619digas619 wrote:
It is not my first guitar... I've had 4 different guitars already but only one with that system, which i quickly stopped using because I couldn't get used to it. However, I was a rather cheap guitar, and probably, it didn't have a decent double lock system, like you said. I'm able to spend up to 1000 on a new guitar. I'm looking for a very good guitar, with preference for Ibanez. I like the sounds of avegend sevenfold. What do you recommend?
Well assuming Avenged Sevenfold actually use their own signature guitars when recording then you're looking at a very different guitar to any Ibanez. If you can spend up to 1000 on a guitar then you're in very good territory, second hand you could pick up tons of different types of Ibanez prestige models and with the right pickup swap any of them would be awesome. If you're looking for something similar to that A7X dudes tone then you may want to look at Mahogany bodied guitars, ESP & Charvel make a few mahogany bodied superstrat style guitars that may get you close to what you want. If you can help it don't go for anything with EMGs, the A7X guitarist may have very high output pickups and play with high gain settings but he doesn't have an active tone.
The double locking trems on the Ibanez's are brilliant, specifically their Lo-Pro is probably the best double locking trem ever made in my opinion and many others. Other than that look for Gotoh, if you can't have Gotoh then Schaller and Floyd Rose double locking trems themselves are pretty good but more tight feeling and less responsive to flutters I've found. I realise all these trems are based on the Floyd Rose to some extent but that isn't to say that though Floyd Rose created the design it hasn't been refined by someone else.
When looking at double locking bridge guitars, construction quality is most important to me, then the bridge itself. The electronics you can always change but overall quality is something you'll never rectify and though it is possible to buy better after market double locking systems than the licensed ones lots of guitars come with there are actually very few of them that will not need extra routing to be done to the guitar itself, there doesn't appear to be a universal size/route for these bridges. Even in the Ibanez brand most of their bridges can't be interchanged freely because of dimensions, so if I were to upgrade my RG1527s bridge from the Edge that's on there to the Lo-Pro I'd need it routed out slightly...
I also recommend getting silent springs, they resonate and can make funny noises in the back cavity. You're an A7X fan no doubt so you'll want to play metal and spring noise can get in the way of making a truly tight sound. I also recommend getting a brass block if you can as a slight aftermarket upgrade and a tremol-no, essentially the tremol-no lets you lock down the bridge to change it's function from floating, to dive only, to fixed, which means that you can actually Drop D pretty easily on a Double locking system. Most of these things can be bought from www.floydupgrades.com I think.
