Two VERY different Ibanez guitars with the SAME pickups | In-depth tone test | GRG121SP vs AS73FM

Today, we’re having a little fun checking out two affordable Ibanez guitars that couldn’t be more different… and yet share identical pickups! This is something I thought was interesting enough to make a full tonal comparison. The two guitars in question are the Ibanez GIO GRG121SP and my much-loved Artcore AS73FM hollow body! Get the GRG121SP here: https://thmn.to/thoprod/541748?offid=... Get the AS73FM here: https://thmn.to/thoprod/481460?offid=... On the face of it, these two guitars couldn’t be more different. The sleek GRG121SP BKN (in Black Night here, but there’s an amazing Blue Metal Chameleon finish out there too!) is clearly aimed more towards rockers and shredders with its deep double cutaway design, its slim roasted maple/jatoba neck and its 24 frets. The only slight nod towards anything different is the hardtail bridge. The AS73FM, meanwhile (resplendent in its Azure Blue Gradation finish), is a classic hollow body in looks and specs. With its chunky linden body with maple top, nyatoh neck and laurel fingerboard, it looks like a guitar that was born to play the blues, rock and roll, and more classic types of music. But the pickups mark this unlikely pair as brothers. Both guitars feature Ibanez Classic Elite humbuckers – which shocked me when I first found it out! Why would two vastly different guitars have the same pickups in? Surely the pickups are one of the most important factors in a guitar’s tone? And… might this mean that these two guitars sound the same? Well, probably not – no two guitars sound 100% identical – but it might indeed mean that, despite the radically different looks and specs, the GRG121SP and AS73FM are tonal twins. And that’s exactly what we’re going to look at today! In the video, I play a bunch of riffs on both guitars in as many different styles as I can, from clean pop, folk and indie strumming to classic and hard rock, some alt rock and some punk, and even a bit of metal in Drop D. Let me know how you think the guitars compare! Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits: 00:00 Hello and what we’re doing today 01:38 Specs and info on the guitars 02:17 Today’s rig and plan 03:07 Other things to know before we start Clean Sounds 03:57 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings 04:34 Country ballad arpeggios 04:47 Poppy barre chords 05:17 Ringing open indie pop chords 05:44 Country lead sound 05:57 Blues progression 06:20 Atmospheric indie riff 06:39 Ascending droning indie chords Overdriven Sounds 06:53 Indie rock rhythm sound 07:22 Southern rock picked arpeggios 07:33 Upbeat indie rock barre chords 07:57 Garage rock riff 08:13 Droning indie chords 08:34 Kings Of Leon inspired riff 08:50 Driving classic rock riff 09:05 Airbourne inspired rock riff 09:27 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff 09:45 Classic rock riff 10:02 Hendrix inspired classic rock riff Higher gain drive sounds 10:18 Classic hard rock riff 10:36 Hard rock riff 10:52 Hard rock melodic lead 11:14 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff 11:32 Alternative rock riff 11:56 Green Day inspired punk rock riff 12:22 Pop punk melodic lead riff 12:37 Punk rock power chords 12:51 Less Than Jake inspired punk riff 13:02 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning) 13:18 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D) 13:42 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff Heavy Distortion sounds (all in Drop D) 13:58 Metal chugging riff 14:32 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang 14:44 Heavy metal lead sound 15:00 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff 15:14 Hardcore punk riff 15:29 More hardcore punk 15:53 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff 16:28 My thoughts 17:27 Sounds and versatility discussion 18:51 The pickups are in fact slightly different in output 20:20 What else could affect the tones? 20:45 Tone woods and spec differences 22:27 You have to play the guitars differently 23:06 My conclusions My setup was as follows: I ran the two guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, using my Revv G3 for heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. No post-processing on the sounds was done. Here’s some links to those bits of gear: ----- H&K Black Spirit 200 head: https://thmn.to/thoprod/447827?offid=... Revv G3: https://thmn.to/thoprod/437353?offid=... Focusrite 4i4 (the new 2i4): https://thmn.to/thoprod/467952?offid=... ----- Enjoy! ----- Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe. #Ibanez #IbanezGuitars #IbanezGIO #IbanezArtcore Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much! ‪@IbanezOfficial‬