Ibanez Axion Label RGD71ALMS - Black Aurora Burst Matte Reviews

I was skeptical when I ordered this but after doing a proper setup, which was very easy to do myself. It was great outta the box, just needed some minor tweaks like slight intonation and a bridge adjustment. This Ibanez sounds and play's Amazing! I can play anything I play on a 6 string but with a lower option. I tuned it to A and its a beast. The multi scale feels natural after just a little getting used to. The pickups are awesome sounding and very versatile. Well balanced and feels lite. Sweetwater is the way to go when ordering any music gear. My sales rep Gage Massey, who I've had for years made things happen great. If you're interested in a seven string I highly recommend it!

There are just some guitars that I feel connected, and this one clicked.
What I love:

-The Wizard nitro neck is amazingly fast and shreds like a dream, although I had to adjust the truss rod slightly. It didn't take long for me to adjust to the fanned frets.
- Tuning has been quite stable.
- The Fishman Moderns are beasts of pickups; they're hot and gnarly. Great clarity. Especially if you're trying to play or write technical riffs involving all strings, Cleans sounds beautiful.
-The looks, I mean, c'mon isn't she lovely? When I look at it I want to play it. When I hold, I want to write.

What I don't like about it:
- I'm being nit-picky here, but the aurora burst on the satin polyurethane has some little imperfections like the purple burst goes a little over the lines on some parts. This is hardly noticeable unless you look closely at it.

It amazes me how versatile this guitar is. I've got this guitar a few months back. I was looking for an instrument to tune as low as I want to (currently tuned down to EAEADEA) and the strings at the higher pitch are easy to bend and play without any trouble. The lower pitch strings are steadier and doesn't go out of tune like a 26.5" scale guitar. I definitely recommend this guitar if you're thinking about lower tunings. Huge shout-out to my sales engineer; Joe Holsclaw, for helping me get this amazing instrument!

So part of my bands gimmick is that we wear alien costumes while we play music.

This guitar really helped complete my look as the guitarist.

Great instrument

The only mods I needed on mine was adding a 7 string graphtech piezo system, and a brass guitar nut.

This is a great sounding guitar, plays awesome and looks really nice. It's almost black from some angles, which I love. You can definitely shred on it. Getting used to the multi-scale takes about 5 minutes as well.

I plugged this into a TriRec with a Marshall cab and my band mates had to laugh at how mean the sound was. Just awesome. I'm coming from a KM-7 on that rig too, so I'm not comparing it to some $300 model.

Shot this beauty out against 5 other 7 strings over a year and a half ago and haven't looked back since, bought it the same day I tried it. She still plays gorgeously! Honestly my favorite guitar I've ever owned.

Just buy it already.

Mother have mercy on your wallet, because when you try this beast,
you 'll need to take it home.

It is pure wonder, fun to play, amazing to watch and admire,
really nice example of craftsmanship and art. Color is gorgeous in real life, pictures don't do it justice.
Fishmans sound bright and tight, neck is super fast to play and really really thin. Gotoh's take care of staying in tune.

At home, i had 4 guitars, and had no need or intention of buying new one,
however i don't regret this decision. Had to bring this one home and it is far best guitar i've ever owned.
One of the guitars i own is Demon 7 (only 7 string besides RGD71ALMS) and it can't compare itself to almighty Ibanez . Yes, there is price range difference, but with this guitar, i entered another dimension.

After loong while i play more than 2 hours a day again,
gave me so much willpower and happiness because it s so good to play.

If you can spare that much money, go,try,buy.

This is my first fan fret, and its amazing. Playing it is really easy, the hand tends to 'fall' into place on the frets. Tonally, this guitar absolutely rocks. The Fishmans give a really great sound, fit and finish are the usual Ibenez flawless, and Sweetwaters 55 point inspection makes sure that the guitar is ready to play right out of the box. Thanks to Mike Grebe for hooking me up with one!

Great value.

The specs are great for how much the guitar costs.

Plays well.

Obviously the Fishmans sound incredible.

Finish looks even better in person.

The neck is fantastic. The string spacing is a bit wider than expected but it works great. I had to have random high frets leveled as soon as I got it due to random buzz but no dead notes. The multi scale is intuitive and the only adjustment for me was playing the first fret as I feel the nut sooner and have to tilt back a little. Feels natural now. The nyatoh wood is awesome. My new favorite tone wood. Just amazing really. The body is not as flashy and bright as in the pictures. More of a dull glow, matte finish. The purple is most prominent when looking from straight ahead but turns to green then almost matte black when looking at it in playing position or hard angles. It looks fantastic though.
The Fishmans are hot! I run a fractal and had to pad the input a few clicks due to constant clipping.
I also wasnt thrilled with the stock strings. The give you a huge ferrel for a larger B string but the string tension was all over the place. 9 to 58. I had to order custom sized individually. I tune to drop S and I drop the B to an A too so my low string are a 68 and a 56 and that works really well for harder picking styles but it lost some brightness.

Overall this is a great guitar with typical Indonesian build quality. Love the pickups and especially the second voice setting.

I had been waiting for several months to be lucky enough to purchase one of these. While I ultimately had to purchase through a different vendor, due to high demand, I wanted to offer a brief review for the Sweetwater fam.

The instrument is gorgeous. It subtly shifts from dark to purple, purple to green, and back to dark depending on your viewing angle.

The tone is wonderful, I've been exploring prog rhythm options as well as leads, think Plini or David Maxim Micic, and have found the range of tones to be quite generous. What you'd expect from an Ibanez. It sounds very similar to my Ibanez Prestige. Very tight sound.

It arrived well set up, with a relatively low action and no buzzing. This is my first venture into an extended range guitar, and I found the string spacing to be increased to a significant degree from my typical 6 string Prestige models. It took a slight amount of getting used to, but I tend to play very small neck guitars.

The only thing I feel it is lacking is the capacity for a floyd rose style tremolo. However, I purchased this with the intent for rythyms, it just feels a little bare to me due to that. No actual cons in my opinion.

All in all, I highly recommend this or any of it's sister series Axion Label guitars in the same generation. Hopefully this helps any prospective purchasers make an enlightened decision!

Received in the mail much to the excitement of my teenage son who is the musician. Only got a few seconds to play before we decided to box back up to return due to a small crack in the fret board next to the neck relief wheel. I will leave a more thorough review when the replacement arrives as my only review consists of that....
And Sweetwaters amazing customer service. They really handed this well!
We are stuck with this one for a few months before new stock arrives and I will update or edit my review then