Re: Ibanez? If Fender and Gibson are Chevy and Ford . . .
Ibanez seems to keep innovating
Excusez-moi, but I don't think the guitar building business ever saw another innovator of the same caliber as Gibson and Fender.
I mean, look: Gibson invented the solid body guitar. Well, it wasn't before Bigsby's Merle Travis, but the Les Paul, they made it right. Then they made it right four more times with the Explorer, the Flying V, the SG and the Firebird. They invented pointy guitars before they were cool, they invented "shred" with the idea of "the fastest neck in the world" and easy upper fret access, they invented beveled body edges, tune-o-matics and humbuckers.
Fender reinvented the solid body guitar. Every second guitar made today draws from the Stratocaster. Leo's ideas of the bolt-on construction, the stratocaster's comfort contoured body, its tremolo bridge design and pickguard-mounted electronics were highly original and caught on. Then they invented the bass guitar.
While Fender successfully pulled off mass production (like Ford but without any color you wanted being black), Gibson made themselves the strongest, most iconic brand in the industry, just like Ferrari. And guess what happened - one day, out of nowhere, there came a man who didn't find Enzo's cars good enough. Blasphemy! He believed he could build a better sports car than the number one name. That was almost an impossible challenge, yet he didn't quite fail miserably! That man was a tractor builder named Ferruccio Lamborghini and the rest is history.
That's how Bernardo Rico came to the scene - a flamenco luthier of mexican descent with a vision on "how to build a better Gibson". Except he didn't really build Gibsons but something quite different, just like Lamborghini didn't build road legal race cars but grand tourers. BC Rich didn't follow Gibson's formulas but made up their own instead. Heelless neck through body construction, exotic wood, avantgarde shapes, 24 fret fingerboards, complex tone circuits, 10 strings and unconventional finishes have been their distinctive features.
Another innovators worth mentioning are Ned Steinberger with his headless instruments made of graphite, and whoever designed the aluminum necked Kramers. Eddie Van Halen invented one superstrat formula, Grover Jackson did another one, and the Randy Rhoads.
Now what would be Ibanez's radical invention? I'd say maybe the lens-profiled Saber body shape, swirled finishes, and most importantly seven/eight string guitars available to mere mortals. But I don't think they ever went beyond mashing up and modifying existing designs. Even more of that can be said about ESP: they can make some great quality guitars, it's just their design ideas aren't original at all.
