May 17, 2008Custom Ibanez RG2550E all set up!!

Last weekend all major changes to the RG2550 were complete but it took some tweaking during the week to perfect the setup for my style of playing. Overall, I’d say it’s as good, if not better than many £1500 guitars out there – glad I didn’t spend that kind of money on a JP6/JS1000 ;)

The modifications:
1. Pickups: Installed a Breed bridge but it wasn’t as hot as I expected it to be, so I switched back to the Tone Zone. My ears are quite happy with the Evo neck + Tone Zone combo so I doubt I’ll be making further changes.

2. Custom H-H Pickguard: Shielding a pickguard isn’t fun but I’m glad it’s a one-time affair. The smoked gray mirror looks really good against the galaxy black finish, better than the stock bronze pickguard.

3. OTAX VLX91 super-switch: Wiring the OTAX wasn’t as easy as I’d expected and took over an hour – one reason I don’t want to change my pickups again lol. The new coil-tapped switching positions are really sweet though especially for clean guitar.

4. The Edge Pro locking stud mod is awesome and a must-have, providing 100% tuning stability no matter how much I use the whammy bar. Makes you wonder why the hell Ibanez stopped using locking studs in their Edge trem systems.

RG2550E before the upgrade:

Nut shim – pickguard w/shielding, locking studs, OTAX switch – studs installed:

RG2550E customization complete:

Comments

  1. Nirmal - October 15th, 2009 at 5:47 AM

    dude where u get those pickguards, i have the same guitar and i want to do the same thing, get back to me man

  2. Mario - October 15th, 2009 at 8:19 AM

    Jeannie Pickguards, USA. I may have mentioned it in another post and on my gear page.

  3. Dave - November 27th, 2009 at 11:18 PM

    guitar looks awesome, but i don’t think i could of done all the nut shim stuff without messing it up…
    do you have to do this on all new ibbys? :)

  4. Mario - November 30th, 2009 at 2:40 PM

    The nut shim is only required if you have terrible open fret buzz… more recently, the Ibanez Prestige line seem to have a different issue – super high nuts. In comparison, buying a nut shim (or DIY) is simpler than having to grind a nut down. I say grind the nut and not the wood under the nut because damaging the nut will only cost you 10 quid, but messing up the neck, well you know :)

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