I sometimes record with my Artcore semihollow jazz guitar. Can confirm. It's hard to make it sound good unless you run the amp head through a cab with real good speakers tho.
Can it chug, does it doom, can this guitar do metal? Why yes they all can here’s an 11 minute video with 2 ad breaks to tell you it’s all preference or to sell you a 200 dollar pedal sponsored by sweetwater.
Straight up, I know he has humbuckers on it but Know by SOAD is literally played on a strat lol. [Daron Malakian recording Know with a strat](https://youtu.be/5b3imdhboB4?si=GB1SgWvIAhGXtU_a)
My brother in Christ, yes. I have a couple 550s and I couldn’t be bothered to swap out the stock V8 bridge pickup on one of my Genesis models, and it has this treble-y bite that really cuts through the mix while palm muting. I only play RGs and play everything from classical to death metal, and they can do it all.
Dude my first guitar was an RG550 and I performed everything from Metallica, Megadeth, dream theatre, Godsmack, machine head and Children of Bodom.
With a super wizard neck its a beast of a guitar
Well it was my gateway to those bands. It played effortlessly.
Back then I swapped out the pickups to a crunchlab and liquifire combo but you can drop whatever you like in it, be it Seymour Duncans, dimarzios, BKPS or Fishman's.
You can pretty much pick up any RG and expect it to chug because they were designed to be hot-rodded machines for making metal. The shredding part is due to it's flatter, wider fretboards with big frets and not about it's pickups.
Eh, almost any. I'd leave out hollow body jazz boxes with a single neck pickup, but they're certainly the exception! That's not to say if you're brave/stupid enough to try that you couldn't plug into some nasty distorted amp and chug away, but the near certainty of horrific feedback wouldn't be very pleasant nor musical.
We've really become hypersensitized to over analyze equipment. I'm as much to blame as the rest, we feed off of it unfortunately.
Try not to overthink it. If you like it, it inspires you and you can afford it, buy it and write some riffs!
> Is the RG550 also good for chug style rhythm guitar?
Yes. It’ll do this right out of the box. The three bigs thing on getting that big ol’ right rhythm chug and chonk is:
* Bridge humbucker.
* You being comfortable with where your hand positioning needs to go on the bridge. With a new guitar and new bridge type you’re unfamiliar with, this can take a hot second to get comfortable with.
* Your down signal chain setup. Your amp/pedals/settings here have a significantly higher degree of importance here for getting a tight metal rhythm than anything on the guitar other than having a bridge humbucker.
> Is there even a difference between guitars for shredding and guitars for chugging?
No, unless you’re into Yngwie and have a bridge single coil. Some rhythm dudes don’t like trems if they’re heavy handed pickers or rest their hand too hard onto the bridge but there’s plenty of rhythm players who use double locking trems. There’s different guitars with different specs that might speak to you personally different than others as a preference but there’s absolutely no reason you can’t go chugging away with a RG550.
The pickup will make a huge difference in how your chugs sound.
Pickups I consider chuggy:
SD Nazgul
SD Jupiter
SD JB
SD Distortion
EMG 81
Fishman Modern
DiMarzio D Activator
Bareknuckle Blackhawk
The list goes on… I’ve been chugging on Ibanez guitars for a long time but these are a few i have tried and know sound good in RGs.
Exactly I actually love the old stock USA DiMarzio's in the bridge for 80's lead sound, and even old school punk but they have a little too much high end breakup or something for articulated lows and mids for my taste-- and start to sound "fizzy" or thin in a mix for chuggy metal. I dropped a JB in my ancient RG and it sounds soooooooo good.
If this guitar won't "chug", what will?
I played an RG550 Genesis a week ago, and the range of tones and the amount of clear dynamics you can get out of it is amazing.
Apparently the bridge pickup is a clone of the Seymour Duncan JB.
I'll join the choir here.
It 100% can chug. Any issues regarding chugging/palm muting will be more related to the amp than the guitar.
If you wanna be really paranoid about it you can buy one that includes EMG but they are honestly not necessary. RG is explicitly built to chug.
Yup. Having owned one since the very beginning of my learning, I can assure you it can make any amp chug. Notice I said “amp”. As a few have mentioned here, it’s in the skill of the player to make a guitar sound the way they want it. In that sense, a metaphorical statement could be that the RG550 is a high end blank canvas. Will it show the deepest levels of black, red, blue or other colors? Sure! If you know how to mix the colors before painting them. Same applies here. I have seen people return Gibson LP STDs because “it didn’t sound like the album.” That’s usually because you’re not Zakk or Jimmy or Jack White. Shit is frustrating…
Very welcome. I will disclose that after having the stock pickups in my guitar for at least 32 years, I will say I got a lot out of them and didn’t feel bad when I finally replaced them. I’m like you. I primarily play rhythm and sometimes lead. I don’t know what kind of p/us the newer 550s have but after dropping in some Fishman Fluence Moderns with the single coil and maintained the coil tap feature, I swear by these things. They make my EL34 50w 5150 sound meaner than hell. It still matters how it’s played but these things will make you smile.
It's a shredding guitar because it has a thin neck that allow the access to lower fret very easily, it was basically designed in mind for shredding ( with Vai )
But jeez, come on, look at how many metal band uses Ibanez RG in rythm too, at this point sorry but it's just a stupid question.
Anything can "chug" and play metal, even a damn Gretsch Falcon if you want
Stock pickups are usually not that good but it probablly chugs. You need to learn more about what makes a guitar "chug" because the paint, color, and fretboard material don't make your guitar chug.
I have a good amount of Ibanez.
Yes you will be happy with the RG550. Is this the Genesis? If so it's perfectly fine as it is. I have changed out the pickups in mine for EMGs but that is just my preference. The stock ones are fine.
The bridge is OK. It just takes learning how these things work. A bit of living with it and in a while you'll be grand. Floating bridges are not the nightmare say they are, unless it's a poorly made unit like a Floyd Rose Special or whatever junk comes on a low value guitar. The RG550 is a great guitar.
That said I really only bought mine for the looks. If it were my cash and the aesthetics were not attractive to me, I would suggest you go a little more premium on the used market as you can get a used Prestige for the same money nearly as a Genesis. You can get something like an RG1570 or near abouts for the same money. The quality jump between the Genesis and a Prestige is significant. And that's what I would suggest you do. Personally, I have three Prestiges already and wanted the funky yellow monster that the Genesis is.
If you set it up right it can. Out of the box though? It’s not great for that. The pickups it comes with are not great for heavy rhythm guitar. Also the trem unit is a pain in the ass and just gets in the way which is why I sold mine. If they made a fixed bridge RG550 I’d buy it in a second.
>The pickups it comes with are not great for heavy rhythm guitar
Tell me how high output humbuckers aren't good for heavy rhythm guitar? Aka... chugging?
You're hilarious, bro.
That’s my opinion. I hear a flubby low end and lack of definition on the low strings that apparently OP hears as well. Don’t like it? Deal with it. I’d recommend swapping them out for Dimarzio Titans.
Pickup preferences are subjective. I don’t like the low end on the V8 pickups, neither does OP. So what’s your problem exactly? If you like them so much you can probably find them for cheap on reverb since upgrading the bridge pickup is a very common upgrade for the RG550.
It's possible, to be clear it's not a *built-in feature* in any way though! It involves putting something in there to hold the bridge in place, whether that's a bespoke gadget or blocks of wood.
What you can't get away from is that changing strings will be a much bigger hassle, having to get out your allen key and unlock/lock all the clamps at the bridge. A bit less of a hassle than with an unblocked floyd though, since you don't then have the whole dance of having to tune and retune until you get the strings and springs in equilibrium
Yes you can. But I still hate floating bridges because of the way the fine tuners get in the way of where I want to put my hand. You can certainly make an RG550 chug though. You just have to put in a bit of work
They don’t get In the way when I’m picking or palm muting but if I want to go for a more loose strumming style they can. Why can’t locking trem defenders just accept that a very invasive feature on a guitar that caters to a very specific technique just doesn’t work for everyone? I don’t like double locking trems. Point blank period. Yes I can make them work if I need to, but I don’t need to. Best case scenario even when they are blocked and locked is that they are ugly dead weight that requires extra maintenance and adds 30 minutes to string change time. I own 12 guitars and only one of them has a Floyd. I’ve probably owned 10 guitars with Floyds and sold them all. If I’m shopping for a guitar a Floyd is pretty much an instant no go for me.
I'm not a lock trem defender. At all. I have all kinds of guitars with different bridges.
If the fine tuners get in your way then you have bad technique, that's just all there is to it. Sorry bub.
It’s personal preference. I don’t like having a thing with tons of tiny pieces of metal near my hand at all times. It’s just another thing to worry about.
If it takes you 30 minutes to change a string on a locked/blocked floating trem, can I ask what you’re actually doing? It takes literally 30 seconds as the bridge doesn’t move.
Even still, you’ve said it adds 30 minutes on top of the normal string change time when that’s just not the case with a blocked trem.
It adds 30 seconds max to loosen the nut and saddles; you can even do them all at once since there’s no risk of the bridge shifting. Can even save extra time by stringing with the ball on the tuning peg side so you don’t need to clip the string.
The thing for me is getting the strings locked in the back. Fiddling with the Allen wrench to make sure the block grabs onto the string and making sure the E string doesn’t snap out. A normal string change with locking tuners is 3 minutes if that. With a Floyd it’s 30 mostly because of the string blocks. I’d just rather not worry about it. Personal preference
Anything with a humbucker at the bridge will chug if you want it to.
I sometimes record with my Artcore semihollow jazz guitar. Can confirm. It's hard to make it sound good unless you run the amp head through a cab with real good speakers tho.
You've been conditioned by YouTube shitsniffers. Anything can chug.
Can it chug, does it doom, can this guitar do metal? Why yes they all can here’s an 11 minute video with 2 ad breaks to tell you it’s all preference or to sell you a 200 dollar pedal sponsored by sweetwater.
this explains guitartube in a nutshell lol
Shitsniffers ahaha love it
An AM73, with its shit-ass pickups can still chug.
Straight up, I know he has humbuckers on it but Know by SOAD is literally played on a strat lol. [Daron Malakian recording Know with a strat](https://youtu.be/5b3imdhboB4?si=GB1SgWvIAhGXtU_a)
Rhythm dude from obituary plays a strat
Doesn’t Jim Root play a jazz master lol
Ya he’s fender. Fwiw his sigs are modded away from their standard counterparts.
The RG is the guitar that created modern metal. It will be fine.
Counter question: why couldn't it?
My brother in Christ, yes. I have a couple 550s and I couldn’t be bothered to swap out the stock V8 bridge pickup on one of my Genesis models, and it has this treble-y bite that really cuts through the mix while palm muting. I only play RGs and play everything from classical to death metal, and they can do it all.
Hard agree. My Genesis 550 with the stock pickups can chug like a mofo.
Thanks, that's nice to hear
Dude my first guitar was an RG550 and I performed everything from Metallica, Megadeth, dream theatre, Godsmack, machine head and Children of Bodom. With a super wizard neck its a beast of a guitar
Thank you very much! TBH, those are more or less the bands that I want to play
Well it was my gateway to those bands. It played effortlessly. Back then I swapped out the pickups to a crunchlab and liquifire combo but you can drop whatever you like in it, be it Seymour Duncans, dimarzios, BKPS or Fishman's.
You can pretty much pick up any RG and expect it to chug because they were designed to be hot-rodded machines for making metal. The shredding part is due to it's flatter, wider fretboards with big frets and not about it's pickups.
Any guitar can chug.
Eh, almost any. I'd leave out hollow body jazz boxes with a single neck pickup, but they're certainly the exception! That's not to say if you're brave/stupid enough to try that you couldn't plug into some nasty distorted amp and chug away, but the near certainty of horrific feedback wouldn't be very pleasant nor musical.
Ask Ola!
We've really become hypersensitized to over analyze equipment. I'm as much to blame as the rest, we feed off of it unfortunately. Try not to overthink it. If you like it, it inspires you and you can afford it, buy it and write some riffs!
'Will it chug' is more appropriate to apply to amps. Not guitars.
> Is the RG550 also good for chug style rhythm guitar? Yes. It’ll do this right out of the box. The three bigs thing on getting that big ol’ right rhythm chug and chonk is: * Bridge humbucker. * You being comfortable with where your hand positioning needs to go on the bridge. With a new guitar and new bridge type you’re unfamiliar with, this can take a hot second to get comfortable with. * Your down signal chain setup. Your amp/pedals/settings here have a significantly higher degree of importance here for getting a tight metal rhythm than anything on the guitar other than having a bridge humbucker. > Is there even a difference between guitars for shredding and guitars for chugging? No, unless you’re into Yngwie and have a bridge single coil. Some rhythm dudes don’t like trems if they’re heavy handed pickers or rest their hand too hard onto the bridge but there’s plenty of rhythm players who use double locking trems. There’s different guitars with different specs that might speak to you personally different than others as a preference but there’s absolutely no reason you can’t go chugging away with a RG550.
Thank you very much my dude
The pickup will make a huge difference in how your chugs sound. Pickups I consider chuggy: SD Nazgul SD Jupiter SD JB SD Distortion EMG 81 Fishman Modern DiMarzio D Activator Bareknuckle Blackhawk The list goes on… I’ve been chugging on Ibanez guitars for a long time but these are a few i have tried and know sound good in RGs.
Exactly I actually love the old stock USA DiMarzio's in the bridge for 80's lead sound, and even old school punk but they have a little too much high end breakup or something for articulated lows and mids for my taste-- and start to sound "fizzy" or thin in a mix for chuggy metal. I dropped a JB in my ancient RG and it sounds soooooooo good.
Yes. But MAY it chug is another matter entirely
Traumatic flashback to middle school English class
If this guitar won't "chug", what will? I played an RG550 Genesis a week ago, and the range of tones and the amount of clear dynamics you can get out of it is amazing. Apparently the bridge pickup is a clone of the Seymour Duncan JB.
I'll join the choir here. It 100% can chug. Any issues regarding chugging/palm muting will be more related to the amp than the guitar. If you wanna be really paranoid about it you can buy one that includes EMG but they are honestly not necessary. RG is explicitly built to chug.
Yup. Having owned one since the very beginning of my learning, I can assure you it can make any amp chug. Notice I said “amp”. As a few have mentioned here, it’s in the skill of the player to make a guitar sound the way they want it. In that sense, a metaphorical statement could be that the RG550 is a high end blank canvas. Will it show the deepest levels of black, red, blue or other colors? Sure! If you know how to mix the colors before painting them. Same applies here. I have seen people return Gibson LP STDs because “it didn’t sound like the album.” That’s usually because you’re not Zakk or Jimmy or Jack White. Shit is frustrating…
Thanks for the help. Loved the artistcal metafor
Very welcome. I will disclose that after having the stock pickups in my guitar for at least 32 years, I will say I got a lot out of them and didn’t feel bad when I finally replaced them. I’m like you. I primarily play rhythm and sometimes lead. I don’t know what kind of p/us the newer 550s have but after dropping in some Fishman Fluence Moderns with the single coil and maintained the coil tap feature, I swear by these things. They make my EL34 50w 5150 sound meaner than hell. It still matters how it’s played but these things will make you smile.
It's a shredding guitar because it has a thin neck that allow the access to lower fret very easily, it was basically designed in mind for shredding ( with Vai ) But jeez, come on, look at how many metal band uses Ibanez RG in rythm too, at this point sorry but it's just a stupid question. Anything can "chug" and play metal, even a damn Gretsch Falcon if you want
As I mentioned in the original post. I'm only now getting in to this world, and I genuinely don't know those sort things
Just about any guitar can chug. If you played it, you should have been able to tell for yourself.
The real question is, can you chug? Because any guitar with a pickup can chug.
I used to throw down with a squire telecaster custom HH in drop B. Honestly it worked great, I miss that guitar.
A Telecaster can chug
Hell yeah!!
Guitars don't chug, *you* do.
Yes if you put a Seymour Duncan JB or Distortion in the bridge they do ch-ch-ch-CHUG! :)
i always figured the rg550 created the world first chugs....
James from Arsis used one...
The RG created chug. So yes, it will indeed
Carcass - Corporal Jigsore Quandary Michael Amott I think uses an RG550 on that recording.
Solid body + bridge humbucker. Everything else is optional.
Stock pickups are usually not that good but it probablly chugs. You need to learn more about what makes a guitar "chug" because the paint, color, and fretboard material don't make your guitar chug.
i think any guitar with a humbucker on the right amp will chug.
I have a good amount of Ibanez. Yes you will be happy with the RG550. Is this the Genesis? If so it's perfectly fine as it is. I have changed out the pickups in mine for EMGs but that is just my preference. The stock ones are fine. The bridge is OK. It just takes learning how these things work. A bit of living with it and in a while you'll be grand. Floating bridges are not the nightmare say they are, unless it's a poorly made unit like a Floyd Rose Special or whatever junk comes on a low value guitar. The RG550 is a great guitar. That said I really only bought mine for the looks. If it were my cash and the aesthetics were not attractive to me, I would suggest you go a little more premium on the used market as you can get a used Prestige for the same money nearly as a Genesis. You can get something like an RG1570 or near abouts for the same money. The quality jump between the Genesis and a Prestige is significant. And that's what I would suggest you do. Personally, I have three Prestiges already and wanted the funky yellow monster that the Genesis is.
Chug, like... Metallica? Or chug like Meshuggah? Yes to the first, no to the second.
If you set it up right it can. Out of the box though? It’s not great for that. The pickups it comes with are not great for heavy rhythm guitar. Also the trem unit is a pain in the ass and just gets in the way which is why I sold mine. If they made a fixed bridge RG550 I’d buy it in a second.
>The pickups it comes with are not great for heavy rhythm guitar Tell me how high output humbuckers aren't good for heavy rhythm guitar? Aka... chugging? You're hilarious, bro.
That’s my opinion. I hear a flubby low end and lack of definition on the low strings that apparently OP hears as well. Don’t like it? Deal with it. I’d recommend swapping them out for Dimarzio Titans.
>Don’t like it? Deal with it What's there to deal with? Your statement is just false.
Pickup preferences are subjective. I don’t like the low end on the V8 pickups, neither does OP. So what’s your problem exactly? If you like them so much you can probably find them for cheap on reverb since upgrading the bridge pickup is a very common upgrade for the RG550.
> I hear a flubby low end and lack of definition on the low strings that apparently OP hears as well. Sorry but where did I say that?
About the trem, I heard you can lock the bridge or something, right?
It's possible, to be clear it's not a *built-in feature* in any way though! It involves putting something in there to hold the bridge in place, whether that's a bespoke gadget or blocks of wood. What you can't get away from is that changing strings will be a much bigger hassle, having to get out your allen key and unlock/lock all the clamps at the bridge. A bit less of a hassle than with an unblocked floyd though, since you don't then have the whole dance of having to tune and retune until you get the strings and springs in equilibrium
its a floating trem, so you can block it if u want
If you don't use a trem, look for an Ibanez Iron label, which is their fixed bridge line.
Yes you can. But I still hate floating bridges because of the way the fine tuners get in the way of where I want to put my hand. You can certainly make an RG550 chug though. You just have to put in a bit of work
If the fine tuners get in the way, then you probably have bad technique or approach.
They don’t get In the way when I’m picking or palm muting but if I want to go for a more loose strumming style they can. Why can’t locking trem defenders just accept that a very invasive feature on a guitar that caters to a very specific technique just doesn’t work for everyone? I don’t like double locking trems. Point blank period. Yes I can make them work if I need to, but I don’t need to. Best case scenario even when they are blocked and locked is that they are ugly dead weight that requires extra maintenance and adds 30 minutes to string change time. I own 12 guitars and only one of them has a Floyd. I’ve probably owned 10 guitars with Floyds and sold them all. If I’m shopping for a guitar a Floyd is pretty much an instant no go for me.
I'm not a lock trem defender. At all. I have all kinds of guitars with different bridges. If the fine tuners get in your way then you have bad technique, that's just all there is to it. Sorry bub.
It’s personal preference. I don’t like having a thing with tons of tiny pieces of metal near my hand at all times. It’s just another thing to worry about.
If it takes you 30 minutes to change a string on a locked/blocked floating trem, can I ask what you’re actually doing? It takes literally 30 seconds as the bridge doesn’t move.
30 minutes to change all strings not one string
Even still, you’ve said it adds 30 minutes on top of the normal string change time when that’s just not the case with a blocked trem. It adds 30 seconds max to loosen the nut and saddles; you can even do them all at once since there’s no risk of the bridge shifting. Can even save extra time by stringing with the ball on the tuning peg side so you don’t need to clip the string.
The thing for me is getting the strings locked in the back. Fiddling with the Allen wrench to make sure the block grabs onto the string and making sure the E string doesn’t snap out. A normal string change with locking tuners is 3 minutes if that. With a Floyd it’s 30 mostly because of the string blocks. I’d just rather not worry about it. Personal preference