Ibanez RG550L-DY

In all my years of playing guitar I always said I'd stay away from Floyd Rose/Edge style tremolo's. Although I like the sound effects they can produce I never wanted to be bother by learning how to set them up and also they weren't that necessary for me. Until my friend recently inspired me so I decided to give it a go.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a guitar that I might not like because of the bridge but I also know that if you are gonna go down this road it's best to go for a quality bridge and not one of those licensed by floyd rose models as they can be a hit or miss (and from what I read it's usually a miss) so this guitar hit the sweet spot between a quality trem and a price that I was still willing to pay.

By now I knew how to set up and maintain this type of bridge in theory I never actually done it. The first time the set up took me almost 1,5 hours. It was annoying but I already anticipated that. After that it got a lot easier. All in all I must say that the set up of these type of bridges is more annoying than hard. I was struggling a bit but that's mostly in the beginning. It's stay fairly nice in tune even after some nice whammy bar action. All in all the set up was not as difficult as I thought and I enjoy this guitar a lot.

The color is obnoxiously bright and I love it. I like the maple fretboard and the tilted heel joint is although not ideal (I prefer an all access neck joint) it's is not a big problem for me at all. I don't like the 9-42 strings it comes with but that preference because I haven't played 9-42's for 5 years so I'll slap my standard 10-46 on it soon and set up the bridge again.

All in all buying this guitar was a gamble but it worked out well and I am glad I have it. I will never by another floating bridge guitar though. Not because I hate them but one is enough for me and I am still a hardtail guy. So even though I'm a hardtail / fixed bridge guy by heart do I enjoy playing on this yellow beast a lot. This was a gamble and it played out very nicely.

I got this guitar after selling another (as you do) And ive never been so happy with a guitar.

The colour is absolutely mind boggling, it looks just as bright as youd imagine,

The trem flutters away like a small bird and the pickups are fantastic, well done ibanez. Youve done it again.

I would 110% recommend this guitar if you are looking for a guitar to play hard rock/ metal

This guitar is of course a total classic, being the original superstrat. This remake does not disappoint !
Neck and frets are perfect, if feels great in my lap and is light, it does not dive on you and sits very stable.
People talk alot about the pickups being low quality but I find that absolutely false, they are bright and articulate, got a really chunky tone and do clean beautifully, the single coil does have a strong pull so I recommend adjusting it accordingly.
The only thing I can fault this guitar on is the nut, it seems a tad high, but it has a shim that can be removed during string change, so that might not even be an issue.
Absolutely love this guitar 🤘

I will preface my review by stating I have owned, or still own, a large variety of guitars. From cheap to expensive. Harley Benton, Ernie Ball, PRS, Tom Anderson, Jackson, Fender, G&L, Heritage, Ibanez, Gibson. Most of these are the top of the line guitars.

This guitar hits the sweet spot in my opinion.

The setup was pretty much spot on - it plays clean in all registers across the neck. no dead spots.
I also own Ibanez signature models, steve vai and joe satriani.
This RG550 is just as good. (which surprised me)

The guitar doesn't really have a specific sound that can be instantly recognized, which I like, it's a jack of all trades.

Now I know this type of guitar is usually classified/marketed as a shredder guitar (whatever that means) but it can do a lot more than that.
It sounds good playing clean in all pickup configurations clean too.

So, all in all, I would say that it plays as good as a guitar that costs 3 times more, it doesn't really have a distinct sound on it's own, but it gets pretty damn close to all. This guitar is a all trick pony.