The Ibanez ART300 is a killer guitar at a VERY affordable price, excellent looks, and awesome playability. This is my ART300 guitar review.
I picked up the Ibanez ART300 at my local GC because it had this weird scalloped textured top that looked like it had been hand carved, with deep black slick paint on top. It looks like the most metal version of Les Paul you’ve ever seen. I mean it didn’t exactly scream “death metal” (although it could have), so I plugged it into a Marshall to see what came out. The guitar was pretty light, like 5-6 lbs, the action was low and the stock “LoZ” pickups were suprisingly bright and crisp (but not too hot). The neck pickup was nice and warm – and I did play this on both clean and lead settings. I had no problems playing some tasty jazz and blues licks, and this thing really started to sing in bridge position on lead mode through the Marshall for killer ZZ Top, Skynyrd, and even Ozzy tones. I had the gain way up and down, and this guitar could easily play thrash, goth, death metal, classic rock, southern rock, blues, SRV, hair metal, and anything in between from uber-crunch to rhythm backup to Jenny 867-5309. I recommend this guitar – especially in the $350 – $600 retail range, you can’t beat this kind of quality and sound in that price range. I’ve seen both brown and grey tops for this model, but I prefer the slick black!
Here’s a younger guitar slinger with his brand new ART300 Ibanez axe on YouTube playing through a Peavey bandit with a few effects.
Getting Daddy a Guitar Gift for Father’s Day, Birthday, or Christmas? I recommend getting him this guitar and a personalized guitar strap!
You can buy Ibanez Artcore guitars at Guitar Center (now called the ARZ series).
You can still find the original ART300’s on eBay for very reasonable prices. They don’t make this actual model anymore and you can get them for pretty reasonable prices:
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If you want the updated model, Amazon has the ARZ series in stock now:
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