Ibanez Exotic Wood - African Zebra Wood

Today's blog is on the Ibanez EW20ZW. This guitar is (once again) a personal favorite of mine. It is the first acoustic electric I purcahsed, and for the budget, this guitar is the tops. Ibanez offers a great price for an affordable budget and I would reccomend their product to anyone. The Exotic Wood (EW in the model code) is Ibanez's series of acoustic electrics that are constructed, as the name implies, of vairous exotic woods. The ZW on this particular guitar stands for Zebra Wood, as the guitar's top, back, and sides are constructed of African Zebra Wood.

The woods used in this series of guitars are not all necessarily tone woods. This means that the sound does not resonate quite as well as it would with some other woods. To compensate for that, Ibanez build this series as a custome jumbo size. The body is not quite as drastic as a jumbo style body, but it is larger than a standard dreadnaught body. This gives these guitars a 'big' sound that really does great when playing full, open chords. The lows are very prominent, the highs stand out, but the mids get a little bit lost in the whole big sound. That being said, this guitar has a very good blended sound.

Along with a great acoustic sound, this guitar has built-in pick-ups with a preamp. The SRT-C preamp with a built-in tuner, paired with the B-Band UST pickup used in this guitar blend together like to make the guitar sound even better plugged in than acoustic. The preamp give you full control of highs, mids, lows, and has a feedback cut-out in the case of difficult acoustics in a room. The electronics also feauture a 1/4" input, as well as an XLR input, so that there is not need for a direct box.

While there is much, much more I could say about this guitar, I will keep this blog fairly short. One last thing about the Exotic Wood series, and the zebra wood guitars in particular, is that they are one of a kind. Because the grain patterns of these exotic woods are so distinct, you will never find two EW guitars that look the same, and each one with have its own unsurpassed beauty.

Renato Bellucci

Rather than discussing a particular guitar on this post, I will review a luthier and his custom guitars. This  discussion is slightly different than other posts, as they revolve around classical guitars. Renato Bellucci is a luthier who constructs classical guitars (though he will do steel string guitars if requested) from exotic woods and uses many different and innovative construction techniques. While I could go on all day and night about these guitars and how absolutley beautiful they are, I will try to keep it brief

First of all, these guitars stand out because of their sheer beauty. Bellucci has built guitars using curly sinker redwood, brazillian rosewood, alpine spruce, snakewood, zebrawood, african blackwood, and many many more. All of these woods have different features, sounds, and looks. It takes a truely skilled luthier to have the knowledge to work with all of these different woods. Most of these exotic wood guitars are custom-made, or featured models that are not stocked. Because all of these guitars have different woods, even guitars with the same build have very unique sounds.

Along with the wide variety of matierals for the guitar, Bellucci uses many different construction techniques. Though there are some stock guitars, a large majority of his builds are custom. You have the option for a regular cutaway, indented cutaway, ventian cutaway, f-holes in the top, sound holes in the cutaway, sound holes in the sides, double-top construction, quad top construction, and many many more options. All inlays are done to the specific guitar and done according to exactly what you order. Without writing a multiple page review on his construction I will put it simply: Renato Bellucci is a master luthier.

Gibson ES-335

I always like to say that the Gibson ES-335 was made perfect by Gibson and perfected by BB King. Most any blues musician or anyone who appreciates the blues will know exactly who BB King is, and will probably know of his pride and joy (not pun intended for you SRV listeners), Lucille. King plays a very smooth blues that sometimes borderlines jazz, and this guitar just emphasizes his existing talent for this music.

This guitar is one of my personal favorites, and if I had the budget for it, I would buy multiples of this guitar. The ES-335 was Gibson's first semi-hollow body, and they got it right on the first try. The original body features a maple body, mahogony neck, and a rosewood fingerboard. As with most semi-hollow bodies the guitar features the violin f-holes in the top. The maple body combined with the size of the ES-335 and the overall build by Gibson gives this guitar clear, concise notes, and smooths out the overall sound. The "lucille" version of the guitar differs from the original in that it does not have f-foles in the top, and a maple neck instead of a mahgony neck. The lucille model has much more sustain through the maple neck and an overall smoother, ballsier sound because of closing off the f-holes.

This guitar sounds beyond exquisite when using clean effects, as with most jazz and blues that this guitar is used for. For this kind of music, the smooth sound that comes from the ES-335 is ideal, however, it is not the only use this guitar has. The ES-335 also sounds great for the heavier distorted Stevie Ray Vaughn style of blues. It plays like a charm, but you have to be carefully not to over power with overtones as with most maple semi-hollow bodies. If you are sending too much signal to the amp, which can be easy to do with a guitar with this much tone, it will send an unclear and very sloppy sound.

The Gibson ES-335 is one of my personal favorite guitars. It plays great, sounds great, and fits perfectly into the blues and jazz world of guitars.