Ibanez RG421EX-BKF

Straight out of the box the guitar played pretty good, just minor adjustments were required.

Sound wise, 5 positions to select from means its a versatile guitar. The pickups in my personal opinion are ok, are a bit muddy, but for the price of the guitar what would you expect, it is a budget Ibanez.

Features, all what to expect from an Ibanez, fast, thin neck (wizard III neck). I really like the flat black finish and the design on the bodies edges is a neat touch. Binding on the fret board also adds a nice aesthetically pleasing feature.

Quality, is really good, not much can go wrong with a fixed bridge guitar (cheap floyd equipped guitars, knife on the tremolos wear and the pivot stud in turn also, in my opinion due to the poor materials used in their manufacture) Time will tell on the quality of the instrument, but I find if you maintain the instrument there really shouldn't be an issue.

I have owned various brands of guitars and every ibanez I purchased i have never had an issue with. I own about 12-14 ibanez's and never had an problem with them, the RG series never let me down.

Ive been playing a GRG Ibanez for almost 5 years now when I was looking to purchase this guitar, I made a great choice. The Pickups have very good clarity, it has a brilliant wizard 3 neck its has a very ergonomic shape and is comfortable to play sitting down. Comparing it to my Jackson JS32 King V (which is in a similar price bracket), Ibanez has built a much higher quality instrument. The only con I can think of is that I would have preferred if Ibanez had put their Sharktooth inlays on the frets instead of the basic white dots. Something else I would like to mention is that the colour is slighlty lighter than the pictures. This is because Ibanez used to build these guitars with a Mahogony body (now they use Meranti) There is nothing wrong with it per se but, I think Thomann should update their photos of the guitar

Some minor finishing issues here and there. Neck plays well and is nice and thin however it needs adjustments quite often (once a month, sometimes more). Some small fret height issues and a bit of buzzing when strings are lowered. I don't like the fret board wood much but that's just my personal opinion based on my taste. I didn't know much about fret board woods back then.
The input jack was a bit loose and the knobs aren't of that good quality. I put a bit of tape inside of the knob to stop them turning over. I changed the pickups. I don't remember much how the original ones sounded but they weren't bad. A step up from the GIO lineup for sure.

I've purchased this as a follow up to my ibanez grg170dx. All I can say that this guitar is flawless for someone begginer to intermediate like me. It came in very good package and was set up almost spot on, just a tuning needed. Straight from the first playing I could tell the difference from the gio Ibanez. Very lightweight and easy to play. Extremely low action and tons of sustain! This guitar is perfect for anything from punk to thrash metal. Holds tune perfectly cause of the fixed bridge. Craftsmanship is flawless. As an intermediate level player I recommend this even to begginers. Better pay 100 euro more and get this rather than byuing some cheaper gio or squier. Just a great instrument!

I've had this guitar for a while now and I feel I have to adjust the neck far too frequently. The first 3 months I owned it I had to adjust the neck almost everyday, now I only seem to have to adjust it every week or two. I'm not talking much, a quarter turn in either direction at a time, but still, it's pretty annoying to get it set up just right only to have string buzz the very next day or week. The grommets in the back of the guitar where you feed the strings through all fell out the very first time I changed the strings so, that's a bit annoying.

Other than that, it sounds OK, the pickups aren't anything special but what do you expect for this cost? Looks good, weighs as much as a feather and is balanced when you play it standing up. Neck is comfy and fast when it's set up right. Really my only complaint is having to adjust the neck so frequently.