# NGD: Ibanez RGIR27FE (Iron Label RG7, Fixed)



## Roran109 (Mar 30, 2013)

Finally got my first seven string!

Before now I've just been a lurker on the forums, just reading, hardly ever posting. I wanna jump into the fray now.

First off let me tell you about my newest guitar. He (yes he) is one of the new Ibanez Iron Label RGs, fixed bridge (cuz I hate trems, don't get me started why).

Sounds perfect. I'm a huge fan of active pickups. I love all types, makes, and models in general, even factory stock ones (except Dean and BC Rich). But EMGs are my favorite. The 707s have clear chord definition but hairy! Love them. I hardly ever play clean, so I don't care much for passives. (Whenever I used passives for cleans in the past, I found myself adding a little gain on the amp. So why bother getting them then? Plus actives have a unique attack most passives dont have or can imitate)

The guitar itself is freaking epic. This is my first double cut guitar, so I gotta get used to how it sits against my body, cuz its huge! Im used to single cut LP style bodies. The neck is thinner than most of my Ibanez ARZs despite being a seven. Believe it or not, I'm not a fan of thin "fast" necks because I'm primarily a rhythm player, on a neck too thin, I tend to go too fast and "trip" over myself. The thin neck however works great here to compensate for the large width.

That said, I'm still a newb to sevens. I played my friends' sevens before, even borrowed one for a week, but this is the first one I've had full control over. Any advice on set up and string gauges? Whats are the best gauges for Drop A and Drop Ab on a 25.5" scale? Ive also never had a guitar with this kind of bridge, where you can adjust the height of each saddle individually. I got the action set up to stupendously low (with Ibanez is famous for, ftw) from strings 1 to 6, but what's considered "normal" action for the low B? Advice on that would be greatly appreciated.

(P.S. I didn't bother with pics cuz there are tons of these guys on the internet. I'll post pics, only if you guys request them)


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## MikeH (Mar 30, 2013)




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## Roran109 (Mar 30, 2013)

Lol, fine.


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## Daf57 (Mar 31, 2013)

Congrats!! Enjoy!


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## TonyGT (Mar 31, 2013)

Congrats!! This is the guitar I've got my eyes set on right now! It to will be my first seven.


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## matisq (Apr 1, 2013)

More pic!


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## Philligan (Apr 1, 2013)

Roran109 said:


> Any advice on set up and string gauges? Whats are the best gauges for Drop A and Drop Ab on a 25.5" scale? Ive also never had a guitar with this kind of bridge, where you can adjust the height of each saddle individually. I got the action set up to stupendously low (with Ibanez is famous for, ftw) from strings 1 to 6, but what's considered "normal" action for the low B? Advice on that would be greatly appreciated.



String height should be whatever feels good to you. There aren't any hard and set rules here  as long as it doesn't buzz/sounds good to you, you're good to go. Next time you have a few minutes to kill, mess around with the saddle height and see what you like.

For strings, it totally depends on what you like, but getting a balance can make things feel a lot better. Something like a 10-46 + 62/64 or 11-49 + 64/68 should feel great for drop A/Ab if you like medium/med-high tension.


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## Eimanatox (Apr 1, 2013)

Roran109 said:


> Any advice on set up and string gauges? Whats are the best gauges for Drop A and Drop Ab on a 25.5" scale? Ive also never had a guitar with this kind of bridge, where you can adjust the height of each saddle individually. I got the action set up to stupendously low (with Ibanez is famous for, ftw) from strings 1 to 6, but what's considered "normal" action for the low B? Advice on that would be greatly appreciated.



I, personally, like around 2-3/64" on the low end. (@ 12th fret, while held at 1st and 17th frets) It's about as low as I can get it in Ab without much buzz.

HNGD!!!


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## Musiscience (Apr 1, 2013)

Roran109 said:


> That said, I'm still a newb to sevens. I played my friends' sevens before, even borrowed one for a week, but this is the first one I've had full control over. Any advice on set up and string gauges? Whats are the best gauges for Drop A and Drop Ab on a 25.5" scale? Ive also never had a guitar with this kind of bridge, where you can adjust the height of each saddle individually. I got the action set up to stupendously low (with Ibanez is famous for, ftw) from strings 1 to 6, but what's considered "normal" action for the low B? Advice on that would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> (P.S. I didn't bother with pics cuz there are tons of these guys on the internet. I'll post pics, only if you guys request them)



Happy NGD, that is one hot guitar! 

Like somebody else said, gauge and string action are a matter of taste. It must be said that the smaller the scale, the bigger the strings if you want to tune the instrument very low without buzzing, too little tension or «unclear» notes. But remember that you have to adjust the neck bow depending on the string height. The lower the strings, the bigger the bow. Extremely low action usually require 0.3 mm of bow (1.8 to 2 mm string height). You can put 2.5 mm bow if you raise the action a bit and so on. The key is really to try a lot of strings and setups and see what fit you the best. 

Now shred that guitar to oblivion


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## nothingleft09 (Apr 2, 2013)

If you're interested in string gauges and balancing tensions you should check out one of the string tension calculators a few of the members have made. The one stateless made was particularly good but you need Microsoft Excel to use it. It only uses D'Addario string mass though. So if you use it you need to get their string you pick. If you don't want to download it or don't have excel pm me and I'll do the calcs for you.  Here's the link.

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/ex...on-calculator-7s-8s-does-fan-fretted-too.html


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## 7-request (Apr 7, 2013)

i just bought this guitar as a backup for my 1527, end up using it more than my 1527.

707 got way to much gain, i cant even record direct to my scarlett 2i2 without pulling the volume pot down to 8 or 7. at 10 it clips like hell..

did OP notice the pickup was wired wrongly? i notice that when i didnt touch the string, it make hum noises.. unlike on my cort m600.
in rgir27fe, the bridge was connected to the back of vol pot. i removed it, then it made soo much noises,.. i reconnected it,

i myself did wire emg 81-60 on my cort m600, Dmarzio evo-7 / SD- Sh6-7 on my 1527. and successfully working like a charm...


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## WhoThenNow7 (Apr 8, 2013)

HNGD! I have been wanting to check out these iron labels.. particularly the S model. They both look sexy though.


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## Roran109 (Apr 28, 2013)

7-request said:


> did OP notice the pickup was wired wrongly?



Yeah, dude, a few days after I got it, I popped the back open and saw that the 707s were solder wired. I was expecting the EMG solderless wiring. My intention from the get go was to swap out the 707s for a white 81-7 and 85-7, but I guess it won't be as easy now... I have no experience swapping pickups. Gonna have to take it to a proper guitar tech.

And yeah, the 707 bridge is super gainy, even for my tastes. While the low end is super clear, it's also a bit fizzy. Idk if its the wiring or just tone of the pickup.


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## TonyGT (Apr 28, 2013)

HNGD! How are the fret ends on it? I know a alot of people were complaining about them being sharp.


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## Roran109 (Apr 28, 2013)

The frets on mine are great. Perfect. Too perfect, perhaps done by a machine? Idk. They're huge, I'll tell you that. This is my first guitar with extra jumbo frets, I can tell my fingers never touch the fret board because I haven't had to clean it at all since I got it, like 2 months ago.

SPEAKING OF CLEANINGvvvvvv

This is my first "shreddy" guitar, I've never had an unfinished bolt-on maple neck before. Any advice on cleaning it? I have the Dunlop 65 cleaning kit, the one with the three bottles, anything in there good for that?


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## Gram negative (Apr 29, 2013)

"Fast Fret" is just mineral oil. It will clean just about anything.


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## Hyacinth (Apr 29, 2013)

You can't post a NDG without posting pics! That should be against the rules. We don't give a fuck if they all look the same, they one you have is special because it's yours and it deserves pictures


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## ImNotAhab (Apr 29, 2013)

MatthewLeisher said:


> You can't post a NDG without posting pics! That should be against the rules. We don't give a fuck if they all look the same, they one you have is special because it's yours and it deserves pictures



This man speaks the truth!


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## Hyacinth (Apr 30, 2013)

lawl I said NDG instead of NGD. My bad.


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## Alex_IBZ (Apr 30, 2013)

Roran109 said:


> This is my first "shreddy" guitar, I've never had an unfinished bolt-on maple neck before. Any advice on cleaning it? I have the Dunlop 65 cleaning kit, the one with the three bottles, anything in there good for that?



It's not an unfinished neck. There is actually a thin coat of (matt) clear lacquer.


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## Roran109 (Apr 30, 2013)

So mineral oil will clean it? Just wanna confirm.


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## MarcHxC (May 1, 2013)

Sick man! The kill switch seems like a fun thing to mess with.


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## Roran109 (May 1, 2013)

MarcHxC said:


> Sick man! The kill switch seems like a fun thing to mess with.



Its fun at first, but I don't find many instances to use it cuz I don't shred much. To really work properly, I think it'd have to be a "only on when pressed" type of button, not like a hard toggle. Idk how to say it. Like Buckethead's or Morello's killswitches.

In all honesty? I use it as a on/off switch for the guitar. My friend and I power metered it, and totally cuts off the signal to the pups AT the input socket, meaning you can leave the cable plugged into the input and it WILL NOT drain the batteries of your active pups.

ALSO, all my other guitars are Ibanez ARTs, so I'm not used to the position of the pickup switch, I find myself accidentally hitting the killswitch when trying to switch pickups mid-song.

EDIT: I don't want to sound negative towards the guitar, tho! It's just me not being used to it, lol.


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## CircusPhantom (Oct 24, 2013)

I'm looking at getting this guitar, how are you getting on with it man?


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## Sanzen (Feb 13, 2014)

bumping because i just bought one of these! will report in once i get it.


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## Eclipse (Feb 14, 2014)

Congrats.


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## blendamed (Nov 30, 2014)

BUMP.

A question to OP since you already had this axe for a while. How do you like this guitar now? Have you noticed anything wrong with it over time or is it still all nice and dandy?
Obviously I'm asking cause am sort of GASing for this stuff right now.

Also one more question, how does it sound on clean? Is the lack of the tone knob a huge disadvantage on this one or "meh"? I'm looking for a heavy-ass axe but also one that has a mellow-smooth clean sound rather than this EMG stuff (according to 6strings) that usually is sharp and clips like a mother...bucker unless corrected with volume and tone knobs.

Basically if you could share something on overall quality of this guitar and how it behaves over time, that would be nice ;D

EDIT:
Also one last thing, how's the sustain?


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