This guitar was designed to be the same size as the Ibanez RG450, which is a notable iconic guitar. The JEMJR features a signature monkey grip on the upper bout and a lion’s claw rout behind the tremolo.
Ibanez JEMJR Steve Vai Signature Guitar
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Ibanez has many artists with signature Ibanez models, although none of them are more distinctive or notable than Steve Vai’s JEM. First produced in 1987, the JEM has seen many iterations and remains a prominent model in all price ranges. We are looking at the JEMJR, which is a great guitar, at an affordable price.
Body & Neck
The body itself is made from solid mahogany. It features a Wizard III maple neck. Ibanez’s thin, flat and fast Wizard neck is strong and sturdy and offers unlimited playability. The JEMJR has a two-octave 24-fret Jatoba fretboard for a wide tonal range. It looks very stylish, with a custom, acrylic, tree of life inlay on the neck. The quality design and build of this guitar is amazing for its price range, being under $500.
The JEMJR comes in fun, bright colors. The neon yellow model with pink humbuckers is an eye-catcher, as is the shocking pink model. They are also available in simple glossy white or black. It is a very nice-looking guitar in any color.
Hardware
The body and neck undoubtedly steal the show here, but there’s enough going on in the hardware department to make the JEMJR a reliable and gig-worthy guitar. Similar to the RG450, this model also features three of Ibanez’s passive Quantum pickups: two humbuckers sandwiching a single-coil. These are controlled by a very simple master volume and master tone control, as well as a five-way pickup selector switch.
Up top, it features standard Ibanez black tuning machines, which are decent, although you won’t have to use them often as the locking nut and double-locking bridge keep tuning incredibly stable, regardless of how much you abuse the tremolo arm.
Sound
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