1990 Ibanez RG 550

Welcome to my “Classic” Guitar series. In this first installment I am featuring the Ibanez RG 550. This RG 550 belongs to my friend Sean and was purchased in 1990. By the end of the 80′s Ibanez had established themselves as the guitar of choice among anyone who was a serious guitarist. They were everywhere and all the best guitarists were playing them, but one guitarist rose above all the rest… Steve Vai.

Steve Vai got his start playing with Frank Zappa, which shaped him musically and earned him his virtuoso status, but it was playing with David Lee Roth in the mid 80′s that made him famous. During his tenure with David Lee Roth is when Vai began his

1990 Ibanez RG 550

relationship with Ibanez and developed hi signature model, the Jem. The Jem marked the pinnacle of guitar hot rodding. In the late 70′s and through the 80′s guitarists everywhere were trying to build the better “mousetrap” so to speak. The Fender Strat had become the standard, but players wanted more and sought to improve the tone and playability of their stock Strats, which gave birth to the guitar parts aftermarket boom. Companies like Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan started creating new and hotter sounding pick-ups and other companies were building replacement necks and bodies. Which is how the Jackson and Charvel companies got started (Note: Jackson and Charvel were copying Fender guitars and hot rodding them as their claim to fame. They were Fender’s biggest competitor at the time. The irony is that today Charvel and Jackson are owned by the Fender corporation.).

The Jem that Steve Vai designed with Ibanez was the culmination of everything all

Headstock of the Ibanez RG 550

those separate companies were trying to achieve. The resulting guitar was like no other on the market. Sure, it Looked like a Strat, but it was faster, louder, and more agile than any other guitar on the market. It was the Colonel Steve Austin of guitars. The neck was thinner and wider. It had a satin finish and was super fast! The wider spacing made soloing easier and the trem system was almost bullet proof. They had one of the best licensed Floyd Rose Systems of any guitar at the time and Vai pushed the very limits of what it could do.

So what does all of that have to do with the RG 550? Everything. Ibanez owned the

Close up on the unfinished fretboard of the RG 550. Notice the wear marks. The playability of the unfinished neck is very fast and the wear marks give it some great character.

guitar market in the late 80′s and early 90′s because they were smart enough to take all the advancements they made with the Jem and put them into the affordable RG series, and the most popular model was the RG 550. With a list price of $749.95, the guitar had a street price of right around $500. With the rock solid construction, and super fast playability, and affordability, it became the workhorse guitar. The maple fingerboard was a key feature on the 550. The maple combine with the humbucker at the bridge gave the sound of the guitar a lot of bite and presence. Leaving that fingerboard unfinished reduced the drag that many players complained about the high gloss fingerboards on the Fender Strats. One of the downsides to an unfinished fingerboard was that wear showed much faster. However that wear gave the guitar character.

Another feature of the RG serires was the “Edge” tremelo system. Ibanez really had

Here you can see the Edge Tremelo system and how flush it was with the body of the guitar. This allowed for lower string action and increased playability.

something special with the Edge system. It was recessed into the body with allowed for lower action than traditionally allowed for by a standard Floyd Rose Tremelo system. What really set it apart was how stable it was. You could lift the guitar up but the trem bar and it would still stay in tune. Even being so stable it was ultra sensitive and gives some great flutter effects (to hear these flutter effects in action check out Rob Balducci, he is a MASTER at this. and his latest album “Violet Horizon” is a showcase for this technique).

The RG 550 was a very significant guitar in the late 80′s and early 90′s. It shaped the sound of Hard Rock, Metal, and early Alternative. I remember when Sean got this guitar. He owed a Kramer guitar at the time, and was already quite skilled on it. When he got the RG 550 his playing skyrocketed. The RG 550 was just built for speed. It aloowed him to play some of the complicated pieces he had been working on with ease and pushed his playing in new directions. Sean has had a handful of guitars over the years, but this one has remained his go to guitar.

With the recent renaissance of classic guitars like the Fender Jaguar and the Gretsch 5120 it is easy to forget the hot rod guitars of the 80′s. But I hear people talk about the era of shredding, I always think of Ibanez and the RG 550.

Specs:

Basswood Body,1 piece satin finished Maple Wizard neck, Unfinished maple finger board, Ibanez Edge Floyd style tremelo, Lazer Blue Finish, 5 way selector switch, H-S-H pickups, List Price $749.95