It's an amazing guitar, very smooth very easy to move your hands aroudn no Sharon fret ends no loose screws, nobody, ect I love it it's incredible

My RG8 was an "open box/return" in perfect condition. The RG8 arrived set up well, with fresh strings. The build quality & finish are excellent, a very nice guitar for the price.

The factory pickups sounded great for clean tones, but too muddy for my high-gain distortion purposes. I installed a Duncan "Distortion" and "Sentient" set, now the low-end is choppy and articulate for high-gain playing. Duncan's "active mount" pickups fit this guitar perfectly and were easy to install.

My RG8 is set up light & slinky, with a much lighter-gauge string-set than usual. I've had no problems with tuning or intonation, the action is low and the fretwork is nice & level.

Overall I'm quite happy with my RG8, and the Duncan pickups made it even better. Thanks Sweetwater for another great deal!

I immediately threw some 9 through 80 strings on it as the factory strings are a little light. I tuned it to drop E, adjusted the intonation and she just rips. I messed around as low as double drop c but it sounded like garbage tuned that low. Drop D wasn't terrible, but it plays great without much adjustment in drop E.

This thing sounds amazing. Comfortable 5-pc neck and hard tail strung through the body make for a very stable instrument. But there again, I've never had a reason to complain about an Ibanez. I own and have owned a few, each with a very unique voice, from the luxurious and fast old S-series to my extended range pieces, there's awesomeness in every strum or riff. And Jacob made this all happen on a very compressed and busy holiday season. These guys are the best customer service in the MI business. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a heavy night!

This was going to be my long-awaited first guitar - I'm a classically trained pianist/composer who started writing metal/fusion 20 years ago, so an extended-range Ibanez guitar was really the only option for me.

When I first got the guitar I immediately noticed intonation issues with the lowest string only. I tried adjusting the action myself, then had my brother (an Ibanez guitarist of 25 years) do the same. I then sent it back to Sweetwater's tech team, to see if they could fix the issue. When the guitar came back in even worse shape than before, I just returned it altogether.

This could just be a case of a bad instrument, but I thought I should offer a buyer-beware: if intonation matters to you as much as it does to me, save up enough money to get a pro-level guitar rather than settling for an entry-level guitar.

I'd been looking to get an eight string for a while, and considered saving up for a Schecter Multiscale, but I'm actually quite glad I bit the bullet and got this instead.

Pros:
-Obviously, it's cheap. That's probably the main selling point is that it's a cheap eight string, but that's not all there is.
-Surprising build quality. I find Ibanez guitars in this price range are hit or miss, but I think either I just played a couple of bad guitars, or they've stepped up their game in recent years. This came almost perfect, and minimal setup was needed.
-Pretty good electronics and hardware. With two notable exceptions, on the hardware front, it's all super solid.
-The scale length. The LTD Eclipse eight string is more expensive than this, and yet it still has a 25.5" scale length... for some reason. As if the tuning stability is good at that kind of scale length on an EIGHT string haha. 27" makes a lot more sense, although leads can be a bit weird.

Cons:
-The pickups. I bought this guitar after listening to demos and reviews, and a lot of people noted that it's pickups are very noisy, and honestly worth replacing. After using it for a few weeks, I have to agree. They're too low output for their noise floor, so replace them as soon as you can afford to.
-The tuners. They're fine, but I find they're a bit finicky. They do the job, but for some, it might not be well enough.
-The stock strings. They simply are the wrong strings for the guitar. The lowest string is too light gauge. Buy a proper set of strings if you get it, it won't add THAT much to the cost.

Overall, I like this guitar. I would even recommend it, but buy it with full knowledge you'll probably have to do some modding for it to be as good as it can be. It's a right shame Ibanez skimped out on the pickups, tuners, and are selling it with strings that are much too light. It's a guitar with some lost potential by some cost-saving choices by the manufacturer.

Honestly for $... this is a very solid guitar. With amp sims it sounds a bit muddy on the lower end but toss some EMGs in there and you're good to go. Not a bad buy.

I am an extended range conessuier. I think anything below the eighth string is a waste of space. I"m in a band called The Brown Note And Beyond, or TBNaB for short, and we play the heaviest stuff. Our tunings are so low that the human ear can"t hear our music, and I needed a guitar that was capable of handling the lowest of tunings. So, I bought this one, and I"m happy to say that the eighth string works like a charm. A cool little mod would be to just get rid of the other seven strings, but that"s just me being nitpicky.

This is a great guitar. I got this guitar to have in my office to give me the occasional mental health break and break the monotony of the day. Fit and finish of the body and neck are great save for a little bit of roughness on the sides of the fingerboard. I'm used to playing 7 and 8 string guitars so this one wasn't a stretch to learn but even if it were my first, it would be a great first extended scale guitar. I play it through a pocket POD straight into my computer speakers so I may not be the best person to ask about the quality of the pickups but I can assure you that everything else about this guitar is awesome. I have put it through my Rectifier and wasn't disappointed but only played it for a short time before I took it to work. The guitar stays in tune, feels great, and plays easily. This would make an awesome first 8 string or a great backup guitar.

really good sound and feel of neck! love the skinny ibanez profiles. only downside to this mean sounding guitar is that aesthetically its a little bit of a plain Jane in my opinion. but overall. a great axe for the money

I've been a Metal Frontman/Lead Vocalist in bands for 17 years and has played guitar and bass off and on pretty much my whole life and I've always wanted to perform with one or the other on stage but ended up just holding the mic and spewing my vocal venom on the local masses... To make a long story short, I recently went to Guitar Center and gave one a test drive... I AM PUTTING ONE ON LAYAWAY...Man, I fell in love with it.... Mind you, I was looking for a percussive string instrument which is why I played bass with a pick and like a rhythm guitar... Well, the 8 string is the premier percussive string instrument.... When I hear bands like Meshuggah and Animals As Leaders play their 8 strings, it opens up a whole new world of music for me that I want to explore with me playing strictly rhythm on my 8 string and performing vocals, a Drummer and a Lead Bass Player.... Playing it through a Line 6 amp and a Boss RC-30 Loop Station Pedal... Yeah, I'm pumped to play my new found love...The Ibanez 8 string Kicks much A**!!!!!!!!! \m/

I've had my RG8 for about a week now, so here's a quasi-informed review: Makes a good first impression, overall build quality is good and tight, finish is all good, hardware ditto. Slightly mystified by the tuning- Ibanez and Sweetwater both advertise a factory-standard drop tuning, but mine arrived with the top 6 strings tuned like a standard gitty, and the bottom two tuned to C and G. Well, OK, I'd planned to concoct a deviant tuning of my own anyway. The action was set about as low as possible- frankly, a little too low for a numble-fingered klutz like me. Again, OK, I always plan to set-up a new guitar to my liking. So I mess with a few tuning variations for awhile, and settle on one I like. Then I raise the action, about ~1/64 or so. Then I go to set the intonation for my tuning- which is where the gremlins appear: turns out that in order to get enough compensation (added string length for accurate intonation, ie, moving the bridge saddle back), I have to halve the springs for the two lowest strings, and either shorten the bolt or add a spacer behind the bridge body on the lowest string's saddle. I suspect that if I wanted to tune that string down to the "factory" F, I'd be unable to move that saddle back far enough! And oh yes, another factor on the bottom string's saddle is those little grooves they put for the saddles screws on the highest and lowest strings- to move the saddle any further back, I'd have to get out of the groove, and that ain't groovy.
Now maybe most folks in this instrument's target demographic will just play it the way they get it, and thus be spared dealing with these little oddities. But if you're inclined to dither with your tunings or action (and string gauges, even), be forewarned.
That half-star's worth of vexation aside, this is an excellent instrument for the benjamins- the more I play it, the more I like. You probably won't be headlining Ozzfest or whatever with this thing, but for the rest of us it's fine. Dial in some gain and distortion, and you can make like a faux-Jack Bruce on the low strings while you get all Sonic Youth on the rest of 'em. Fun, fun, fun! And playing through a clean amp can get you some great, low-down sounds, as well as the chord-voicing possibilities of two extra strings. I got this thing to break out of the usual ingrained 6-string ruts, and believe me, it works!
Thanks to Ryan Murphy and the rest of the SWTR gang. This one's a keeper!

My brother loves his 8 strings. Just can't let it down!!