Modding an Ibanez RG350DX into a Jem

No critiques on my playing please, this video is to show off the tone and was done in 10 minutes. I just started getting into instrumental music, been practicing for a month, so save the flames!

This is purely to show what I did to mod the guitar and how it sounds, I know I'm not playing very well, I'm just showing off the tone and how it sounds. The video has plenty of captions to describe what I did and how I did it, took about 3 weeks from start to finish but it turned out really awesome.

I just started getting into Paul Gilbert and other instrumentalists, so I decided I needed a better guitar. I wanted 24 frets, a fast neck, and pickups that could do whatever I wanted. I settled on getting a used RG350DX on Ebay for about $200, replaced pretty much every part in it, fixed it up, set the guitar up, and now it plays really awesome. The last thing I need to do to make it 'perfect' is to replace the crappy stock black tuners and also to do a fret setup and level all of the frets perfectly, that's the next project.

Why purple? I didn't see any other guitars out there that looked like this, and besides, now when I play Purple Rain live it'll be this subtle, sarcastic joke.

-Pickups: Evo Neck, Evo middle, Evo 2 Bridge.
-Tremelo: Floyd Rose Special, under $100 Floyd
-Added Dimarzio Push/Pull pot for the coil tap.
-I added what is called a treble bleed mod, most Jems have it, it's a capacitor wired to the volume pot to keep the treble high as the volume rolls off. Allows you to roll back to a clean sound and keep your high end.
-I shielded the entire cavity and pickguard with some
aluminum shielding tape I bought at Lowes. Dunno if it
helps much, but it didn't hurt.

This entire demo was straight into the JSX, it still sounds pretty good, but can't wait to play it through a Tube Screamer and some other pedals I have coming in.

High Res Pics here: http://leetgeeks.net/files/rg350project/

There's also a higher quality MP3 in there.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• rg350
• rg350dx
• ibanez
• dimarzio
• evolution
• evo
• evo 2
• evolution 2
• middle pickup
• shred
• paul gilbert
• steve vai
• joe satriani
• floyd rose
• floyd rose special
• edge 3
• coil tap
• push/pull
• pots
• wiring
• modding
• mod
• solder

[imacomputer101]

would it be ok if i just never used the wammy thing?

[andyrosebrook]

@imacomputer101 If you don't want to use the floyd style whammy, I would DEFINITELY recommend the Ibanez RG321, it has a fixed bridge. I bought one and modded it out too(haven't made a video of that one yet), but it's a better guitar in my opinion. The RG321 is my fave guitar in my collection right now, and it was actually cheaper than the used RG350 I got.

[andyrosebrook]

@dmohr7 I'll be making a new video on this guitar soon, check back in the next week or so. I'd say the sustain and harmonics didn't improve dramatically over the original edge, but honestly I didn't play the original edge very much because it wouldn't stay in tune due to ruined knife edges(I got the guitar used). Also, sustain on floyd style guitars apparantly can be dramatically enhanced by adding weight/mass to the underside of the floyd, they're called big blocks I think.

[andyrosebrook]

@dmohr7 This one originally came with an Edge III I think......it was pretty trashed, so I threw it out when I installed the Floyd Rose Special. I didn't have to mod the guitar at all to swap these trems out, didn't have to drill any holes or anything like that. The bridge swap-out was the easiest part of improving the guitar.

[dmohr7]

@andyrosebrook My complete apologies! you can forget the other question , i just remembered the most important question i was ment to ask what did you do with the ZPS system at the back, floyd rose needs the normal screw in wood right? , but theres a a bit of wood cut out for the ZPS spring adjustment , the extra bit cut out is just wide enough to not put screws in, please reply!

[dmohr7]

@andyrosebrook imguessing the height had to be altered seeing as its a floyd rose replacement, one last question, are the strength of the harmonics and sustain way better than the original edge and if so an example would be awesome!,

cheers,

-dan

[andyrosebrook]

@dmohr7 Seemed to be the same size, I didn't have to alter anything to get the Floyd Rose Special in there. I think I needed pliers to get the original trem posts out, but the new trem posts went in pretty easy as I remember. I didn't have to jump through hoops to do this. Almost a year later, and the guitar actually sounds better now, as I've been learning to properly set up guitars.

[andyrosebrook]

@wisesatyr72 Floyd Rose Special. Purchased on Ebay. Pretty sure it's a Chinese imitation of a Floyd Rose Original. Fit perfectly, works great.

[andyrosebrook]

@dmohr7 I'll see if I can post a video of that sometime soon, I finally got my recording studio set up so you can really get a professional audio sample of what it sounds like.

[andyrosebrook]

@RojoYamamoto It sounds even better now that I know how to properly use it. It's not a heavy metal riff guitar, the pickups really seem to sound best when doing leads.