Ibanez Axe Design Lab SML721 Electric Guitar - Rose Gold Chameleon Reviews
Part of Ibanez's cutting-edge Axe Design Lab, the SML721 is built from the ground up for clear tone, bold performance, and smooth playability. The SML721 is compact and lightweight with an ergonomic nyatoh body that resonates with a rich low-mid emphasis that’s a natural fit for high-gain applications. The SML721’s unique multi-scale fanned fret rosewood fingerboard and Ibanez’ high-performance Wizard neck profile are perfect for effortless upper-fret riffs, but with a traditional feel below the 5th fret that makes chords and rhythm playing effortless and familiar. Powering performance are two custom Q58 pickups, built for ultra-clear articulation with deep versatility expanded by Ibanez's acclaimed dyna-MIX10 switching system. What’s more, this guitar boasts premium performance-boosting hardware, including Jascar EVO gold frets, Gotoh locking tuners, and Ibanez’ Mono-Rail bridge. If you've been hunting for a high-value axe that’s optimized from headstock to heel, then Ibanez's SML721 is guaranteed to deliver.
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Highest Rated Reviews
Fantastic Guitar
I love this guitar. It is a bit of a departure from what I would normally play. It is very light and very comfortable to play. No neck dive on this guitar. The neck is amazing. I have read that it is a wizard profile but would disagree. It is fast and comfortable and the high frets are very easy to reach. The fretwork is great. Very polish frets with little to no snag on the fret ends. The pickups are versatile to say the least. I forget the name of the pick up selection, dynamix, or something like that. A bit of a hoax. It sounds bad in all positions with the switch up for me. Well I shouldn't say bad, just not as good as when the switch is down. Even on cleaner sounds it is noisy in the up position. I love playing this guitar and have not put it down.
Breath of fresh air
What I like:
- 10 very distinct sounds from the pickups. I've actually sought out the Q-58 Humbuckers and switching, to install in another guitar. They're that good, you don't need to swap parts, goes from Jaguar bright to chug a lug dark, surf, country, metal, etc.. this does it.
- very comfortable, light and your hands just fall into a more relaxed position due to multi scale.
- Neck is thin! That's a love/hate, but I can play scales or chords, but it's thin, and I like it.
- super easy to play while sitting. Chord plugs into front, so it's not hanging awkwardly off the edge. Multi scale relaxed the hand. Basically perfect balance. It's great.
What I don't love:
-No case or bag… why!
-only this one color, (it does change to about 6 colors total, FWIW)
-Made in Indonesia.. should be in the Prestige line and make them in Japan. Better yet, open a plant here in the US and make them here!!!
The future of guitar tech
I just finally received this guitar. I have purchased a whole bunch of guitars in the last 25 years. This is the best electric guitar I have ever played. It is a perfect feather. Looks fantastic, better in person than on screen--more plum than rose. The frets are unique and the fanning of the frets and the graduation of the string lengths is genius. Tight low strings and slinky high strings. The frets are thinner than normal which makes playing in the upper octave much easier. This is a 5 lbs 8 ozs gorgeous purple and gold feather.
Something different, and I like it
I bought this guitar primarily because I was curious about a fanned-fret guitar, and this one seemed like a very attractive package at a very reasonable price. Overall, I've been very pleased and consider this to be a successful experiment.
Here are the things that I like:
* Overall, very nicely constructed. It's amazing what modern guitar factories can do at relatively low prices. The paint job is flawless, the frets are cleanly installed with no high spots or sprouted ends, and the controls work smoothly and with no unusual noise or issues. From a quality perspective, I would have no concern about playing this at a gig (but you should always have a backup anyway - weird things happen.)
* The pickups and switching system are excellent. The combination of the 5-way switch and 2-way toggle gives you up to 10 distinct sounds. I like all of the sounds with the toggle down (in "normal" position) and a couple of the sounds with the toggle up could be useful as well. Positions 2 and 4 almost give you a bit of a Strat-style "quack", with the neck only/bridge only positions are as expected and sound great both clean and dirty.
* The bridge configuration is outstanding. If you look at it closely, there are actually 6 bridges - one for each string. The strings aren't physically connected to each other at the bridge. This is important because the vibration of each string does not impact (positively or negatively) the vibration of any of the other strings. As a result, the guitar sustains very well and there are no "ghost notes" due to weird vibration interactions. This is a big deal! As a bonus, the intonation on the guitar was set very well out of the box - kudos to either Ibanez or Sweetwater, whoever did the final check-out. They got it right.
* It's a feather (around six pounds), and it balances well. The body is very thin and very comfortable, and I expected that it would feel neck-heavy - but it doesn't. It balances very well either on a strap or on your knee, and it's very comfortable to play.
* It stays in tune very well. Between the unique bridge design, the high-quality locking Gotoh tuners, and the 5-piece neck, it's very stable. This is another thing I was concerned about at this price point, but no worries here - it's rock solid.
* The finish. It looks much better (and more subtle) in person than in the pictures. The "chameleon" nature of the finish means that it looks different depending on the level and angle of the light that's hitting it - sometimes it's a very dark purple (see the attached picture), and sometimes it's more of a root beer color, almost bronze. It probably would look really good under stage lights.
* The flat fretboard radius. It's VERY flat - 15.75" radius - but it gives me no problems playing chords all over the neck and single-note playing is fast and precise. I'm a decent player but not a hard-core "shredder", but the flat radius feels good to me. The flattest radius I have on other guitars is 14" on my Hamer USA guitars (which I love), and this even-flatter radius works well.
There's nothing that's a real "dislike", but here are some things you should know:
* Hopy mackerel, is the neck thin! It feels normally side-to-side (across the strings), but it's EXTREMELY thin front-to-back. I knew this going in - Ibanez is famous for this, with their "Wizard" neck profile - but WOW, it's thin. To be fair, most of my other guitars have fairly chunky "vintage", 50s-style neck profiles, so this is an extreme difference. But this is very thin when compared to Gibson's "slim taper" profile or even PRS's "wide thin" or "pattern thin" profiles. If you have small or medium sized hands, you might find this to be perfect, but with my big mitts it's a challenge. I can get used to it, but personally I wish it was much thicker. (Again, I knew this going in - it was not a surprise. But actually, yeah, it WAS a surprise when I found out just how thin it is.)
* The output jack position on the face of the guitar causes some issues when used with fancy guitar cables, like Mogami Platinum or Divine Noise cables. It's difficult (but not impossible) to get them plugged in and unplugged. On the upside, the jack is very solid - once the cable is connected, it's not going anywhere. Once you see how thin the body is, particularly on the edges, you realize that there was no other place to put the jack.
* The pickups may not be potted. While they are quiet overall, I have noticed that when I am sitting very close to a high-gain amp, the pickups squeal a little bit when you face the amp. If you turn away from the amp, it stops - so they're a bit microphonic. In a normal band configuration, this would probably not be a problem.
* No case or gig bag. Nothing. The guitar comes in a box; well packaged, but...a box. It doesn't really matter to me because it will probably never leave my music room, and if it ever does, I have some gig bags that will work - but you should be aware of this going in.
Now, what about those fanned frets? I've been playing for nearly 50 years, and this is my first hands-on experience with them. The Ibanez's fanned frets seem a little less extreme than what you see on a Strandberg or some other fanned-fret guitars. To me, it feels very "normal" up to the 9th fret, and up to about the 15th fret or so it requires very little adjustment to your playing style. However, once you're up in the highest fret range (16-24), the frets are significantly angled, and it requires concentration and adjustment to your playing style. I'm sure it's something that you could get used to over time, but if all your other guitars are conventional, the fanned frets will always feel a bit strange. I do like the fact that the different scale length results in a looser feel on the high strings and a tighter feel on the low strings - that seems to be the major benefit of the fanned frets to me.
Overall, I'm happy I bought this guitar. It's an outstanding value and a solid guitar for $1,000, and doesn't require any upgrades or changes (except a gig bag if you need one). If this sounds like something you might like, I think you should definitely go for it! Just be prepared for that VERY thin neck and some adjustment to the fanned frets, and you'll have a great tool to make music with.
