I've never owned a FGN branded guitar, but own/have owned several fugijen built guitars...two Fender Heartfields, A History ZMS/CFS F hole, a few Grecos. All have been very well built guitars.
I kid you not, I'd been looking into getting an AZ but the price kept me at bay. Thank you for showing us there's an alternative. Awesome content as always!
Without taking build quality into consideration, I'd say the U neck profile + medium frets make them geared towards a different kind of player... Usually people leaning towards the AZ line are looking for vintage tones with a more modern playability (at least in my case)
FGN do guitars with jumbo stainless steel frets. I don't think they are particularly cheaper though. I note in Andertons an FGN with luminlay, jumbo ss frets, hard case, luminlay, gotoh trem and locking tuners, compound radius neck is around £1700 - and that has FGN brand pickups. You might expect a prestige Ibanez to go for £1700-£2100 ish but with branded pickups. I don't think these are like Cort - which is built where there's cheap labour to same or similar specs, e.g similar spec Cort G300 pro is around £600, which is cheaper than the AZ premium (and Cort have put branded pickups on it, albeit they've not put branded bridge) I think these are just the same price as prestige guitars in real terms - maybe slightly cheaper in the same way the Yamaha revstar professional is slightly cheaper than some Ibanez Prestige guitars. But the title on this video is just clickbait - he didn't pick a guitar that's anything like the AZ - and if you do you won't get it built in Japan for £500. Quality equates to labour and labour costs - if you buy a cheap guitar made in the USA it's not "USA quality", it's just a cheap guitar made in the USA. If they do a model that's better quality the price is going to ramp up the same as if PRS or Yamaha make it in the USA - and exactly the same thing happens with FGN - if you want a nice guitar from them it's the best part of £2k - but, yes, they sell cheaper guitars too - and the cost cutting is evident in the choice of materials, hardware and undoubtedly in the time they spend on it. No one is going to spend the same amount of time on a £500 guitar that they do a £1.7k one - not the factory that build it, nor the retailer you buy it from. Equally though we know it's possible for a factory to throw out reasonably playable guitars for hundreds rather than thousands of pounds - the problems to note are (a) QC is a huge issue, even for brands like Ibanez you're lucky to get a guitar that isn't full of flaws and issues you have to fix and (b) It's not as good as the expensive one. AZ premiums are not as good as AZ prestige - there's a quality difference. I have a burns king cobra it cost me £150 used with a hard case included. It was originally about £250 I think (sans case) and it plays perfectly fine, it has a maple veneer, locking tuners it looks pretty enough - it's a significant leap in quality over any cheap guitar made in 1980s or earlier but it's not a £2k guitar. Similarly my 2nd guitar is a ESP LTD mh-100qm, it cost about £300 15 or 20 years ago. It has big fat jumbo frets but they're not stainless, a licensed floyd rose. It plays fine, but it's not a £2k guitar. Accounting for the 20 years it'd probably cost more like £500 today - they have similar models they sell for that now. It's not a new thing for a guitar at or under £500 to be very nice and playable these days. The price for something that's a little bit more has gone up though, if I'd spent £500 when I spend £300 back 15 years ago I'd have got something more special (the reason I didn't was because I wanted a podxt at the time, so it was the budget for both) - now I'd suggest if you want a very playable guitar that you can learn on you can spend £300-500 and get something that's better than the guitar that the majority of the famous guitar players from the 70s and 80s had....if you want something a bit better you're getting close to spending £800-1000 now. If you spend £2k that's it nothing more you spend over that will get you a better musical instrument - you can spend more but you're not paying for anything that will make the guitar be built better, sound better or play better. And the tragic fact is, no matter what you spend there's a reasonable chance your guitar will arrive with faults, maybe if you spend more the manufacturer has better QC and few guitars with flaws leave the factory - maybe if you spend more the retailer will open the box and his tech will fix some of the flaws and set it up - but, other than that, there's no price point where you'll avoid the issue of buying a guitar and it arrives with issues that either mean you now have to start a process of rejecting it and getting another one, or fixing the flaws yourself. That's gonna happen to some purchasers if you spend £150 or £20000. Albeit you can probably bet if the retailer can stop laughing for long enough that you spent £20k with them for a guitar to concentrate on their work they'll do as much as they can to make sure the guitar is good. Less so if it's the £150 guitar.
My main guitar is the FGN Expert Odyssey. Doesn’t have the modern features of stainless steel frets or roasted maple neck so that makes it more in line with the AZ Premium in features but made by the people making the Prestige so it’s crafted flawlessly.
Nah, it's always been the case. There's a slightly different process for the roasting between them - the prestige has something called S-Tech which does the roasting in nitrogen. The SS frets have always been used on both AZ tiers.
I live in Japan about 10 minutes from the FGN factory (it's where they made Vai's and Satriani's signature series - i did a factory tour and they still have an old Chromeboy sample in the factory). I have 3 FGNs - a tele (next tier up from this one), a strat, and a semi-baritone - all around 700 GPB (british pounds) new. Should be at least double the cost if not triple - all absolutely awesome - the necks are all PERFECT. Japanese companies don't know how to market internationally, so these are a well kept secret - do yourself a favour and go find a FGN dealer and give 'em a test drive.
FGNs are THE BEST! I picked up a J-Standard Flame (flat-top) a couple years back and it has been my go-to workhorse guitar. So versatile sound-wise. Beautiful Seymour Duncan Pickups, with a parallel to series pickup switcher. I've never had a guitar with better intonation... thanks to the CFS! FGN truly is a brand that deserves more recognition, and I can only hope that more people will discover the sheer brilliance of their instruments.
The FGN IIliad range (approx £800) with Seymour Duncan Pickups, Ash or Alder Body, Maple Neck, Gotoh tuners, 4 way switching on the Tele - is the Quality v Value for Money sweet spot for me.
i guess everyone who is a bit into guitargear is aware that japanese guitar brands like FGN and Tokai make topnotch guitars , they rival the usa made guitars and are often a lot less expensive
Tried to love my az prestige. The frets felt terribly uncomfortable, almost to the point of where they were abrasive when moving up and down the neck. Noticed this on a few of them. Pickups sounded great. But at 2 grand, I’d be wanting something to be pretty special. Stuck with my Vintage V6 Thomas blug, not as polished, but 1/7th of price.
"That's a knife" it dont matter what guitar you use John.. they'll all sound spectacular! John, are there any lessons on shifting/sliding between positions while doing legato on your page?
Very nice guitar but I truly love my Ibanez AZ2204. The roasted maple neck and stainless frets are really nice. The SD Hyperion pickups are also amazing. For 350 pounds though, I would so take that as well!
I was thinking of selling my fender mij telecaster and buying this guitar, lovely colour, thanks for the video. Badlands guitars have a few of these in stock
Got me a lefty last year...with SD pups....excellent guitar in every way. Light weight, 4-way switch... last few frets could have used a bit more spit n polish.
Definitely aware of them but have never seen one in the US and would have no idea how to get one. In general a lot Japanese guitars (Tokai for example) are very hard to come by in the US.
Did you finally get to know Fujigen?The Fujigen MIJ has a tighter sound and build than the Fender.Fujigen used to manufacture Fender Japan.The current Fender MIJ is manufactured by Dyna Musical Instruments.
I have the same one in black with a white pick guard and a pair of Seymour dunces. Great guitar for the money....agreed. Don't suppose you have any links with FGN in order to order a black pick guard (I just want a mostly black tele)?? they never respond via social media channels.
There's a ding on yours because it's made of Basswood. Steer clear of that. I don't care what Eddie Van Halen was peddling. Basswood is Softwood. Go with Alder or Sen (Japanese Ash).
Nice guitar John. If it's possible please try to review Tagima guitars, they have budget guitars and many guitars have reviews about them but I just hold your opinion in high regard. either the TG-530 and especially the T635 review would be great man. God Bless.
very good japanese made brand....they make "affordable" LP style gitars in high quality too....but all very low key....you've got to look for these guitars....
@@charlesli5521 it's def not the same. My RGD71AL had a nitro wizard and it was flatter. The FGN JIL I have is rounder, more average in size. Not as thick as my Solar 7 string was. I imagine FGN can't just copy the neck shape, but I would say it's still plenty comfy for me, despite not being exactly thin.
I had the same situation a couple of years ago, choosing between a Japanese FGN and Indonesia AZ premium, I went with the FGN, build quality is superb and it was cheaper, a word of caution though, the FGN has a thick U shaped neck that might be a deal breaker for some so please try before you buy.
I just see this all around my local music store, the price is soo tempting. Thinking to swap my japanese fender with this just for the compound radius lol. What do you think about the neck profile on this?
Hey friend, take it from an old man. Don't swap an MIJ Fender for anything. That will be a future regret guaranteed to happen. These are inexpensive enough to just save up a little and pick up as an addition.
@@bryantwalley maybe you're right. The MIJ fender has been served me well, and it might be just my GAS instinct doing their job lol. I think I just wait a little till the FGN come out on the used market so I can try one with even less price.
The BIL2RHS doesn't seem to be crazy pricy, under $600US. A lot of their other models are not a whole lot cheaper than Ibanez Prestige equivalents. Just looked at pricing on the higher end strats from FGN, almost the same price as AZ Prestige but no SS frets. I'd want to upgrade both to Gotoh Magnum locking machine heads, so that's a wash. Really hate those HAP locking ones on stock AZs!
All is great apart from that pickgard. Will a standard after market pickgard fit on the body? Because the original pickgard looks different. Even if it did, I will have to drill an extra hole on the bottom horn to fit it properly which sucks. They will be my first choice if it weren't for that weird ass pickgard looking so incomplete. Oh and the naked maple headstock. Raw maple headstock looks so weird on a guitar with dark body with a dark colored pickgard. At least roast it to make it darker and fit in better with the rest of the guitar. Or use a bright color pickgard. Otherwise, Japanese quality is way better than over 4 grand American quality. I'm not Japanese so I'm not fanboying here. lol
John, I regret to say. As much as I'm a your big fan, sometimes I totally disagree with what you're saying. ( i talking about just Ibanez Prestige Line ) First we need to realize that getting an Ibanez AZ isn't just about the tone and playability of the guitar. Example; FGN guitars don't have stainless steel frets, but the Ibanez AZ is seriously top-notch. I can reduce the height up to 1mm without any extra fret leveling. Although there are many luthiers in the country you live in, who can fret a non-steel fret guitar with Ibanez AZ quality. In a city where millions of people live in non-class countries (For example, Turkey - İzmir), there are only 1 or 2 people who can do this job. For this, you have to wait in line for a long time and when you give your guitar, you have to wait 2-3 months for it to come back, and despite all this, it was impossible for me to drop it below 1.5mm, even though the fret work done by the best luthiers was good. Or I have to have it revised again by paying money again. I've experienced all of this myself. Although we find it very difficult to find a good magnet in my country, the number of people who will wear it is very few. Also, there are very variable weather conditions and environments in my country. You can't imagine how much Ibanez's S-TECH technology has helped me. At no concert have my string height suddenly spiked unbelievably. I've had to use a "hipshot tremolo stabilizer" on all my tremolo guitars to date, but for the first time in my life in Ibanez AZ, I felt like I was using a fixed bridge on a tremolo. I want you to think about the problems they may experience when you refer someone to an FGN guitar instead of an AZ...
@@alwan1414 I would prefer double the price over and over because I know that my guitar frets will not be trash after a year without having to chase / beg anyone to fix my guitar. We are not comparing two phones like iphone 10 and 11. Ibanez AZ connects the person who bought that guitar with a very good luthier in Japan, there is a concept / new technology / all the good details in one package. While a person living in America sees Ibanez as a toy brand, there are some social reasons why people who use Ibanez around the world become a very serious Ibanez fan, which you cannot see here.
@@Serkan.Korkmaz I've tried the AZ Prestige. It's a great guitar, but not that great with the price tag of almost $2000. Ibanez price have been ridiculous in the past year, even on their Indonesian line up. I just thinking the FGN suit more people than the AZ, especially with the price tag. It even came with gotoh hardware (same as the AZ), and it's also made in the same factory!
@@Serkan.Korkmaz I share your sentiment, I too would rather spend extra for non-nickel frets (and tonal versatility) for my guitars. I've been playing the same guitar for 2.5 years (I don't gig, but I play this guitar almost daily and most of the time, for around 2 hours a day, sometimes more than that), and I've been struggling to play it lately, due to uneven and worn frets. I can only do minor adjustments and maintenances myself, even did the repair/pickup mods myself, to save cost. (Also my first time doing it too) That's why, my next guitar will have either Jescar Evo (have been saving up for one of the Ibanez Q ever since their release) or stainless steel frets (probably Premium AZ). Also, where I'm from, the cost for re-fret works are rather expensive and they charge the same rate as what a Western country would, despite the fact that it's a South East Asian country. The weak currency also doesn't help and live music being rather niche here, probably the reason why they could charge that much.
I cant believe Ibanez even allows guitars to come out of Indonesia. Absolute crap. 9 out of ten have crap finish quality. And need a fret job. If it doesn't have a locking nut or tuners. It will. Nut is plastic and needs replacing if fixed bridge. My 400$ S561 now has nearly a grand into it. And my rga42fm is at about $1200. My $1400 premium rgt1221 looks like shieet! Major finish quality issues. Plays and sounds great though. But they dont even compare to my rg550 Genesis. Now my Indos sound and play awesome. And i love them. But If i would have known. I would have just started with a Japanese model at the start. Could have got a J Custom with what i have into the indo's😢
Cheap copy..doesn't have the.roasted maple necks, neither are the pickups, and also doesn't have the gorgeous stainless steel frets. Prestige AZ's are generally alder bodies too. Sounds nothing like the same. It's not even as good as a premium...lol....buyer beware..lol
@@GhostriderPossum Yeah that's the thing I was thinking about, AZ basically has Prestige and Premium, Prestige > Premium. Prestige is ~1300, Premium ~2000, so if the 1100 FGN is like Premium at Prestige price, that would be awesome. I remember looking at AZ, and might have bought a Premium at Prestige price, but both waay overpriced IMHO. (not saying they're not worth that, just personally, for me not attractive for the $)
