The New Ibanez Pat Metheny PM3C Model

[AllanAllen]

The demo guitar is also using a tuneomatic metal bridge. I wonder how it would sound with a rosewood or ebony bridge?

Doug

It is my opinion that all guitars are better with a wooden bridge. Just my opinion.

[pingu]

A new video! Ok, this may very well be the poorest excuse for a guitar demo ever. Its actually kind of funny.

yeah I enjoyed that !

[Cunamara]

A new video! Ok, this may very well be the poorest excuse for a guitar demo ever. Its actually kind of funny.

Off to a good start with "Pat Meth'-enn-ee" (like Bethany). "You can read the specs online, I'm not gonna talk about that." Probably doesn't know them. And lots of things are "cool" but "I didn't really need the guitar, I just got it." "I haven't listened to a lot of Pat Meth-enn-ee." Yup, seems accurate. "I'm not really a jazz player." Is that so?

I hope the rest of this guy's content is of somewhat higher quality; I'm not going to go bother to check it out any further, based on this.

[D.G.]

I got mine this morning. My initial impressions:

Pros:

1. I got the blond one, and it looks great! Spruce top and Mahogany back and sides.
2. Fit and finish (satin) are fine, no flaws I could find
3. Swapped out the flats for D'addario roundwound 12's (my preferred) and a plain 19 for the g string.
4. Intonation is spot on, and the neck needed no adjustments.
5. Fret work is acceptable
6. I did not need to adjust the action or the truss rod
7. Relatively light weight, 6.4 lbs

Cons:

1. Skinny neck, like all the PM models I've put my fingers on. I tend to prefer a chunkier neck, but it's not a deal breaker for me. The more neck shapes you can deal with, the more guitars you can have!
2. Tuners while perfectly acceptable, are a bit heavy so there's a slight bit of neck dive, though not egregious. At some point will probably swap them out with something lighter.
3. The pickup. Brighter and thinner than I thought it would be. Reminds me of a Johnny Smith floater. Not unworkable, and tameable at the amp, but I might look into a magnet swap.
4. Hum seems on par with a p90. Fine at home -- I got clean power -- but may be an issue on the gig. I own an EHX Hum Debugger but I can't find where I put it

I've got a trio gig on Fri that I'm planning on using it for, so that'll be the real test.

[D.G.]

Well, did a gig with upright bass and clarinet using a Fender Princeton Tonemaster and was able to dial in the amp to a really good sound. About 4 on volume with 3.5 treble and 3 bass (lots of boom in the room) and the guitar volume wide open. The tone turned down a tiny amount. A really good, balanced sound. Pretty clean electricity, so no noticeable single coil hum.

But if I used those same settings with, say my Eastman T64/TV loaded with Lollar p90's, it would've been a muddy mess.

Still on the fence about either a magnet swap or a full pickup swap. The reason being that I like to record a progression in my looper and be able to swap out different guitars to practice over it without having to change the amp settings. Not sure it's really doable as the pickup is much lower output than a p90...

[supersoul]

A new video! Ok, this may very well be the poorest excuse for a guitar demo ever. Its actually kind of funny.

The crappy audio makes it sound like a banjo!

[Dean_G]

Tim definitely indicates that it is not an endorsement .
Beautiful demonstration .
Reminded me of Jim Hall's famous live rendition :

Now THAT'S a nice guitar...OT sorry..

[arnie65]

Still on the fence about either a magnet swap or a full pickup swap. The reason being that I like to record a progression in my looper and be able to swap out different guitars to practice over it without having to change the amp settings. Not sure it's really doable as the pickup is much lower output than a p90...

I changed to a different CC pickup, but in retrospect, I could have just changed the ceramic magnets to Alnico II or V, and it would have been just fine.



Cheers,
Arnie...

[Cunamara]

Now THAT'S a nice guitar...OT sorry..

It is a nice guitar, but photos from those gigs (in the Live Vols 2-4 booklet) show Jim using his ES-175 rather than the D'Aquisto. But there is at least one tune on those CDs that sound like the D'A to me; it was very distinct from the ES-175 to my ears. During his transition between those guitars, Jim reportedly brought both to gigs. I think the album cover photo with the D'A was shot sometime later.

[Herbie]

I got mine this morning. My initial impressions:

Pros:

1. I got the blond one, and it looks great! Spruce top and Mahogany back and sides.
2. Fit and finish (satin) are fine, no flaws I could find
3. Swapped out the flats for D'addario roundwound 12's (my preferred) and a plain 19 for the g string.
4. Intonation is spot on, and the neck needed no adjustments.
5. Fret work is acceptable
6. I did not need to adjust the action or the truss rod
7. Relatively light weight, 6.4 lbs

Cons:

1. Skinny neck, like all the PM models I've put my fingers on. I tend to prefer a chunkier neck, but it's not a deal breaker for me. The more neck shapes you can deal with, the more guitars you can have!
2. Tuners while perfectly acceptable, are a bit heavy so there's a slight bit of neck dive, though not egregious. At some point will probably swap them out with something lighter.
3. The pickup. Brighter and thinner than I thought it would be. Reminds me of a Johnny Smith floater. Not unworkable, and tameable at the amp, but I might look into a magnet swap.
4. Hum seems on par with a p90. Fine at home -- I got clean power -- but may be an issue on the gig. I own an EHX Hum Debugger but I can't find where I put it

I've got a trio gig on Fri that I'm planning on using it for, so that'll be the real test.

Thanks! Maybe the best guitar review I have ever read! No nonsense, just the goods and bads in perfectly justified way. Hats off!

I had once a guitar that had light headstock and some dead notes on fretboard. I installed the heaviest tuners in the market in it and the dead notes disappeared. So sometimes the heavy headstock is a good thing.

[D.G.]

Newest update:

Since the pickup is brighter than I'd like, I figured the first thing I could do is change the pots. I measured the volume pot while in the guitar at approx 500k so I figured I could pull the peakiest frequencies down by shifting to 250k pots (a trick I learned from my Sadowsky guitars.) The good news is that they were pretty easy to swap out. I put a pair of 250k pots I had laying around in, tested it out and it was even brighter.

Puzzled, I measured the removed pots and the volume was indeed 500k, but the tone pot measured at 106k

So, I put the 100k tone pot back in and, lo and behold, I got a slightly milder tone. But not enough yet. Next I'm going to source another 100k pot and swap the volume out.

If that is still unsatisfactory, I'll move on to magnet swaps.

[Bobby Timmons]

100k pots are great for volume for a jazz guitar. Really rounds it out. For tone, 100k is gonna chop off too much signal by default imo. 250k or 250 no load is ideal for a jazz tone imo.

[pingu]

Newest update:

Since the pickup is brighter than I'd like, I figured the first thing I could do is change the pots. I measured the volume pot while in the guitar at approx 500k so I figured I could pull the peakiest frequencies down by shifting to 250k pots (a trick I learned from my Sadowsky guitars.) The good news is that they were pretty easy to swap out. I put a pair of 250k pots I had laying around in, tested it out and it was even brighter.

Puzzled, I measured the removed pots and the volume was indeed 500k, but the tone pot measured at 106k

So, I put the 100k tone pot back in and, lo and behold, I got a slightly milder tone. But not enough yet. Next I'm going to source another 100k pot and swap the volume out.

If that is still unsatisfactory, I'll move on to magnet swaps.

looking forward to your reports

[AdroitMage]

I listened to a couple guys demoing this model on Youtube the other day and they both had absolutely great tones, really nice, really thick, warm, and quite articulate with a beautiful attack on the notes that reminded me of Metheny. Just saying.

[pingu]

I listened to a couple guys demoing this model on Youtube the other day and they both had absolutely great tones, really nice, really thick, warm, and quite articulate with a beautiful attack on the notes that reminded me of Metheny. Just saying.

could you put a link on here please

[Brian859]

could you put a link on here please

I just took a look at youtube. I don't see anything new. I think we have every one posted already linked in