Ibanez RG6PCMLTD Review

The Ibanez RG, everyone and their mother can recognize this guitar. Ibanez has done a great job of revamping this model every year since the 1980’s and I’m here to tell you that they have outdone themselves this year. At NAMM, the Ibanez booth was overflowing with amazing looking guitars, including the super aggressive-looking RGAIC7U. I was legitimately overwhelmed by all of the amazing finishes and couldn’t decide which ones to pick up and try.

Today, we’re going to play with one of the best looking guitars in the lineup this year, the RG6PCMLTD.

Features:

• Curly Maple Top w/ Natural Binding
• Ash Body
• Curly Maple Fretboard
• 11pc Wenge/Bubinga/Maple/Purpleheart Neck
• 24  Stainless Steel Jumbo Frets 
• Edge-Zero II Tremolo
• Dimarzio Air Norton/True Velvet/Tone Zone Pickups
• Cosmo Black Hardware
• Gotoh MG-T Locking Machine Heads
• 1x Vol/1x Tone/5-Way Pickup Selector
• 15.7” Fretboard Radius
• 25.5” Scale Length
• Glow-In-The-Dark Side Dots

I’m just going to start off by saying…holy Hell.

This guitar looks just insane. The Curly Maple top finished in Sunset Red (Blue Reef also available) looks ridiculously stunning. You don’t see Curly Maple very often, but I’d like to see more of it, because it looks beautiful on this guitar. The Maple board looks great next to the light finish, and the Natural Binding along the entire guitar really brings it together.

Ibanez not only brought us a beautiful looking guitar, but they also jam-packed it with awesome features. We get Gotoh Locking Tuners, Stainless Steel Frets, and Glow-In-The-Dark Side Dots. These are some really great features to see on a $1400 production model guitar.

After you’ve fallen in love with the front of the guitar, go ahead and flip it over… The back of it was a wonderfully figured Ash body, finished transparently. Bolted onto it is an exotic neck if I’ve ever seen one. Ibanez went right ahead and created an 11-Piece Wenge/Bubinga/Maple/Purpleheart neck for this guitar. When is the last time you saw Purpleheart on a production model instrument? Bravo Ibanez for catering to the exotic wood lovers.

Now that I’ve drooled over this guitar’s aesthetic appointments, let’s get to the most important part…How does it sound?

Tone:

Thanks in part to the Ash body and bolt-on neck construction, this guitar is super snappy with loads of attack. The Ash body lends a resonant, percussive sound to the guitar that I adore. Enough about tonewood qualities, on to the pickups!

The Tone Zone bridge pickup is a bit infamous at times, it is known for having quite a bit of low end and often sounds muddy in warmer sounding guitars. Luckily, the Ash body pairs really well with it and brings a very tight, crisp sound. It fairs really well for shredding genres as it really helps to accentuate fast, single note playing.

The Air Norton Neck pickup has a lot of the same, tight qualities as the bridge, although it’s quite a bit brighter. It has a great sound for Jazzy, mid gain tones.

Mixing the Tone Zone and True Velvet introduces a nice, deep sound for playing chords. It sort of cleans up the tone of the guitar, without losing the punch.

All of these factors mixed with the Edge Tremolo allows for a ton of versatility. It’s not the best for ‘djent’ or ‘progressive metal’ styles, but it pretty much nails the tone for heavy rock and metal sounds.

Build Quality:

In terms of quality, the Ibanez Premium guitars have never quite stood up to the Prestige models. This year, Ibanez did step it up quite a bit, though.

Obviously, the visual aspects of this guitar were quite on point. The finish was flawless, the neck looked and felt super smooth, the fretboard was clean, and the binding was really good.

The Premium Fret Edge Treatment was definitely a step beneath the Prestige work, but it was quite good. No dinged or scratched frets and they were mostly smooth. I did notice a few that felt a little pokey on the edges, but not terribly sharp or anything.

The electronics were mostly clean. The volume knob was a bit rough. I found that it was sort of scratchy with some dead spots in it. A quick solder job would have been beneficial to the one I played with.

If you ever had an issue like that, check out our guide on soldering and save yourself a few dollars and a trip to your guitar tech!

Final Verdict:

The Ibanez RG6PCMLTD was one of the most surprising guitars I saw/played at NAMM. It’s absolutely stunning to look at and holds its own against some of the insanely high-end guitars.

The sound is really crisp, and a bit versatile. The pickups aren’t for everyone, but a quick pickup swap should fix that up if need be!

Regarding quality, the guitar played really well and held up above what I expected. The biggest issue was the poor soldering joint on the volume knob, but it’s an easy fix so I won’t ding it too hard on that.

Overall, I was super happy with this guitar and would really like to add one to my collection.

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This article was written by Zac Buras, our editor located in Louisiana