singemonkey wrote:
But what was the story with Ibanez? They were originally an export brand manufactured by some of the big Japanese companies like Fujigen or Terrada or something, right?
Ibanez started off being another brand, Maxon I believe, then when they started looking at going international they decided against the Japanese name Maxon and went with the name Ibanez (Cause they had just bought over a Spanish guitar making company) The reason they went with Ibanez is cause it was the 70s and Pearl Harbour had recently gone down and the wise people over at Hoshino Gakki figured maybe the American market wouldn't take too kindly to them with a Japanese name like Maxon after their people had just blown their shit up. I believe there was a man who was trying to start a brand or was manufacturing a brand called Grecko or something else with an "E" in it, he got into a contract with them and his business was converted to Hoshino USA Distribution. It was around this time that Ibanez got sued for it's infringement on the Gibson headstock, they settled out of court, and then turned their attention to their superstrats.
Hoshino Gakki also owns and manufactures Tama at it's own factory, whereas there are two Japanese factories which were responsible for the output of their guitars. With regards to Ibanez, Hoshino does the R&D and all that sort of thing but the actual manufacture is contracted to Fuji-Gen. Their prestige line is primarily made in the Fujigen Gakki factory and the J-Customs and signature line guitars were made in a smaller factory called Hiroka Gakki (Closed in 2002 when Fuji-Gen downsized), now pretty much everything comes from the Fuji-Gen Gakki factory, except the custom shop stuff which is made at the Los Angeles Custom Shop but only endorsees are given access to it.
BMU wrote:
singemonkey wrote:
...Ibanez. They do still make high-end guitars in Japan, no?
Of course! And fine beasties they are too. There was a period where some "Prestige" branded Ibbies weren't MIJ, but that was rectified some years ago.
For what it's worth RGs never shifted manufacture, it was the S and SZ line that went to Korea for a while, I think this might have been during the downsizing period, and now most if not all prestige production has returned to Japan.
studmissile wrote:
Its dissapointing how few MIJ guitars we get, especially as an emerging market, it's either low end or very high end, what happened to middle of the road? I wonder how much they would be (as a 'brand' still trying to form a 'rep'?).
The absolute cheapest Japanese made guitar I've seen was retailing at R8k, I truly doubt you'd ever find anything lower than that MIJ, that is middle of the road. Japanese production is expensive now as their economy has grown so labour costs have increased, even as a company trying to build a rep they most likely wouldn't be super cheap, afterall mouths need to be fed.
Tokai SA wrote:
Guitars made in Japan in the past and today are IMO the best quality and value for money guitars in the world...it makes no difference what brand they are.
Agreed!
Having played guitars from pretty much every country they are manufactured in ? I can happily say that to me Japanese QC shits on everything else. I would take a Japanese guitar over an American guitar any day, I personally find most American guitars entirely too underwhelming for their price. Given the right components and wood I'd rate that a factory like Fuji-Gen would be able to make better guitars than most custom shops, it's just that generally guitars made in Japan are leased out by a higher power (brand) to be built to a price point and therefore don't always have woods with a high Q etc. Except in the case of brands like Ibanez and ESP where their flagship models come from Japan and are just killer, the other day I saw an S series Japanese made prestige with what is literally the nicest piece of mahogany I have ever seen on a production guitar, and yes I've played PRS' and Gibsons that go all the way up to the R40k and beyond price brackets ?
As one of them nutjobs who likes floyd rose equipped guitars I'd also like to point out that the Ibanez designed Edge bridges, the Edge-Pro, the Lo-Pro and even the newer lower profile Edge bridges made by Gotoh are absolutely the best and most hassle free double locking trems I've ever played on or had to deal with and their fixed Edge III bridge is just absolute pure amazing! Though with fixed bridges I'm equally enthusiastic about the Hipshot low profile bridge which is OMG comfortable and the Schaller Hannes bridge which I've unfortunately never gotten to play but heard lots of good things about, and it looks bad ass, but Schaller suck cause they so far have no plans of releasing it in a 7 string version ☹
Also big high 5 to Ibanez for being the first production brand to venture into the ERG territory :woohoo:
and yes I'm a huge Ibanez Fanboy :-[...I own 4 RGs...
/slightly off topic fanboy rant :-[
