Ibanez George Benson Signature GB10SE Review

Pleasant surprise.

Playing experience 57 years, Age 72. I am not one to spend $2,000 or above on a guitar. However, I don't mind spending $1,000 to $1,500 for quality. I was seriously wanting a hollow body but something smaller than the normal 17" lower bout for comfort. I looked at several brands and the less expensive ones made of linden and then this made of maple. The tone for the most part will… read more depend mostly on what kind of guitar amp you play through. Pickups are the second most important for tone and lastly the wood is about 10%.However, Playability is vital. Most of the magic is in your fingers. If you are a real good player you can make junk sound good but "This guitar is not junk." This is an excellent playing instrument for all levels of playing and built to the standard you would expect at this price range with quality workmanship and quality components through out the entire guitar. It is great for blues, jazz, rock, Neo Soul and several other genres except I would not recommend this for heavy metal. The playability is top notch and the floating pickups are very versatile. I own about 15 guitars and this is the most expensive one. I love the very smooth medium frets and they are treated to perfection. The floating pick ups are are very articulate when you dig in or play softly. The response is excellent and sweet sounding. I want to say one thing more that was a very important change for me, I took off the 11 guage flat wounds that always sound flat or dead to my ear, and put on a set of 10's round wound and the change was what I would recommend for this guitar if you want to play all genres including jazz. Last but not least I bought this used in mint condition not even a swirl mark on the pick guard. I was very lucky. If I had not seen a used one I would have paid full price for this guitar. It was only at the last minute idid see it otherwise Sweetwater would have gotten my money for the 15th time lol. They are truly the most reliable online dealer. I truly think it is worth every penny at full price and would recommend it for anyone. Quality last a lifetime and with this instrument you will find all the quality you need. I hope this helps. Remember one thing that holds true in this life, "You get what you pay for."

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I am enjoying this guitar but needed to make some adjustments

I am brand new to hollow body guitars, but chose this model based on great reviews, wonderful sound on YouTube videos, and smaller body size. I have heard that these guitars are very consistent item per item and thus have made my first guitar purchase online without playing the instrument initially. The 30 day return policy and extremely low cast return shipping deal made this a… read more safe bet for me. The guitar seems exceptionally well made and there appeared to be no flaws except one tiny loose nut which I tightened. I was alarmed at first in that the floating bridge had a piece of foam under it and it was angled fairly dramatically. After talking to Sweetwater and Ibanez, I found that this is often normal and the foam is just there for finish protection. This was my first experience with a floating bridge. The sound is fantastic. Very hollow, smokey, smooth with the included D'addario ECG 24 11-50 flatwound strings. However, it was impossible for me to bend the wound 3rd string more than a half step and even this was difficult. The 2nd and 1st strings could be bent almost a full step, but required a large effort. For my playing, I wanted to still be able to bend with this guitar so I consulted with D'addario. They recommended dropping down to the ECG 23 10-48 flatwound set and replacing the wound 3rd string with a plain steel 19. I did this and adjusted the bridge position carefully and removed the foam. The result was terrific. The tone brightened just slightly without loosing the overall hollow tone of the instrument. Perhaps just a little more ring and a little less thuddy on the base strings, but subtle. The changed 3rd unwound string was now bendable a full step just fine, as were the 2nd and 1st strings. I did not notice any significant tonal change in the 3rd string compared to the wound string. The saddle is solid wood with non-adjustable stepped compensation for the original string set, especially the flatwound heavier 3rd. Perfect compensation did not seem possible with the original string set by tuner (but sounded fine by ear) and it was slightly worse after replacement of the lighter unwound 3rd, but again I could only detect this by tuner and not by ear. I then took the guitar to my repair shop and they did a setup. They also said the intonation at the 12th fret G string was not perfect, but again not really detectable by ear. Future solutions might be to carve back the G saddle and add some wood at the back or drop in a tune-o-matic saddle piece, but this would probably change the tone slightly. I elected to keep the setup as was done and not change the saddle or pin the bridge. They also notched the saddle piece for each string to prevent string spread as I had noticed after shipping the string spacing was altered both wide and narrow on certain strings. Odd that there was no notching to begin with. I am very happy with the guitar. The tonal balance across the strings is superb. The notes are super clear and articulated. Strummed chords are robust and crystal clear. Very different than my Strat or LP. Wonderful. But I like clean tones and play through an amp sim with a jazz amp and reverb and not much else. If you are looking for a smaller hollow body, I would recommend this guitar. If you are not interested in bending, you won't have to fuss with any adjustments and any theoretical compensation problems discussed here were not audible to me with either setup. Also as a side note, Ibanez told me that the difference between this GB10se guitar and the Japanese GB10 is essentially none and thus the price savings is dramatic. The only difference is that the blond variety is only available in the Japanese version. The finish is very good with no flaws found, but the faux hand wear styling of the back of the neck is a bit fake looking to me, but this is really inconsequential and not offensive. Lastly the truss rod cover is a plain piece of wood and if one wants to "accessorize" and have the Japanese model's black signature truss rod cover, a repro one is available on eBay. Bottom line: Very Pleased

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New guitar in my home.

I had to wait about 2 and a half weeks (Maybe 3 weeks) but when it came, boy was I a happy camper. It was a beauty. No flaws and in tune out of the case. I loved George Benson and since I had a guitar I could sell at a trade show and I had 3 years to pay and I love George Benson. (Yes I know I repeated myself). I bought the guitar. And I also always had a thing for Jazz. It sounded… read more as good as it looked. For once when I did jazz songs the guitar sounded like a jazz guitar. The one thing I feared was the thicker strings, 11s. But within a few days they were as easy as silk to play. Now 10s seem a little whimpy. Any way if you feel you need to play on a for real jazz type guitar, this is it. I have played and owned an Epi Joe Pass II guitar and for a number of years had a Gibson ES175. But this one will stay with me till I die. Plus the floating humbuckers do prevent feedback more than regular pickups.

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Excellent Guitar!

Before buying this guitar, I was concerned about the relatively low price verses the higher-end GB-10. I mean, who wants to spend over a grand for a guitar that ends up feeling like a cheaply made toy? Anyway, when the guitar arrived and I opened the case, took out the guitar and held it in my hands, my fears quickly evaporated. What a nice instrument! When I got my first look at… read more the guitar, I was struck by how nice it looked but after playing it I realized that this guitar was something special and more than capable of standing on it's own merits. The tone and feel are fantastic! All the notes 'pop' when soloing and the chords are lush and even. This is a very woody and responsive guitar. When I first hooked it up I ran it in stereo through a Boss ME-80 and into a Polytone Mini Brute II and into a Fender 85 with mixed results. I didn't care for the sound going directly into the Polytone (go figure) so I plugged it into my Hughes and Kettner Edition Blue 60 DFX and the guitar's personality came through loud and clear (I'll probably be shopping for a nice tube amp pretty soon even though I like the reliability of solid state). The neck on the guitar is neither fat nor slim. It sits comfortably somewhere in the middle with a C profile. The fret edges are very nicely done and the ebony fingerboard feels good under the fingers. Although the guitar came nicely setup from Sweetwater, I had to tweak a couple of things. The strings were a little too high at the first fret so I broke out the nut files and took care of that. The biggest thing for me though was the parallelism of the pick guard to the strings. They were almost the same height and while this might not be a problem for some it is for me because when I play lead lines my pinky tends to slip under the high E string a little and I need a certain amount of room to accommodate. I was able to adjust the pick guard by replacing the spacer in the screw by the neck pickup with a shorter one and using the treble pickup adjustment screw on the pick guard. This left the bridge pickup leaning at an odd angle to the body so I put a small piece of stiff foam underneath it and I can now play the guitar comfortably without having to change the way I use my right hand. I now have a guitar that absolutely KILLS! Kudos to my sales engineer Matt Fuller and Sweetwater for shipping the guitar so fast. I ordered the guitar around 3 or 4 in the afternoon on Thursday and it was at my door at 10AM on Saturday morning. I mean, WHO DOES THAT without charging you a premium shipping fee? OUTSTANDING! I also want to personally give a shout out to Chuck Surack who I had the pleasure of working with when he had his studio in his house back around 1980. He actually played the synth tracks for a demo that my band was working on at the time. His service was good then and it's even better now and that usually doesn't happen when a company grows the way Sweetwater has. Well, thanks a lot to everyone at Sweetwater (FedEx too)! Keep rockin' guys!

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So glad I did this

I just received this guitar today and played it right out of the box on my GB Twin (that I also got from Sweetwater). I must say, like every other Ibanez I've ever owned, the workmanship on the instrument is absolutely superb. This is a beautiful instrument, and looks good sitting next to my JSM100 (that I also got from Sweetwater), lol. This guitar comes with flat wound strings,… read more and because I haven't played flatwounds since I was a teenager over 50 years ago, the strings feel heavy to me. However, the sound is so sweet and fat that I'm going to leave the flatwounds on and just get used to them. I've had this guitar for just about 9 hours now, and I've already fallen in love with it. I wish you could actually hear it.

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