Ibanez AM93ME-NT | A beautiful and versatile ebony semi-hollow workhorse for $699! Review & Demo

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This is the Ibanez AM93ME-NT Artcore Expressionist guitar: a well-priced and beautiful ebony-bodied take on the Gibson 335/339 style!

At Thomann:
At Sweetwater:

The AM93ME-NT is part of Ibanez’s massively underrated Artcore series of hollow body and semi-hollow guitars. I’ve been a big fan of all the Artcore guitars I’ve ever played, and I own – and love – the AS73FM model.

The AM93ME-NT first came out in 2019, but I only recently discovered it at the #42GearStreet 5 event, and I just had to try it. The guitar caught my eye with its beautiful ebony appointments: the top, back and sides of the body are macassar ebony, and the fingerboard is ebony too.

It’s also stuffed full of the usual Ibanez goodness: the gold hardware includes a Gibraltar Performer bridge, Quick Change III tailpiece, and a pair of Ibanez Super 58 humbuckers. These pickups are moderate output and offer classic vintage tones, according to the Ibanez website – so a far cry from your usual hot Ibanez pickups that shredders love!

Meanwhile, the guitar’s neck is a 3-piece nyatoh/maple affair, and its ebony board features classy block inlays and 22 medium-sized frets. The scale length is 628 mm (that’s 24.75”), while the fingerboard radius is 305 mm (12”), and the nut is 43 mm (1.69”).

For $699/€749, then, this seems like a lot of guitar (semi-hollow axes are known for their versatility, after all)… but just how good is the AM93ME-NT, and can it compare it guitars like a Gibson or Epiphone 335 or 339? That’s what we’re going to find out! In this video, I put the guitar through its paces in as many different genres and styles as I can, from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal and more.

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

00:00 Hello!
00:15 Introduction to the AM93ME-NT
01:21 Specs and info
04:10 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
04:59 Clean tone reference chords on all pickups
05:16 Country ballad arpeggios
05:29 Country strummed chords
05:48 Country lead sound
05:54 Blues progression
06:06 Poppy melodic riff
06:26 Ringing open indie pop chords
06:40 Droning alt rock chords
06:55 Soul pop riff
07:13 Ascending droning indie chords
07:26 Cowboy chords/tone control test
08:25 Strummed folk pop chords

Overdriven Sounds
08:41 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
08:57 Indie rock octaves
09:22 Garage rock riff
09:39 Southern rock picked arpeggios
09:59 Choppy barre chords
10:08 Upbeat indie barre chords
10:14 Indie octave chords
10:30 Fat indie rhythm chords
10:47 Volume control test
11:08 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
11:23 Hendrix inspired riff
11:40 Classic rock riff
11:56 Driving classic rock riff
12:11 Quacky classic rock riff
12:20 Groovy classic rock riff

Higher gain drive sounds
12:38 80s rock riff
12:58 Melodic hard rock lead
13:19 Classic hard rock riff
13:37 ZZ Top inspired riff
13:48 Hard rock riff
14:05 Hard rock rhythm tone
14:21 Chunky alt rock chords
14:35 Alternative rock riff
14:49 Pop punk riff
15:02 Pop punk melodic lead riff
15:18 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
15:31 Punk rock power chords
15:44 Less Than Jake inspired punk riff
15:56 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
16:11 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D)
16:36 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Heavy Distortion sounds (all in Drop D)
16:52 Metal chugging riff
17:09 Hardcore punk riff
17:24 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
17:36 Modern pop metal riff
17:47 Heavy metal lead sound
18:02 Hardcore punk breakdown riff
18:17 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff

18:56 My thoughts
19:41 First impressions
20:33 Weight
20:52 Build quality and hardware
21:35 Playability and neck
22:24 Sounds and pickups discussion
25:31 What other similar guitars are out there?
27:40 My conclusions on the AM93ME-NT and why you should buy it

My setup was as follows: I ran the AM93ME-NT 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.

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head:
Greer Lightspeed:
Revv G3:
Focusrite 4i4 (the new 2i4):
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#Ibanez #IbanezGuitars #IbanezArtcore #42GSFive

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