Ibanez Acoustic Electric Guitar

Ibanez acoustic electric guitars were born in the 1970’s out of a desire of the Japanese Hoshino Gakki musical instrument import company, to build their own instruments.

Ibanez made use of significant advances in construction and materials, producing quality Ibanez acoustic electric guitar, but at a much lower price than its competitors, such as Fender and Gibson.

Indeed any Ibanez acoustic electric guitar from this period is now quite valuable, not because of any craftsmanship, but because combined with low manufacturing costs, they also produced cheap replicas of their competitor’s models.

This resulted in Ibanez being sued by Gibson guitars in 1977, though strangely not because of any copy of a specific model, rather over a discontinued headstock, copied by Ibanez, but abandoned by Gibson in 1976.

The company continued to develop well priced Ibanez acoustic electric guitars, and started to design guitars with flatter fret boards for quicker fingering, and more radical designs.

Some of our favourite models in the Ibanez acoustic electric guitar range include:

Ambience model. This is a beautiful Ibanez acoustic electric guitar. High end tuners mated with Fishman electrics. This range has an arched back and quilted Maplewood body, abalone rosettes and gold Grover machines. Looks amazing and is made for performance.

EW Series. Ibanez recently developed the SRTc preamp, and when put together with B-Band UST pickups the result is quite superb. This Ibanez acoustic electric guitar is available in 3 wood finishes, Spalted Maple, Camphor Tree and Olive Ash Burl. When you put together the price, materials and sound, this is a heck of a guitar for the money.

The Montage. This is a truly versatile Ibanez acoustic electric guitar. In fact it’s much more than that. This guitar gives you the clarity of an acoustic, to heavy metal sound. So if you need to combine an acoustic sound with that of a pure electric guitar, the Montage is exactly what you need.
Ibanez acoustic electric guitar are also endorsed by both Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

Joe Satriani has been using a JSA on stage with his latest band, Chickenfoot, and is quoted as saying “it feels great, plays great and sounds wonderful”. He goes on to say that the guitar is extremely versatile, good for picking, strumming and soloing, with good access to the upper frets – anyone who is a fan will know how important that is for Joe!

Steve Vai uses an Ibanez acoustic electric guitar model, the EP9. The fact that he says of the guitar; “It’s quite stunning how it works, actually” sums this model up.

The EP9 features the Fishman Aura system, a solid spruce top, mahogany neck and solid mahogany back and sides, offering, in the words of Steve Vai “supreme sound quality”.

Ibanez acoustic electric guitar range has come a long way since the 1970’s. Top quality materials and finishes means that these guitars represent fantastic value for money.