I was going to get one, but put Bartolinis in my 7VWH instead. If the vine had "popped" a bit more I might have gotten one though. They are great sounding guitars with the alder bodies.I do recall them being $999 at Guitar Trader. I called MF asking if they could beat that price and they got me in at $899. Still have it.
Sounded like more than a suggestion.Ibanez is suffering from something known as "the flops."
It wasn't UV25's. All of this can be culminated into: the TAM100 was a really hard guitar to sell, even at a substantial discount. That kind of experience probably leaves a bad taste in a dealer's mouth. There were other Ibanez models that were hard to sell but not like the TAM100. Was it a flop? I don't know, but it was not reordered and salesmen would give it dirty looks and mumble under their breath when they walked past it.So a dealer ordered a set a UV25's? and couldn't sell them, because they had no idea they had flop written on the headstock unless they already had a buyer for them. That would be the dealers fault for not knowing the market and thinking if they make it it will sell. It wasn't a flop for me, I didn't buy one I didn't have sold. I could tell from the first day of NAMM it was going to be a tough sell.
Yeah, I recall that the flaw is that Tosin Abasi is only famous with members of SSOI always liked the TAM100, great lookin' 8 imo, but didn't some of them have some weird flaw? I can't remember what it was...
I totally agree!Yeah, I recall that the flaw is that Tosin Abasi is only famous with members of SSO
In all seriousness though, I think the guitarhero landscape and thus the signature model landscape has changed so much over the last few years with the rise of YouTube and Spotify and what have you and at the same time the demise of the guitar magazine and the promoted album release.
I think Jackson scored hugely getting Misha Mansoor on board, he seems to be the nearest thing to a "mainstream" new guitar hero I can think of. He leads a significant band, with the main focus on guitar, he understands his gear and he doesn't come over as a dick in interviews.
His signature guitar follows the same business model as the EBMM JP which is different price points and LOTS of options at each level. Whereas many Ibanez signature guitars are one model and one finish per artist. The JS and JEM/PIA are the exceptions not the rule.
So true... Used to be that a guitarist had to be a mega star to get a signature model, but looking at the Ibanez signature models last week there were several I had never heard of. I don't listen to every genre of music, but I do if it has good guitar work.. lol. Big fan of Sfogli and very impressed by Yvette Young too. Polyphia has some freaking chops, but it's hard to get past my first impression a while back when they looked Justin Bieber wanna-be's.I totally agree!
I like guitars on spec, though, but in a lot of cases lately I find the signature guitar leads me to listening to the artist - a kind of reverse on the past. I didn't know Martin Miller from Dean Martin before seeing the MM1 AZ, but I really dig that guitar and it got me listening to Martin's music. Same for Marco Sfogli, who I REALLY dig now. I was introduced to him when the MSM1 came out, which I also really like. Really all of the AZ sig artists fall into that category for me. Chon, Polyphia, and even Yvette Young with Covet (who's green Talman is FIRE - and I don't normally like Talmans).
They are a local dealer but they sell most of their guitars online. I think the goal was to get high-end Ibanez guitars in the store so people knew they had them. Long term, it worked out pretty well but the first year was rough.The TAM was a bigger flop than the 25ths. Crazy expensive, very little market for 8's, and you had to really love the spec [I didn't] to buy one of those. And for a local dealer to inventory one waiting for a walk in to buy it? I sold 1 new one and 1 second the whole run. I saw the new TAM they were concocting at LA and already knew those would be special order only.
Signature models are a double edge sword. If there's enough fan interest that coincides with their budget and aesthetics you may have a good chance. If you don't have all of that, the chances go way down. And that guitar was way overpriced because not old was it a sig but you had to pay for the [at least they were decent] flame maple tops, they put an opaque coat of white on you could barely see. or they make a Kiko RGA that's really nice, but they don't color match the head. I wasn't buying one. But the problem is, they're signature models, the artist has the final say, if the aesthetics or the spec aren't there, who wants to way overpay for it? Both guitars cost far more than a JEM.
Someone posted this in a thread about Steve Vai on TGP. The thread was about Steve using Marshalls again but by page 5 the context was Vai's relevance to the electric guitar, more or less. I felt this post captured Vai's contribution to the guitar rather well:Yeah, I recall that the flaw is that Tosin Abasi is only famous with members of SSO
In all seriousness though, I think the guitar hero landscape and thus the signature model landscape has changed so much over the last few years with the rise of YouTube and Spotify and what have you and at the same time the demise of the guitar magazine and the promoted album release.
I think Jackson scored hugely getting Misha Mansoor on board, he seems to be the nearest thing to a "mainstream" new guitar hero I can think of. He leads a significant band, with the main focus on guitar, he understands his gear and he doesn't come over as a dick in interviews.
His signature guitar follows the same business model as the EBMM JP which is different price points and LOTS of options at each level. Whereas many Ibanez signature guitars are one model and one finish per artist. The JS and JEM/PIA are exceptions, not the rule.
Vai wanted to get back into his sales pitch and Henning looks at the neck and starts probing whether the fretboard was scalloped. Just classic.Henning is one of my favorite YouTube people. He's whimsical but also calls it like he sees it. His vids are always interesting.