I’ve been sort of looking for a 7-string guitar to add to the collection, but it hasn’t been a huge rush for me. For a little while, I had a couple of 6-strings tuned down as if they were 7’s just without the top string and that was good enough, but I knew I’d eventually want the real deal in some form.
I spent a lot of time narrowing down my search and I originally wanted an early 90s Ibanez 540S7 or S540-7, since I’m such a big fan of the S series guitars. The idea of a 540S with an extra string sounded just perfect, but these guitars were very difficult to find and I really just didn’t want a plain black guitar (the only stock color these were available in for the US market). Later S-series 7-strings lacked some other feature I considered important so I had to expand my search a bit.
I settled on a few RG’s, specifically the RG752AHM in Plum Burst was my most wanted (and still is). I love maple fretboards and that purple is such a great color. By extension though, I also looked at RG1527’s, RG7620’s, and the other RG752 models. I spotted this RG752LWFX for a steal and figured this was my chance.
As my first, and currently my only, 7-string instrument, it really checks a lot of boxes. The fixed “Gibraltar” bridge routes the strings through the body and allows me to change tunings easily - a nice plus compared to a floating bridge especially since I’m still not sure exactly what songs I want to play with this yet. It has locking tuners as well so it should be absolutely stable.
Pickups are Dimarzio PAF-7’s which is the lowest output Dimarzio 7-string humbucker available. It’s a quality pickup and sounds great on my first play test. It’s bright and punchy, and helps keep things crystal clear in the lower register even with a lot of gain (I used an ENGL Savage for my first tests). I will admit that I will have to experiment at some point with a higher output pickup, so maybe I’ll try something like a Crunch Lab 7 or Tone Zone 7. I can always swap back if I find it too muddy for what I’m playing.
The switch is also a 5-way, what I call a “super switch” (Jackson/Charvel terminology there). It gives a few extra tonal options and honestly if I ignored that extra string this would be a great sounding guitar for all of the other stuff I play… I think that’s a good sign.
Both the neck and body are fully bound, and so is the headstock (unlike my old RG550DX, still not sure why they did that). This is a Prestige model Ibanez after all, the top of the line production models made in the famous Fujigen Japan factory. The top wood is a limba with a black burst, while it’s not the most exciting color to my sensibilities it’s a lot more interesting than solid black to me. The rest of the body is basswood like most RG’s, and the neck is a 5-piece maple with two wenge stripes. The fretboard is apparently something called “Marbled Rosewood,” which I’ve never heard of before, and was only available 2016-217 (mine is a 2017 model). Standard Rosewood was used 2014-2016 and 2018, and this model was discontinued in 2018.
My only gripe so far is that it did not arrive with the standard red plush prestige case - or any case at all for that matter. For the price I suppose that’s fair but first order of business will be to put it in a case, and based on the near mint condition of the guitar, I’d be really surprised if it wasn’t kept in the case before I got my hands on it.
For those who aren’t aware, there is an excellent Ibanez Wiki page with tons of details about every model going back for years. It makes buying and collecting Ibanezes a lot more straightforward than some other makers, or especially Kramer and ESP which didn’t seem to document almost anything. Here is a link to the RG752LWFX page on that wiki.