IBANEZ RGIB6 BARITONE • 28" SCALE

In 1999 I started messing with trying to tune below B standard on a 24.75” “Gibson scale” guitar. It didn't work at all, even with HUGE strings. I found “Fender scale” of 25.5” a bit better- I could get down to drop A and things be somewhat in-tune up the neck, but I wanted to go lower. I wanted a greater range of “dark” notes. I looked at what Meshuggah was doing and realized that it wasn't about how many strings they had as much as it was that their custom guitars were quite a bit longer than average. Their necks were 29.4".  

Seeing as I only wanted to go down to G standard, somewhere around 28” seemed to make sense. At the time (winter of 2010) the only guitar I could find was the PRS SE Mushok. It was a 27.75” 6 string, pretty close to 28” and came stock as a solid body, humbucker equipped electric. That guitar worked pretty decently with a 13 to 72 gauge string set. It was a hair “floppy”, and there were a few dead spots, but it got me 80% of the way there.

 

  

 

The RGIB6 
Out of the blue in January of 2014 Ibanez dropped the RGIB6. I'm pretty sure that Artie and I were instant messaging each other about it at the exact same time that day.. Hahaa! Anyhow, I grabbed one a few months later and that extra 8th of an inch made all the difference with both sustain and tuning.  

If you are tuning down, hate 7 and 8 strings and want stable tuning all the way up the neck, you might really enjoy hitting your local shop and messing around with this rad piece of wood.  

Check the specs on the RGIB here > Ibanez.com  

Download or stream the full track of “Harbour” 

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