Harmony Central finally ran the PR on the XLs. I've been waiting for them to do this because I've been wanting to see some good images of the RG1077XL.

Of course Harmony Central decides to run pics of the other two XL guitars but not the prestige model.

http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAM.../PR/RG-XL.html

Guess what? I just decided to manually enter this link by chance that they had intended to put the pic up, and it works!

http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAM.../PR/RG1077XLRB

Hmm. Interesting. Did you notice in the pic of the 1077XL, there appear to be centred dots that have been filled or re-touched on the fretboard?

When are we going to see good-quality official Ibanez pics of these new guitars? It's so hard to tell from all the pics i've seen whether the body, neck and headstock are fully bound.

And what's Ibanez's aversion to body-coloured headstocks, anyway? Even on a Prestige!

*I hear they'll be prominent on the ibanez 2001 website :biggrin:

I was going to mention the darkened center dots too.

Its easy to tell that the body and neck are bound, but I can't tell about the headstock. I've been wondering the same thing and even after taking the pics from HC and Rich's site into Photoshop, I'm still not sure.

If the headstock was matched and bound, this would have been an awesome looking guitar. Even w/out its pretty slick. I'm seriously considering picking one of these up if it still agrees with me after giving it try.

It might look even better with white pickups.

Oh yeah, I hear the 2001 Ibanez site should be ready sometime this year if everything goes to plan.

2001 website? *Those characters haven't finished the 2000 one yet have they?

Geez... waiting for Ibanez to update the website is like waiting for Steve Vai to release something new....

cmartin: Yeah, that bad boy would look really sweet with white pickups!

The neat thing about the baritone 7's is that their extended scale sort of balances out the additional width of the fretboard... it makes their proportions look like a regular 6-string RG... but with a secret weapon!

White pickups would make that thing look smokin..

I just dont know that i want a baritone..
If that thing was a standard 7 string i would ******
it up in a second..

Actually I heard that Ibanez is gonna forgo the new website, and jump to the 2002 edition... j/k

buzz

Even if you don't tune the baritone down those extra two semitones, in standard B-E-A-D-G-B-E tuning, that extra 1.5 inches of scale length will give you nice string tension, which should tighten up the 7's sound quite nicely, even with lighter strings.

All the best-sounding basses are long-scale models, with 34" or 35" scale lengths.

I think many who standard tune a 7-string don't want the higher string tension. That poses a problem... glen

I think the purpose of the baritones, is that it can be used for very low tunings. So I think it's kind of nonsense to tune it to normal tuning.

Any idea on how these are going to come tuned from the factory?

Just how low are you supposed to go in order to avoid "wasting" the baritone feature?

I'm going to pick up another 7 here real quick, and I've decided I want one a full step down from standard (not so much for that "A," but for a guitar tuned to "D"- I'm more comfortable playing a 7 even if the music requires only 6 strings).

Would the RG1077XL be a good choice for this?

Currently I use 10-56s. I have nothing against 9-54s; the 10-56s are just easier to find. If I was going to tune a RG1077XL to A, would you think a change to 9s would be required?

If your tuning down to A, even using the baritone, I would stick with the 10-56's. I plan on using those same guages even tho I tune my low string up a half step to C and the rest of the strings up a step and a half! I use to use a .60 for my low A (when I tuned that low) and it was almost the right tension. I think maybe a .62 would have done it perfect.

Funny thing is just after reading about these baritones I went to watch TV and was watching Staind play on HBO (the one with Bush too...eck) and for the first song he was playing a Novax baritone, (it was also a "fanned fret" neck, which is really weird) and it sounded AWESOME. he sounded wicked good. Ive seen them live before and the whole show was awesome....but then on this HBO special.he switched to his trusty old Ibanez Artist and it sounded OK. Not great but OK. That baritone was killer tho...And even tho I shouldnt assume that it will sound awesome for me since I dont tune down to Ab like he does. (Ab!?! c'mon people!)
it still heightened my intrest in one of those RG7421XL's.

cw

If you tune that thing further down, you'll need bass rig to play it.

Thats what i was talking about befor. Isnt the XL starting to get a little deep.

buzz

A little too deep?

Perhaps, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Like I said earlier, I would only want to go down to A, which plenty of people already do. More over, I would primarily be using it for the step-down aspect of the other six strings (not that I wouldn't crank out some seriously heavy riffs on occasion on the low A string).

A seven just fits my hands so much better- as well as the way I like to anchor my picking hand. If I were never to play the bottom string and only play songs that could be played on a standard six, I would still prefer a seven.

The baritone might be perfect for tuning down to A. The only person I've talked to that actually has a 7-string baritone has it tuned to B with 9s and says it plays beautifully. We'll see. If it does play the way I want it to, Rich is going to have some more business in a month or two.