Two VERY different Ibanez guitars with the SAME pickups | In-depth tone test | GRG121SP vs AS73FM

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Today, we’re having a little fun checking out two affordable Ibanez guitars that couldn’t be more different… and yet share identical pickups! This is something I thought was interesting enough to make a full tonal comparison.

The two guitars in question are the Ibanez GIO GRG121SP and my much-loved Artcore AS73FM hollow body!

Get the GRG121SP here:
Get the AS73FM here:

On the face of it, these two guitars couldn’t be more different. The sleek GRG121SP BKN (in Black Night here, but there’s an amazing Blue Metal Chameleon finish out there too!) is clearly aimed more towards rockers and shredders with its deep double cutaway design, its slim roasted maple/jatoba neck and its 24 frets. The only slight nod towards anything different is the hardtail bridge.

The AS73FM, meanwhile (resplendent in its Azure Blue Gradation finish), is a classic hollow body in looks and specs. With its chunky linden body with maple top, nyatoh neck and laurel fingerboard, it looks like a guitar that was born to play the blues, rock and roll, and more classic types of music.

But the pickups mark this unlikely pair as brothers. Both guitars feature Ibanez Classic Elite humbuckers – which shocked me when I first found it out! Why would two vastly different guitars have the same pickups in? Surely the pickups are one of the most important factors in a guitar’s tone? And… might this mean that these two guitars sound the same? Well, probably not – no two guitars sound 100% identical – but it might indeed mean that, despite the radically different looks and specs, the GRG121SP and AS73FM are tonal twins.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to look at today! In the video, I play a bunch of riffs on both guitars in as many different styles as I can, from clean pop, folk and indie strumming to classic and hard rock, some alt rock and some punk, and even a bit of metal in Drop D. Let me know how you think the guitars compare!

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

00:00 Hello and what we’re doing today
01:38 Specs and info on the guitars
02:17 Today’s rig and plan
03:07 Other things to know before we start

Clean Sounds
03:57 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
04:34 Country ballad arpeggios
04:47 Poppy barre chords
05:17 Ringing open indie pop chords
05:44 Country lead sound
05:57 Blues progression
06:20 Atmospheric indie riff
06:39 Ascending droning indie chords

Overdriven Sounds
06:53 Indie rock rhythm sound
07:22 Southern rock picked arpeggios
07:33 Upbeat indie rock barre chords
07:57 Garage rock riff
08:13 Droning indie chords
08:34 Kings Of Leon inspired riff

08:50 Driving classic rock riff
09:05 Airbourne inspired rock riff
09:27 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
09:45 Classic rock riff
10:02 Hendrix inspired classic rock riff

Higher gain drive sounds
10:18 Classic hard rock riff
10:36 Hard rock riff
10:52 Hard rock melodic lead
11:14 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
11:32 Alternative rock riff
11:56 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
12:22 Pop punk melodic lead riff
12:37 Punk rock power chords
12:51 Less Than Jake inspired punk riff
13:02 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
13:18 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D)
13:42 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff

Heavy Distortion sounds (all in Drop D)
13:58 Metal chugging riff
14:32 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
14:44 Heavy metal lead sound
15:00 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
15:14 Hardcore punk riff
15:29 More hardcore punk
15:53 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff

16:28 My thoughts
17:27 Sounds and versatility discussion
18:51 The pickups are in fact slightly different in output
20:20 What else could affect the tones?
20:45 Tone woods and spec differences
22:27 You have to play the guitars differently
23:06 My conclusions

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

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head:
Revv G3:
Focusrite 4i4 (the new 2i4):
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Enjoy!


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

#Ibanez #IbanezGuitars #IbanezGIO #IbanezArtcore


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