Ibanez GB10

[55bar]

I was under the impression that the GB10 was a pressed laminate.

[Max405]

The one I had was laminate. A nice laminate too.
They are well made little tanks.
Joe D.

[Woody Sound]

I always wondered how many one-offs George maybe has, including a solid wood example.

[Groyniad]

interesting

like i say - that clip destinytot recently posted of gb playing rhythm with his thumb

there's so much clarity and definition in the sound even with the thumb

and this sound is so clean and crisp even that i find it hard to hear it as a laminate guitar.

i have NO problem with laminate guitars....

and i'm also really into the strategy of pairing highly sensitive floaters with thick laminate top

you have to play tricks with a guitar top to make it work really well amplified - it seems to me.

the L-5CES is the classic example. top quality spruce; top quality carve, bracing, tuning etc. etc. - - and two huge holes (plus 5 other small ones) with two heavy lumps of metal in them.

it works incomparably better as an amplified instrument than so many boutique light-weight SUPER responsive highly sensitive carves that have either floaters or mounted hum buckers.

so thick laminate (spruce) top plus high output floater sounds like it me be a stroke of genius to me. (they sound pretty amazing - obviously!!)

[jads57]

I believe they are all laminate construction, which helps reduce feedback issues!

[nopedals]

> so thick laminate (spruce) top plus high output floater sounds like it me be a stroke of genius to me.

Not following you. The only reason for a floater that make sense to me is if you want to play the guitar unplugged. Otherwise you are just buying increased feedback without any real advantages.

Don't know that there are any sonic advantages to a non-carved "solid" top vs. a laminate. A solid top that is pressed rather than carved does not really make an acoustic guitar. If I liked the playability, sound, weight and balance of a guitar, I would not care if it was solid or laminate. Offhand, I would guess that a laminate could be made lighter and more resonant than a pressed solid.

I don't know of any pressed top (or laminate) guitars that sound like L5s. Don't know of any pressed top or laminate guitars with floaters that sound better than than the best laminates with routed in pickups.

[fws6]

It is a laminate , the whole point of the GB 10 was to develop a sturdy electric with floating PU for live use

george uses the solid topped guitars (many times his old DAngelico) with 014s Tomastik strings on the records, and 011/012 on the GB10 for live playing , see the interview he did in Premier guitar George Benson: Still the Coolest of Cats

[BigMikeinNJ]

Just like the big laminated Johnny Smith copy GB used with McCoy Tyner when touring. Great guitar. One of the best models Ibanez ever made was the GB10, still is. Mr Benson must have a basement full of "one offs" that Ibanez has made him. Why not, his is the longest running Ibanez model on the market.

Big

[Greentone]

GB-10 is laminated. Wanting it to not be so won't change that. As it happens, great guitars in jazz are very intentionally manufactured that way. Jim Hall asked D'Aquisto to make his second guitar a laminate--his first was carved. He mainly played the laminate. Joe Pass's D'Aquisto, likewise, was a laminate. The guitars that Jim Hall played by Sadowsky were laminates (and copies of his D'Aquisto, more or less). The guitars of Bill Moll that are used by John Pizzarelli are some very acoustically loud laminates, as are the laminates by American Archtops.

Ask anyone who has played a Gibson ES-350, Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, or ES-175--laminates are great materials for building jazz archtops.

Ibanez has virtually perfected this with their Benson line.

[goldenwave77]

I think laminate guitars have MORE clarity...more focus....fewer "layers of sound" but a little less rich...but the more focused, more (usually) mid-rangey sound probably amplifies better, and to my ears, is more 'hornlike", and maybe less "piano-like".


Lemon Italian ice, not Tiramisu or really rich ice cream. ( I can easily sit and eat a container of good lemon Italian ice....one time on a junior HS field trip, we stopped for a snack break and a classmate stupidly bet me that I couldn't put down a quart container on the bus ride back....he lost that one pretty easily, but if it were rich ice cream, I might not have gotten to the bottom of it, before wanting to push it aside.)

[Woody Sound]

Jim Hall asked D'Aquisto to make his second guitar a laminate--his first was carved. He mainly played the laminate. Joe Pass's D'Aquisto, likewise, was a laminate. The guitars that Jim Hall played by Sadowsky were laminates (and copies of his D'Aquisto, more or less).

I seem to remember reading that Sadowsky produced a carved top, and a laminate for Jim Hall. They both liked the lam better, hence the launching of that line. Maybe someone else can confirm if that's true.

[55bar]

I seemed to remember (this was around 15yrs ago) Jim hall telling me that the "D'Aquisto" he was playing was a laminate body, but the neck was the one from his carved top. As an aside he had a faded sticker on the back which said "I love Jayne" I thought it was the sweetest thing ever, I was lucky enough to play a tune with him and when we finished later on in the night he wrote the first 8 bars of "There will never be another you" out in manuscript and underneath wrote "great working with you"

I was 19 at the time will never forget that!

[Max405]

Wow that is a great story. I wonder how many other great stories are buried in the past of some of our other notable forum members?
55bar, great story sir. Thank you for telling it us.
Joe D

[jads57]

Carved top guitars even the venerable L-5CES as well as Byrdland models can generally be played at higher volumes than their acoustic kin. This is probably due to the addition of 2 p/ups mounted directly into the top to help reduce vibration. Now w/ The Ibanez GB models I don't get why they use floating p/ups since the top is laminent construction. I'm surprised they didn't just use a solid wood top made of maple to reduce the feedback.

[Groyniad]

i did say a few things in this thread very very clearly that no-one is taking any notice of

- i love laminates - i have NO problem with laminates - i love laminates

so there is NO implication that i'm asking - is the GB10 a good guitar that is not laminated or is it a crummy guitar that is!!!!!

i've also written two long posts explaining why i think the combination of thick laminated top and floating pickup could work incredibly well

this doesn't matter much - i'm very very used to being ignored (i've been a teacher my whole adult life) - but it matters enough to point it out i suppose


------

is there a better small bodied electric archtop on the market??

[Groyniad]

an L5 recently convinced me that my long, beguiling and expensive journey in the land of the boutique archtop had taken me in roughly the wrong guitar-direction and that i was not going to be happy playing an instrument that sounded nice, but nothing like the guitars on my jazz records. in a nutshell i think it is very easy to become convinced that the only thing that matters is how well a guitar is made (and how nice it looks). if you're convinced of that then guitars by buscarino, andersen, comins, campellone, baker etc. are going to seem like the only guitars in town. but this is wrong. what matters about a guitar is how it feels to play and how it sounds - and that's it. if you're convinced of this (and its more or less mainstream jazz guitar you're into) then its gibson all the way - end of.

well not quite end of:

i think because of george benson there's a mainstream (ish) jazz guitar sound that is not a gibson sound but an ibanez sound. that is - the gb10 sounds like a real jazz guitar even though its not a gibson because george benson has introduced it to our ears and we are used to it and we like it. so that's part of why i got one.

the other reasons i had for getting a new gb10 over a second hand 175 (my other obvious option) were -

body size/scale length: i wanted something that contrasted strongly with the L5. 3'' rims would be fine on a 16'' lower bout - but 175's are the same thickness as an L5. in the end it was scale length that put me off the tal farlow (which i was very serious about for a long time).

reliability: every one says that you can't find a bad gb10 (in good condition)

finish/presentation: after my andersens and campellones and now the L5 i was reluctant to get a crudely finished guitar as my second instrument. old 175s look wonderful - but the newer ones (which were the one's i was after) don't look so good to me. the gb10 on the other hand looked very well finished - nearly to the standard of the higher end gibsons (at least as good as an L4 for example).

price - i was able to get a new gb10 for less than a second hand modern 175.

established guitar v. well thought of: the gb10 is tried and tested - the longest running ibanez signature guitar - everyone on here raves about it. in fact i've hardly heard so many different guitarists raving in this way about a particular type of guitar.

the quality of the neck/fingerboard: everyone seems to agree not just that its good but that its the very best they've ever played - that's pretty striking.

----

so what's it like?

well its a bit of a mystery how its so good. its so damn small and heavy - the braces inside are more like blocks than braces - and its got mini-floating-humbuckers to boot! but the amplified tone is full and dark and rich and nuanced. the two words that come most readily to mind are 'mellow' and 'defined' - and usually you purchase one of these at the expense of the other.

i think its the floating pickup that explains the magic - or at least the floating pickup combined with the heavy-built laminate construction. this makes no sense - why attach a pickup meant for acoustic archtops onto the opposite of an acoustic archtop? well to bring clarity and bite and definition to a very dark, warm, thick sounding guitar. that seems like a very good answer to me - and it generates quite an effect. i've heard benson praise fender amps because of how 'fast' or 'immediate' they are - and i think the same is true of floating pickups. you maximize responsiveness and enhance attack with a floater - and this suits benson's style.

the magic of the guitar - and what explains its longevity and popularity - is that it gives you enormous clarity and a nuanced and fast attack at the same time as it gives you very friendly warmth and depth of tone.

when you add to this the incredible friendliness of the neck and the superb fit and finish (the brown sunburst is pretty much perfect i think) - its pretty hard to resist.

btw - i don't think the neck is nicer than the L5 - though the lower string tension is pretty friendly. and the L5 seems at least as good to me in terms of handling feedback. it remains to be seen if in six months time i find myself hanging out for a 175.

and nothing compares to the L5 - so there's no point in talking about that.

[docbop]

I have a GB10 and was my main guitar for quite awhile. The size is very comfortable and capable of a wide variety of sounds they can be found at really reasonable prices for an archtop if patient.

Congrat's you should really dig it.

[nikotro]

Congrats! It looks really nice. I tried one a couple of months ago, and I was surprised by how nice it was playing. The necks on the Ibanez signature models (both the GB and the PM) are easy to play, IMO.

[Steve Z]

Congrats! I am always amazed how great the neck feels on almost every model of Ibanez archtop I have played. As you have stated, "...what matters about a guitar is how it feels to play and how it sounds - and that's it."

[Jabberwocky]

You need these to complete the package:
.

[Hammertone]

an L5 recently convinced me that …[ ]... that i was not going to be happy playing an instrument that sounded nice, but nothing like the guitars on my jazz records. in a nutshell i think it is very easy to become convinced that the only thing that matters is how well a guitar is made (and how nice it looks). if you're convinced of that then guitars by buscarino, andersen, comins, campellone, baker etc. are going to seem like the only guitars in town. but this is wrong. what matters about a guitar is how it feels to play and how it sounds - and that's it. if you're convinced of this (and its more or less mainstream jazz guitar you're into) then its gibson all the way - end of.

Perhaps you should have used the first person throughout? My own experience is that various custom builders make good-looking instruments with high degrees of fit and finish, that ALSO play and sound great. Gibson is certainly capable of this as well. YMMV.

GB10? - Lovely guitar!

[Ghostofachance]

Yes, a guitar has to sound good but it also should feel good AND look good. In short, it should appeal to and gratify multiple senses. If it makes you want to swoon every time you pick it up, it's succeeded in its mission.

If I had to choose any Ibanez, it would probably be the GB or PM. I'm put off by the tuning machines on many of their models, however. A guitar that costs around $1,000 shouldn't have tuners that look identical to those on a $100 acoustic.

[Groyniad]

You need these to complete the package:
.

jabber - i've already got them! one happens to be sitting next to my laptop right now. got them ages ago from Japan, as a result of the commitment to benson picking. i don't use them now however - i've decided that they're too cutting and don't keep the bottom end in the tone the way the fender mediums do. (they do help a lot with articulation and accuracy though - cause the edges are flatter with less curve than the fender) haven't even tried them with the GB10.

can't believe you picked up on these man - great minds...

[Cunamara]

Congratulations! I bought my GB10 used in 1986 and have had it ever since. Really well made, utterly reliable, tuning is amazingly stable and of course the neck has already been mentioned so no need to repeat. Whenever I pull it out and play it I think "ah, this is what a jazz guitar sounds like." But of course there are a lot of jazz guitar sounds...

Since the GB10 was my first electric guitar, I think it is also my benchmark sound. Sometimes I want to chase the "Gibson" sound, specifically Jim Halls's ES-175 wth the P90 through his GA-50 (although the notion of a "Gibson" sound is nebulous- Les Paul? ES-175? ES-335? L-5? "Gibson sounds" plural would be more accurate). But with the GB10 I can approximate my favorite "Gibson" sounds (Jim Hall and Tal) enough to usually satisfy me- dark and rich or dry and thunky. It doesn't really sound like Jim's ES-175 with P90 or Tal's ES-350 with CC pickup, but it's sufficiently reminiscent of those sounds. Oddly enough I don't sound anything like Benson through it in terms of tone. Must be because I don't Benson pick. Sorry, just cannot join that particular sub-cult of jazz guitar.

Different strings make a big difference with this guitar. On the neck pickup, it's nice and fat and dark. I rarely use the bridge pickup on this or any other guitar, even before I played jazz- I just much prefer the sound of the neck pickup. However whether with the GB10, the Tele, the Cushman... I always sound like me. Been trying to get away from that for years!

For gigging it's an immensely practical instrument- good feedback resistance, comfortable to play, pickups with plenty of oomph so it works for blues and jazz as needed, looks nice to the audience. Also the small size is really convenient and portable compared to my 17" carvetop, although the Tele in a gig bag is pretty tough to beat.

[Max405]

Groyniad, Sorry I missed this one. I've been a little selfish lately with a lot of my own crap going on.
Your guitar is amazing. I had one for a while. The think I remember about it was it was built like a tank. I played out with it a lot and I remember TI13's was the right string for it. It stayed very solid with those strings on it. 12's were great soft playing at home. It had punch and cutting power with the 13's.
The fit and finish of the Guitars are really second to none. Your Photography is outstanding. Catalog material for sure.

The GB10 is one of those Guitars that everybody knows and will always retain its value. You particular example is incredible. Im glad you got it. Enjoy it. You did good.

Joe D

PS, Tuners on your guitar, in my opinion are the best tuners available. I have the same Gotohs on my JP20 and they are great. Personally, I wish they were standard on every one of my guitars. I'd be happy with that..