My latest guitar acquisition, a White Ibanez RG350DXZ Electric Guitar.

[DrNomis_44]

Hi everyone,

I just thought I would start a new thread about a guitar I bought from my local Cash Converters shop yesterday, the guitar I bought is a White Ibanez RG350DXZ Electric guitar with a pearloid scratchplate, the pickups are an Infinity 3 Neck Humbucker, an Infinity S3 Middle Single-Coil, and an Infinity 4 Bridge Humbucker, it features an Edge III Low Profile Floyd Rose style double-locking Trem with Ibanez's ZPS Zero-Point System, a Basswood Body, and a Wizard III neck with a bound Rosewood Fingerboard, the hardware is black, the guitar cost me $350.00, but I have seen there retailing for up to $600.00 online.

After I bought it and got it home, I uninstalled the old grungy strings, used some household spray-n-wipe on a yellow easy clean cloth to clean all the DNA off the grotty fingerboard, then burnished all the tarnished frets using some 0000 grade steel wool, then sprayed the Rosewood fingerboard with Fret Ease, and then installed a new set of Elixir Strings in 42-09 gauge prior to doing a full set up to get the guitar playing at it's best, it looked brand new after I'd finished, I then swapped-out the stock black strap-buttons for a set of Chrome Ernie Ball Strap-Locks, the result is what you see in the pic:





There is practically no fret wear on all the frets, the action is pretty low and there is no fret-buzz on any of the frets on any of the strings, I am pretty happy with this guitar because I don't get any pain in my fretting hand due to the neck's thin profile and the low action, it's definitely a keeper, the trem system did need a fair amount of time to get set up right, but after some tweaking I think I got the guitar's playability to where it's at it's best, the guitar does sound a bit on the bright side, I blame that on the Basswood body, anyway, I reckon it is definitely a keeper since I think I like it more than my S420WK, which I have given to a good mate of mine.


The neck looks pretty straight with no excessive back/forward-bow, or twisting, I'm thinking of leaving the guitar "as is" to let it settle-in before thinking about making any neck-relief adjustments.

[wokkaboy]

nice one Doc looks like a good deal for $350.
Are the humbuckers coil splittable ?

love the fret markers, what do you call them shark tooth with a cut in them

the big question is does it keep reasonable tune ?

[wazkelly]

Good score there Doc. Where was this one made? Indonesia or Korea?

[DrNomis_44]

nice one Doc looks like a good deal for $350.
Are the humbuckers coil splittable ?

love the fret markers, what do you call them shark tooth with a cut in them

the big question is does it keep reasonable tune ?

From what I've read on the internet, the Infinity 3 and 4 pickups are indeed coil splitable, the RG350DXZ guitar uses the following 5-way pickup selector wiring:


1, Neck Humbucker (Infinity 3).

2, Middle Single Coil (Infinity S3)+ Inside Coil of Neck Humbucker (Infinity 3).

3, Middle Single Coil (Infinity S3).

4, Middle Single Coil (Infinity S3)+ Inside Coil of Bridge Humbucker (Infinity 4).

5, Bridge Humbucker (Infinity 4).


So, going by that, the Bridge and Neck Humbuckers are automatically coil-split whenever positions 2 and 4 are selected on the 5-way pickup selector.


Yes, the inlays are what Ibanez call "Shark Teeth", I'm not sure what material they used to make the inlays, probably a plastic imitation pearloid material, since my RG350DXZ is a cheaper version of their top of the range RG series, incidentally I worked out from the guitar's serial number that it was made in Indonesia in December of 2010, so it's about 6 years old if I am correct.


After all my tweaking, I managed to get the guitar to stay in tune reasonably well, I reckon it is good enough to gig with.


I was reading an article on a website, called Ibanez Rules, in the article, it said that it is actually very rare to have a double-locking trem system that returns to perfect-pitch 100% all the time, 80% is more the norm, while 95% is found in some rare cases.

[DrNomis_44]

Good score there Doc. Where was this one made? Indonesia or Korea?

Yep, she was made in Indonesia, apparently in Ibanez's Cort Factory, in December of 2010, going by the serial number marked on the back of the headstock.


The Serial Number on the back of the headstock reads as follows:


I 101208153

[wokkaboy]

cool Doc that's a different way to wire it position 2 and 4 on the switch.

Does the bridge humbucker (position 5) have a good growl with distortion ?

if you have time we might need to hear a demo please !

EDIT just noticed its 24 frets. My S series is 22 frets

[DrNomis_44]

cool Doc that's a different way to wire it position 2 and 4 on the switch.

Does the bridge humbucker have a good growl with distortion ?

Yep, it sure does because the Infinity 3, Infinity 3 S, and Infinity 4 pickups are High-Output pickups, when I first bought the guitar I was fully expecting them to sound muddy and harsh, like the Infinity 1 and Infinity 2 pickups that were in my S420WK guitar before I swapped them out for the Entwistle HDN Zebras, I was actually surprised that the pickups in the RG350DX sounded pretty good for Distortion and Clean tones, of course what sounds good to one person's ears may not sound good to another person's ears.

[DrNomis_44]

cool Doc that's a different way to wire it position 2 and 4 on the switch.

Does the bridge humbucker (position 5) have a good growl with distortion ?

if you have time we might need to hear a demo please !

EDIT just noticed its 24 frets. My S series is 22 frets

Yep, my RG350DXZ is a 24 fretter, and I found out that the scale-length is 25.5 inches, same as what Fender use on their Standard Stratocasters and Telecasters.



In the pic I posted, the black control knob closest to the Bridge Humbucker is the Master Volume, and the other black control knob is the Master Tone control.

[wokkaboy]

cool good stuff Doc, I reckon you got a pretty good deal.

so you only have a measly 280 posts to reach Overlord status !

what page# did your STA-1M diary get to ?

[DrNomis_44]

cool good stuff Doc, I reckon you got a pretty good deal.

so you only have a measly 280 posts to reach Overlord status !

what page# did your STA-1M diary get to ?

Hahaha... I think my STA-1M diary got to page 98, or something like that mate, I could be wrong though.


I just checked and I stand corrected, it's now up to page 96.


Going back to the RG350DXZ, the fretboard radius looks like it could be either a 15 inch, or, a 16 inch, which is pretty flat compared to the other guitars I have in my collection, yes, I am a confirmed GAS sufferer....lol.



Apologies for my use of imperial units, I blame that on the Apprenticeship I served with my dad as an apprentice Fitter and Machinist in the late 90's, I had to learn to be conversant in Metric and Imperial units while doing my Tech at Pundlmurra College in South Hedland.