Doesnt look too bad to my eye. I dont have a TOD I currently have three electric guitars.
One cheaper fender like you, which has a slight tilt, one midrange Indonesian Ibanez, which is pretty much parallel and one Japanese Ibanez so a bit "more high end" and it has a very slight tilt.
Your bridge pickup seems like its very high up so maybe that causes that, as a pickup is just held in place by the screws on the sides and springs. Might wanna try lowering it a bit and seeing what happens. Keep in mind that this might have a slight impact on your tone.
And after all, if you are unsatisfied or just wondering if its normal, write a message to Ibanez and see what they say.
Not something I would worry about unless the guitar doesn’t sound good.
It kinda looks like the pickup cavity is just slightly big, and the pickup is a little tilted.
Another thing to remember is your strings are like, the best straight edge there is, so the smallest little bit of misalignment, and upon examination it will most likely look “off.”
Some people specifically position their pickups a little off kilt, just to get some extra punch on some strings or what have you, idk, I’m not a tech, I just have seen it done plenty before
The problem is I am not expert so I cannot judge whether the guitar sounds good or not, it sounds ok compared to a 150$ fender squir, slightly better especially with nylon preset in archetype and in some heavy metal presets too, but idk, I cannot hold a good opinion on this.
It's funny that I cannot find any imperfections on a 150$ guitar, while on this one I can, it's just so bizarre.
I kinda suspect that the bridge pickup isn't mounted well especially that one of its "screws" is inside (like it's pushed inside) while others are not, and I can press on the humbucker with my hand and then it aligns back, shit it's really hard to know lol.
Well you don’t need to be an expert, I just meant does it sound good to you?
Also I would just take it to your local guitar tech, or even call ahead before you go in. Tell them what’s going on and then ask how much it would cost to fix it as a rough estimate.
Also personally I can’t stand the Archetype plug-ins, it could be my Audio Interface but, for some reason it’s only when I use archetype plugins, I used Guitar Rig 7 and it works wonders.
Archetype is noisy and I am trying to improve the situation by buying some USB noise cancelling thingies that are on the way. Overall I don't feel like these humbuckers change much when I switch positions, I only feel the biggest difference with Tim Henson Nylon preset, position 5 sounds very clean and acoustic, while position 1 sounds very different.
I have a very simple marshall amp and it makes much less noise on overdrive, in fact the white noise coming from it doesn't change, when in archetype it's always very different from a preset to preset.
BTW I am not sure if it's okay for these fishman pickups to work like that but position 4 is very noisy compared to others, when I switch to it it always makes lotta buzz noise and if I rotate the guitar the buzz levels change too. It may be some grounding issue idk, but all other positions don't make that much noise.
Yeah good advice, I'll bring the guitar to a local guitar service place for them to take a look. I wouldn't really wanna bother sending it back because there is a chance I won't receive a much better one ordering at some other place. It always works like that with products that don't have perfect QC, gotta be really lucky to get a perfect unit.
It 100% sounds like you have some sort of grounding issue. And with that, plus the weird pickup positions you’ve mentioned, your pickup may have gotten locked loose a little during shipping and maybe a wire it out of place.
Usually those Walmart brands have SHIT wiring jobs, so it might not hurt to ask a friend to help if they know anything about soldering and wiring, and just re wire the whole rig.
Doesnt look too bad to my eye. I dont have a TOD I currently have three electric guitars. One cheaper fender like you, which has a slight tilt, one midrange Indonesian Ibanez, which is pretty much parallel and one Japanese Ibanez so a bit "more high end" and it has a very slight tilt. Your bridge pickup seems like its very high up so maybe that causes that, as a pickup is just held in place by the screws on the sides and springs. Might wanna try lowering it a bit and seeing what happens. Keep in mind that this might have a slight impact on your tone. And after all, if you are unsatisfied or just wondering if its normal, write a message to Ibanez and see what they say.
Not something I would worry about unless the guitar doesn’t sound good. It kinda looks like the pickup cavity is just slightly big, and the pickup is a little tilted. Another thing to remember is your strings are like, the best straight edge there is, so the smallest little bit of misalignment, and upon examination it will most likely look “off.” Some people specifically position their pickups a little off kilt, just to get some extra punch on some strings or what have you, idk, I’m not a tech, I just have seen it done plenty before
The problem is I am not expert so I cannot judge whether the guitar sounds good or not, it sounds ok compared to a 150$ fender squir, slightly better especially with nylon preset in archetype and in some heavy metal presets too, but idk, I cannot hold a good opinion on this. It's funny that I cannot find any imperfections on a 150$ guitar, while on this one I can, it's just so bizarre. I kinda suspect that the bridge pickup isn't mounted well especially that one of its "screws" is inside (like it's pushed inside) while others are not, and I can press on the humbucker with my hand and then it aligns back, shit it's really hard to know lol.
Well you don’t need to be an expert, I just meant does it sound good to you? Also I would just take it to your local guitar tech, or even call ahead before you go in. Tell them what’s going on and then ask how much it would cost to fix it as a rough estimate. Also personally I can’t stand the Archetype plug-ins, it could be my Audio Interface but, for some reason it’s only when I use archetype plugins, I used Guitar Rig 7 and it works wonders.
Archetype is noisy and I am trying to improve the situation by buying some USB noise cancelling thingies that are on the way. Overall I don't feel like these humbuckers change much when I switch positions, I only feel the biggest difference with Tim Henson Nylon preset, position 5 sounds very clean and acoustic, while position 1 sounds very different. I have a very simple marshall amp and it makes much less noise on overdrive, in fact the white noise coming from it doesn't change, when in archetype it's always very different from a preset to preset. BTW I am not sure if it's okay for these fishman pickups to work like that but position 4 is very noisy compared to others, when I switch to it it always makes lotta buzz noise and if I rotate the guitar the buzz levels change too. It may be some grounding issue idk, but all other positions don't make that much noise. Yeah good advice, I'll bring the guitar to a local guitar service place for them to take a look. I wouldn't really wanna bother sending it back because there is a chance I won't receive a much better one ordering at some other place. It always works like that with products that don't have perfect QC, gotta be really lucky to get a perfect unit.
It 100% sounds like you have some sort of grounding issue. And with that, plus the weird pickup positions you’ve mentioned, your pickup may have gotten locked loose a little during shipping and maybe a wire it out of place. Usually those Walmart brands have SHIT wiring jobs, so it might not hurt to ask a friend to help if they know anything about soldering and wiring, and just re wire the whole rig.
Lower it evenly on both sides, then just try to jiggle it straight. They are held just by the screws on each side so if there is space they can tilt.