Ibanez AS73FM Artcore Azure Blue Gradation | A decent Epiphone 335/339 alternative? | Review & Demo

I bought the Ibanez AS73FM Artcore hollow-body guitar because I’ve always wanted a decent, affordable semi-acoustic, and this one looks the business in the Azure Blue Gradation finish! I always thought it’d be a great alternative to an Epiphone 335 or an Epiphone 339, or even a Gretsch Streamliner. After owning it for a year or two though, I’m still not sure… so here’s my review and demo of it, and I’d love to know what alternatives you’d suggest. Please comment with those down below! Check out Ibanez Artcore range here: https://bit.ly/IbanezAS73rwm And here’s the exact model on the official Ibanez website: http://bit.ly/AS73FM-AZG_rwm Here are the timestamps for the various playing samples and info bits: 00:00 Hello! 00:26 Intro and all about the Ibanez AS73FM 03:18 Today’s rig Clean sounds 03:34 Open chords on all three pickup selections 04:00 Clean picked arpeggios 04:37 Pop strummed barre chords 05:27 Country pop chords 06:31 60s soul riff 07:19 Pop picked/strummed riff 08:32 Indie chords 09:19 Bluesey/southern rock rhythm 10:06 Melodic clean lead 10:36 Tone controls test 11:13 Ringing alt-pop arpeggios 12:19 Strummed alt-pop chords 13:09 Me pretending to play jazz for 10 seconds... Crunch sounds (amp’s Clean Channel with Greer Lightspeed) 13:21 Groovy classic rock riff 14:43 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff 15:35 Airbourne inspired classic rock riff 16:25 Indie rock riff 17:12 Open string indie rock riff 17:52 Indie chord rhythms 19:15 Choppy indie pop barre chords 19:50 Volume controls test 20:33 Kings Of Leon inspired indie riff 21:20 Big indie pop open chords Crunchier sounds (amp’s Lead Channel) 22:12 Pop punk riffs 22:40 Hard rock riffs 23:12 Foo Fighters inspired alt-rock riff 23:30 Glam rock riff 23:44 Alt-rock riff Heavy stuff (Drop D tuning, amp’s Lead Channel with Greer Lightspeed as Boost) 24:42 Chug test 25:02 Hardcore punk riff 25:15 Chunky power chords/alt-rock 25:41 Progressive rock riff 25:56 Hardcore punk riff 26:10 Mastodon inspired metal riff 26:22 My thoughts on the Ibanez AS73FM and build quality 27:38 Playability and the laurel fingerboard 28:20 Sounds and pickups 30:12 Final thoughts and conclusion I ran the Ibanez through a Greer Lightspeed overdrive pedal into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head. That went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done. Here’s some links to those bits of gear: ----- H&K Black Spirit 200 head: http://bit.ly/rwmBS200 Greer Lightspeed: http://bit.ly/rwmLightspeed Focusrite 4i4 (this is the newer equivalent of my 2i4, which they don’t make any more!): http://bit.ly/rwmFR4i4 ----- Enjoy! ----- Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley - TrackTribe. #Ibanez #IbanezGuitars #HughesAndKettner #Epiphone #RichWordsMusic #HappyChristmas