Q52PB-ABS (Antique tan). Electric guitar with gig bag, Ibanez Quest Headless.
The Q-series is a series of newly developed headless instruments from Ibanez. Many will see them as a logical evolution of the successful EHB bass series, and already when they were released in late 2019/early 2020 people started speculating when the guitars would arrive. It's unusual that all those who speculated wildly on the internet about a new headless guitar series were absolutely right, the Q series was already in development then and now it's here.
Headless instruments themselves are nothing new to Ibanez and they released such instruments back in the mid-80s and have since come and gone in various series and models. Despite these past experiences, they chose to start from scratch with everything on the Q series. Everything was designed from scratch and optimized to perfection, everything on the Q series is new and developed specifically for the Q series.
Some things are of course always there, such as the obvious lack of a traditional guitar head with tuning screws and the equally obvious that the tuning mechanism is on the body instead.
More common denominators for all models are.
The wood in the body.
All models have very light and very ergonomic bodies made of Nyatoh, which is a wood that is between mahogany and linden in terms of tone and similar to mahogany in appearance, but harder than mahogany and less prone to warping. The body is a very ergonomic design with very well-balanced and strategically placed chamfers. Combined with the very light weight, this makes the guitars extremely comfortable to play both sitting and standing.
Wood in neck/fretboard.
Common to all models is that they have a beautiful fingerboard of roasted birdseye maple and that the neck is a 3-part construction of roasted maple and bubinga (2 parts maple and 1 part bubinga). A neck construction that is both beautiful and incredibly stable. The seven-string model has a 5-piece neck made of the same material, 3 parts maple and 2 parts bubinga. All necks also have the truss rod adjustment on a wheel at the neck bracket, really easy to adjust quickly and easily. So simple that you can easily do it between two songs on stage.
The truss rods in all models are also modern double-acting truss rods, which means it stretches in both directions.
Jascar EVO Gold truss rods.
Great truss rods somewhere between stainless steel and regular tone and they last significantly longer than regular frets and have a smooth and nice surface. They simply feel new and nice noticeably longer and give a good tone with bite and clear separation.
Q58 humbuckers / R1 single coils.
Pickups specifically designed for these headless guitars.
Slightly above medium warm with a clear, bright tone magical separation. You can clearly hear all notes in chords even with a lot of gain on the amplifier. Tight and well-defined low end with a fairly bright top end that never gets harsh or unpleasant.
The R1 single coil mics are frequency balanced single coils with extremely low hum.
A single coil sound that can easily be colored in many different directions, whether you play clean or distorted.
Custom string cap and Mono Tune bridge.
The string lock is a one-piece construction that is very easy to work with when the string breaks and holds the string securely in place. Together with the Mono Tune stand, which is designed so that you use regular string sets and don't have to continue with double ball end strings, you can safely continue with the strings you've always used. The Mono Tune stand is best described as each string has its own stand, they don't sit together but are like 6 or 7 stands sitting next to each other. This provides a very good transfer between the string vibrations and the body, giving a natural and organic tone. The bridge also has a very wide intonation range, so if you want to retune and use thicker/thinner strings it's no problem. It's easy to change strings, easy to tune and easy to adjust. A very well-functioning stable.
dyna-MIX switch
dyna-MIX9 on HSS models and dyna-MIX10 on HH models.
This is a feature borrowed directly from the extremely successful AZ series and is simply a small switch that gives you access to many more useful mic connections far beyond just being able to split a humbucker mic. Extremely many really useful sounds you don't normally have access to on a guitar with the pickup configuration the guitar has.
As the name might reveal, you have 9 different sounds with the HSS version and 10 with the HH version.
The unique thing about the dyna-MIX switch is that you avoid the big volume drops you normally get when you play around with switching the mics and this means that all the sounds are really useful.
