarwiz2k]

Thanks for letting me know about the truss rod, I thought I read that it had two, I must have been in error. At least you got some relief there. Good luck with the guitar tech, he'll have it sorted out in no time. The pull is a little different now since you put a lighter gauge on, but not on the lower string, so it will pull a little different.

Oh yeah they are definitely a lighter gauge then what came stock (well, except for the F# ), I raised the action a little and added some more neck relief (it only has one truss rod, not dual truss rods ) and that helped a little, but it's still there a little. I'm having a local custom luthier/builder/tech take a look at it in the next couple of days to see if he can fix the couple of high frets.

 

[lctdmf]

That fretboard looks a little thirsty!

Congratulations on getting an rga8 though, hope your bridge doesn't mess up..