Headless guitar vs normal guitar BLIND TEST! Ibanez Q52 + Vintage VSA500B: do YOU hear a difference?

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Today we’re doing a little blind test to hear how different – or how similar – the two most different guitars in my current collection sound!

The guitars in question are the Ibanez Q52, from the brand’s cult headless Quest series, and the semi-acoustic Vintage VSA500B – which is an elegant, Bigsby-equipped beast of an instrument!

Ibanez Quest Series guitars at Thomann:
At Sweetwater:

Vintage VSA500B ReIssued Semi Acoustic Guitar w/Bigsby in Gun Hill Blue:

Let’s get this out of the way: there is nothing scientific about this blind test whatsoever. It’s just a bit of fun! But, with that said, what I do think it shows is that the way guitars look definitely define how we imagine they’re going to sound… and often, theirs tones are way more similar than we might imagine.

The Q52 – and indeed, most headless guitars – are usually seen as being for metal and heavy music only. As I know, though, the Q52 is adept in pretty much every musical style. In the same way, the Vintage VSA500 – with its huge semi-acoustic body, its Gibson 335-esque looks and its Bigsby – will be typecast by many as a rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll guitar, perhaps extending to jazz, blues, or maybe some indie rock and classic rock at a push.

Despite their obvious differences, though, these two guitars can sound very similar indeed in certain musical environments, and so I challenge you to a blind tone test to see if you can work out which one is which!

Here, I play a bunch of riffs across my favorite genres (from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, and metal) with both guitars… only you can’t see which guitar is which! One is simply Guitar A, and the other is Guitar B.

All I want you to do is tell me which one you think is which!

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Intro and what we’re doing today
02:06 Today’s rig and plan

02:31 Grungey droning chords (Amp Clean Channel, Bridge Pickup)
02:48 Van Halen inspired rock riff (Amp Lead Channel, Bridge Pickup)
03:08 Modern rock ballad arpeggios (Amp Clean Channel, Greer Lightspeed, Both Pickups)
03:43 Industrial metal riff (Amp Clean Channel, Revv G3, Bridge Pickup)
03:57 Country picked arpeggios (Amp Clean Channel, Both Pickups)
04:09 Garage rock riff (Amp Clean Channel, Greer Lightspeed, Bridge Pickup)
04:26 Melodic hard rock lead (Amp Lead Channel, Neck Pickup)
04:46 Palm-muted alt rock power chords (Amp Lead Channel, Bridge Pickup)
05:11 Blues riff (Amp Clean Channel, Neck Pickup)
05:32 Classic rock riff (Amp Crunch Channel, Bridge Pickup)
05:44 Metal chugging riff (Amp Clean Channel, Revv G3, Bridge Pickup)
06:01 Fat indie rock rhythm chords (Amp Clean Channel, Greer Lightspeed, Bridge Pickup)
06:31 AC/DC inspired riff (Amp Crunch Channel, Bridge Pickup)
06:45 Choppy barre chords (Amp Clean Channel, Greer Lightspeed, Both Pickups)
07:02 Hardcore punk riff (Amp Clean Channel, Revv G3, Bridge Pickup)
07:14 Poppy barre chords (Amp Clean Channel, Both Pickups)
07:29 Pop punk riff (Amp Lead Channel, Bridge Pickup)
07:53 Glam rock riff (Amp Lead Channel, Bridge Pickup)
08:14 Strummed droning indie chords(Amp Clean Channel, Bridge Pickup)
08:27 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Amp Lead Channel, Neck Pickup)

08:44 The big reveal!
09:24 My thoughts
10:29 Thanks for watching and goodbye

My setup was as follows: I ran the two guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and my Revv G3 pedals for overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Get all this gear at Thomann:
Get all this gear at Sweetwater:

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#Ibanez #IbanezGuitars #IbanezQuest #HeadlessGuitar #HeadlessGuitars #VintageGuitars #VintageGuitar #ES335

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