Recent NGDs

[Pierre]

Well after several years of low--playtime and no NGDs (kid will do that to you), a recent health issue caused me to go in/out of the hospital a lot since December. As I recovered from that, I found myself with new motivation to use my limited time left and short of spending time with my family, what better than than to play pretty guitars?

So I put up my existing collection for sale and went to try different things. Off with the Albert Lee HH, JP15, and KxK DC7 (and tons of other stuff), and in with these three.

Strandberg Boden Standard 7
Ibanez HZK1 (Japan exclusive, there aren't many of those in the US)
Ibanez J-Custom RG8570z

Each are great in their own ways. The Strandberg is significantly cheaper but well built, I'm still working on the setup though. The HZK1 and J-Custom are incredible. In the J-Custom's case I did have to play through several to find one that had no build quality issues and where I loved the tone, that's the one that won-out. It's a player, with tons of dents, scratches etc...

Prior to me coming back to work I've been playing these a ton and making good progress on technique and some new songs. It feels great to go back to basics and take playtime seriously!

 

[Wattage]

Hope your time isn't too limited, rock em

 

[GuitarStv]

I could get along with any of those guitars I think. Strandberg's have always fascinated me - how do you find the neck?

 

[ehdwuld]

I too love the idea of the Strandberg
I just think that neck would be an issue
And that's a lot to find out ....

I have my knockoff with a standard neck

Love an RG no matter what version it is

Yours has the Regular J neck
Not super flat , not Wizard thin?

 

[Mincer]

The neck on the Strandbergs were an issue for me. Also, I'd rather they had 22 frets. When I asked Ola if they ever plan to offer a production 22 fret model, he was kind of an ass about it.

 

[Pierre]

I could get along with any of those guitars I think. Strandberg's have always fascinated me - how do you find the neck?

Absolute non-issue. I don't even notice it.

 

[Pierre]

I too love the idea of the Strandberg
I just think that neck would be an issue
And that's a lot to find out ....

I have my knockoff with a standard neck

Love an RG no matter what version it is

Yours has the Regular J neck
Not super flat , not Wizard thin?

I've genuinely got no clue what necks the Ibanezes have I'm ok with both, meaning I don't find anything bad about either. To me the best quality of a neck is that I don't notice it. These are perfectly fine in this respect.

I just went to check; looks like both my HZK1 and J-Custom have Super Wizard necks. It's hard to compare due ot the 7 vs. 6 string but yeah they don't feel otherwordly dissimilar.
They are quite flat. But not unpleasantly so. Flat surfaces help anchor the thumb a little better.