Re: 8 String Help
Currently, I own an Ibanez RG2228. It plays fairly well, but I was going to do more set up later, as it has emgs, standard tuners, a finicky killswitch, and a bridge I personally don't care for.
Then I went to my GC and found a Schecter Banshee 8.
The one that I played was set up better than the rg2228 and already has the specs i would added to the rg, including locking tuners, pickups, and wiring.
My question is, despite the longer scale on the banshee, is it worth upgrading the rg, or selling it for the banshee.
(I want an 8 string that can clean as well as it can djent)
I'm not at all skilled in either djent or 8 strings (I do play a 7 string though and have listened to a fair amount of Periphery), so I can only speak about what the guitar has that you don't care for and what you can do to fix this.
The RG is a fine guitar for someone who's playing metal only. The EMG's are always going to be the archetypal metal pickup, but for djent, you'll want something passive. SD offers plenty of options, like the Sentient and the Pegasus. Bareknuckle offers the Misha Mansoor signature series. Dimarzio has the Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes sets. The locking tuners are a mute point with the locking nut and bridge, so unless you go rid of the bridge and nut combo, I wouldn't mess with it. Not that you could, because to my knowledge and search history, no company makes an aftermarket 8 string fixed Floyd Rose bridge and with the routing that they did on those guitars, you'd have to be able to fill that in with something before you could go about changing it.
Now the Schecter has everything you want, except the scale length correct? Well, Ibanez does make an RG with a 27" scale length, not stupid bridge (though Gibraltar seems to have a deal with Ibanez because that's pretty much your only option), passive pickups, and locking tuners. ESP makes a Javier Reyes signature model with 27" scale length, a Schaller bridge, Dimarzio pickups, and locking tuners as well.
I would consider selling the RG for the Schecter. In my opinion, the Schecter Banshee series is much more equipped to handle the sonic needs of djent. Also in my experience, active pickups are not very good for djent riffs. They sound much too compressed and all the best djent riffs that I've listened to, while palm muted, also have a certain openness to them that active pickups cannot usually achieve. And with the fixed Ibanez Edge bridge on the 2228, your only real options are another fixed Floyd Rose style bridge. Maybe eventually you'll switch out the pickups on the Schecter (although you may not, I've heard some good things about those Schecter pickups), but you're going to invest much less time and energy and probably end up happier with the final product than if you tried to upgrade every component of the RG and still end up hating that style of bridge that you cannot seem to get rid of. If you choose not to get the Schecter, there are other options for you to pursue as well.
