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53K views 136 replies 70 participants last post by  manlopsan2 
#1 ·
Here is the first of the Korean Prestige Models

The SZ2020FMTKF

Duncan Pickups and Gibraltar custom bridge

 
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#55 ·
Anders_destium said:
Why do you think I highlighted the new part ;-)

Now we're on talking grounds anyway, how about a WYSIWYG menu within the reply window? If one wants to add a smiley it's pretty hard!
You here to? Hehehehe....JEMsite rules!

And well. I have had an GRX40 as my first guitar , an RG3120 in red as my second Ibanez but I would never buy an Ibanez from Korea again. Atleast not for now. Ibanez is getting way to commercial if you ask me. They are too expensive for what you get for your money. The bang for buck factor is going down fast if you ask me.

I'd rather buy a good Stat (not from Fender though)
 
#56 ·
I'll wait until I try one of those Prestiges before I pass judgement. It's been 4 years since I played a Korean-made Ibanez..the guitar I played wasn't too bad at all and I just hope they have improved.
Check out this interesting interview with Jim Donahue :
...
Tribble: At this point, you started working internationally as well, correct?

Donahue: They moved the [custom shop] to Los Angeles, and I stayed in Bensalem. My boss went out to Los Angeles-I didn't want to move there at the time-I had no desire. Back then, it was too weird for me, being from the East Coast. The first time I went to Los Angeles, I stayed right in Hollywood, and that flipped me out.

In 1991, my president called me in and said he needed somebody to go to Korea. We had just switched factories from Japan to Korea because the exchange rates were making Japanese guitars so expensive. They wanted me to teach the Koreans what a guitar is. Koreans knew how to make guitars, but not what it was. They can make a clock, a boat, a semiconductor, a guitar, but they don't understand that a guitar has soul. That's why the Japanese were always so good at making guitars and why the Chinese haven't quite got it. When I used to go to the factories in Japan in the late 1980s, all the guys in the factories were in bands-they could've been a John Lennon or a Beatles cover band or an AC/DC cover band, but it didn't matter-every guy was really into guitars. You'd go in there and say: "What do you have?" They'd say, "I spent all my money, and I have a '64 Fender Duo Sonic." He'd be so into it and know everything about it.

When I went to Korea, the Korean government had banned heavy metal music-it wasn't illegal, but you almost didn't want to do it. So, people knew nothing about guitars, and they had no history-they didn't know a Les Paul from a Strat from a violin. So, I had to go teach Koreans about guitars. I spent a lot of time in Korea-I learned to read and write Korean. I spent six years back and forth teaching them about truss rods and fretting, good necks and bad necks, good pickups that don't squeal, electronics, hardness of bridges, making better jacks. They were real cool about it and they knew they had to [learn].
...
You can read the whole interview here.
 
#57 ·
Azrael said:
You here to? Hehehehe....JEMsite rules!

And well. I have had an GRX40 as my first guitar , an RG3120 in red as my second Ibanez but I would never buy an Ibanez from Korea again. Atleast not for now. Ibanez is getting way to commercial if you ask me. They are too expensive for what you get for your money. The bang for buck factor is going down fast if you ask me.

I'd rather buy a good Stat (not from Fender though)
Yep, I used to come here just about every day. Not that I post or posted a lot here, it's always mainly been an excellent source of information :wink:
 
#58 ·
I understand that the style of that flame may not be appealing to a lot of you, I but I kinda consider that also to be as subjective as one's preference to music.
Some rather exspensive Les Pauls I've seen recently have ugly tops!! I find some of them to be very "sterile" looking. Although that may be an impression only I get. People still buy 'em. So some people still dig 'em.
I wonder if there's any reason why they didnt keep that SZ a string-thru. Maybe they wanted it to appeal more to Paul players who are used to a stop bar. I perfer string thru myself. It makes me warm inside. :razz:
 
#62 ·
Attention All Ibanez Users!!!
I work for bpmmusic.com and I have talked directly to Ibanez about this new model. IBANEZ CLOSED THE KOREAN FACTORY!!! It is now in China. ALL PRESTIGE models are now made only in Japan. So anything you buy comes from China or Japan. To anybody who doesn't like the pickups, they're made to be changed, just like strings. You choose the sound. The pictures that anybody has does not do the finish and Flame top justice. If you see it in person you will understand. At first, I thought it looked like crap, but it really doesn't. In the model number SZ2020FMTKF, "FM" stands for "Flamed Maple", the "TKF" is "Transparent Black Flat". The Bridge is not made by gibralter, it is the Mike Mushok, which has greater stustain than any of the gibralter series. This is just to help anyone who has been misguided by people who know nothing about it.
 
#66 · (Edited)
Hello,

This is an actual bpmmusic.com employee that plays guitar. BlackWensday is a fellow band mate that I was talking with about this forum. Leave it to a drummer to talk to guitar players about guitars :). Just to clear things up, there are two Korean Prestige models, the SA2020FMVV and the SZ2020FMTKF. The manufacturing of all Prestige basses is also heading to Korea, and eventually all other Prestige guitars will be manufactured there as well. It’s just progress. I have personally played all of these instruments at NAMM 2005 and they are of great quality. The first picture of the SZ2020FMTKF posted on this forum is horrible. Something is wrong with the flame but this is an exception and not the rule. All other models of the SZ2020FMTKF series are great in my opinion. I bought one myself. As you can see in picutre of the SZ1220 with the 1pc set neck and the string thru body style, the flame is quite good. This model was not released in America, but the SZ2020FMTKF uses the same body. Now, as for the bridge, they replaced the bridge on the SZ2020FMTKF with the bridge that’s on the signature Mike Mushok model, which he designed. It is still manufactured by Gibraltar, but it is made out of higher grade metal. This gets rid of the weird ringing from the old bridge that can be heard if you are playing and stop suddenly. The metal from the old bridge was cheap and held the vibrations in the bridge instead of passing it through to the body of the guitar. (All the other SZ models are great in my opinion other then this one nuisance). I hope this has been helpful.

Thanks,
Evan Erickson
bpmmusic.com
 
#73 ·
Yup.

Instantaneously disregarding aforementioned quality of a guitar due to its birthplace is the same.

Would you do that with people? ...No, of course you wouldn't. I like this forum at times, but at other times people are so utterly "holier than thou" and up themselves I wonder just how accurate some of the info on jemsite actually is.
 
#75 ·
Kev Brigden said:
Yup.

Instantaneously disregarding aforementioned quality of a guitar due to its birthplace is the same.

Would you do that with people? ...No, of course you wouldn't. I like this forum at times, but at other times people are so utterly "holier than thou" and up themselves I wonder just how accurate some of the info on jemsite actually is.
You must live in a world called, "Perfect" because, unless you do, you would have to see that people do that with people ALL THE TIME.

More so than with anything else.

And they take it many steps beyond that . . . disregarding quality of people based on birthplace/origin, RACE and nationality, (hence, predecessors origin/birthplace) even if said, 'lesser' person was born in the same place they were.

I used to listen to a co-worker all day talk about, "Those damned ni****s, Polacks, drunken Mics . . ." (no, not me, he was talking about people of Irish decent) and many more derogatory terms for many more peoples . . .

I got to the point I would just tune him out, couldn't believe how ignorant one man could be. He was Archie Bunker in the flesh, only worse because Archie even came around when he got to know people . . . this guy . . . if you weren't of German decent he didn't like you, no matter what. . . didn't like me at all because I'm a "damned ***, Ginker, Greasy Italian" (and he pronounced it, "EYE-Tail-AN"

Okay, rant over . . . in case anyone missed the point, people judge people based on origin more so than they do quality of product based on origin . . . and they do it not only based on birthplace, but ancestor's birthplace even more so . . .

Not that I'm condoning the practice . . . it's just a fact of life . . . sadly.

Mic
 
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