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Ibanez GSA 60

 

Ibanez GSA 60 Electric Guitar reviewed by The Man in the Jar

 

Features of the Ibanez GSA 60

Tuners - Mini sealed tuners with no branding. Despite the fact there's a sensitive vibrato fitted on this axe I only had to go down the pegs three times to get the tuning balanced. I've had much more trouble in the past with more expensive Floyds.

Headstock - Lovely sleek and economic six-a-side design with a black face and natural back and sides.

Nut - This is of the black plastic "bar" type that is fitted into a slot in the fretboard. I think these look better than the normal rounded profile plastic types. 

Neck - I've just added an Ibanez Destroyer to my collection and one of the main reasons I did so is the high regard I have for the quality and playability of the Ibanez neck. This guitar is no exception, it sports a lovely slim maple neck with a brown skunk stripe, extremely comfortable, extremely easy to play. 

Fretboard - Smooth dark rosewood with traditional dot markers.

Frets - Medium and nicely rounded, great for string bends.

Action - Low and smooth from the box.

Body - Agathis body with a Stratoid shape. This guitar is quite light but well-balanced. 

Bridge - Ibanez branded vibrato bridge. Each saddle is adjustable for intonation with allen-key adjustment on each side of the bridge to set the action. Stringing is through the vibrato block.

Pickups - One unbranded humbucker in the bridge position and two single coils.

Controls - One volume, one tone and a five-way selector that does some interesting things...

Pickguard - None.

Strap-buttons - Large and secure and found in the traditional places.

Output Jack - On lower edge of the body.

Finish - The black model I tried had a good finish all round.

 

Sound of the Ibanez GSA 60

I dialled up the Fender Blackface model on the Flextone, plugged up the Ibanez and tried each selector position in turn:

5 - Neck Single Coil - This is a very nice single-coil sound that has a pleasing mellow tone without losing authority. Useful for Jazz-Funk rhythm guitar sounds;

4 - Neck Single Coil + Middle Single Coil - This adds a layer of honey but the overall sound is still distinctively single coil. Linger here for liquid electric blues;

3 - Middle Single Coil - Scooped out and middly sound (no surprise there). This is quite a sparse sound which I applied to some "nasty" jazz chord voicings with a degree of satisfaction;

2 - Middle Single Coil + one coil of the tapped bridge Humbucker - The added sparkle of the tapped bridge pickup on the distinctive scoop of the middle pickup brought out a lovely "Sultans of Swing" tone. This combination is very Strat-like;

1 - Bridge Humbucker - Different guitar! The humbucker is powerful and full-toned but the underlying surprise is the glassy, almost brittle high end. This will give excellent cut when playing live. For normal home use, or where such savage cut isn't required, just back off the tone control a bit to get a rounder, less aggressive tone.

The vibrato is smooth, accurate and quite sensitive. I have the bad habit of resting my hand on the bridge whilst playing and I found I could produce subtle wobbles in the notes without even reaching for the vibrato arm.

So there are areas where the Ibanez crosses convincingly into Strat-tone territory, notably the middle + tapped bridge position. The humbucker gives you a whole different voicing making this a decent budget rival for a Fat Strat. However, the coil-tap is only available in position 2 on the selector, so there is no way to have a single coil playing alone in the bridge position. So that's one chunk of Strat territory this guitar cannot reach.

Overall Impressions of the Ibanez GSA 60

The Ibanez name is one that I now trust implicitly to produce excellent guitars in their various price ranges. The buying decision depends on the sound package you want. This guitar will not replace a Stratocaster, but then it's not meant to. What it will do is provide rock guitarists with interesting tonal variations that sit outside the dual-humbucker box that so many of us seem to be stuck in. The coil-tap is slightly less flexible than it could be, but on the plus side is the usual excellent Ibanez neck and the all-round spunky good looks and great finish. If you want vibrato on your plank you can easily do a lot worse than this one.   Oh, and of course the price is most definitely right.

Buy the Ibanez GSA 60 
Also available in Jewel Blue and Brown Sunburst

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