Ibanez Talman Artcore TM71
Here's my 2004 'Christmas guitar', an Ibanez Talman TM-71 Artcore. It was purchased from American Musical Supply during their blowout sale for this model.
The guitar was made in Ibanez's Chinese factory. Its maple body has the standard Ibanez Talman shape in a semi-hollow form with a single f-hole. It's blue in the front and black on the sides and back with white binding. The bridge is of the standard tune-o-matic style with intonation adjustable on each string. The set mahogany neck has 22 frets and the overall feel is a bit thicker than the standard Ibanez solid body neck. The tuners are standard middle of the road Asian made ones. They hold tune fine.
The overall setup on the guitar was very good right out of the box. Only the slightest of tweaks to the intonation was needed to get it into playing shape. I did slightly widen the grooves on the nut to accomidate larger strings.
Electronically there were originally two ACH ceramic humbuckers. This was the most disappointing part of the guitar. They were kind of weak and indistinct sounding and required a bit of work with amp and effects settings to get a good tone. There is also a 3 way switch and separate volume and tone controls for each pickup. See the modifications section below for the changes I made.
Here is a picture of the back of the guitar. One thing that you'll notice is that the strap button is placed in the back in the middle. This makes strapping the guitar on a little different. There is also an access port for the switch and volume and tone pots.
Modifications
In October of 2005 I got around to performing the pickup swap. After a giving it a lot of thought I decided to go with vintage Gibson style humbuckers rather than Gretsch style or humbucker sized P90's. I settled on the GFS Vintage '59 since it was constructed a lot like the Seth Lover and was priced nicely. Then, as I thought about it more, I decided to pull the Seth Lover I had from my Carvin Bolt and move it to this guitar.
When I opened up the little access port in the back I noticed that the efficient Chinese manufacturing engineers had conveniently colored the bridge pickup wires red and the neck ones white. This made it easy to keep everything straight. I also noticed that the wiring work was well done, no sloppy joints and all the wires tucked away neatly. The pots are mini-pots though and I suspect that over time that they will need to be replaced. I desoldered the ACH HB's. The Chinese woodworking wasn't too smooth in the pickup cavities. There were several rough places and, in the wire run, there were some wood debris in it that I had to blow out. I seated the Seth Lover in the neck. I decided to put it there because the GFS was a little hotter. It went in smoothly.
Then I tried to seat the GFS Vintage '59. Ooops! A problem. The GFS had a little 'lip' on its cover that the SD and the stock pickups didn't. This coupled with the rough woodwork meant the pickup wouldn't fit. I had to shave off some of the excess wood with a utility knife and file and slightly bend in the 'lip' to get it to fit.
I soldered both pickups to their respective pots and that was that. (One other note on the GFS, the wire is short. Another 1/2 inch or so less and it wouldn't have fit. Something for you to consider if you're thinking about one for a large bodied guitar.)
Soundwise, the Seth Lover loves the Artcore. It sounds really great in there. Very rich sounding. The Vintage '59 sounds considerably better than the stock ACH, but, when compared to the Seth Lover, it lags. It's sort of twangy but that may be more of the guitar than the pickup. It doesn't sound brittle and weak like the ACH did though. It lacks some of the 'mojo' but it will do until I run across another Seth Lover for $15.
Sounds
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The first sound clip has two separate clips of roughly 30 seconds apiece.
The first, which was done with the original Ibanez ACH pickups, is a countrified jam in A with bass and drums in the background. For this clip I used my VAmp 2 with my Bluesy Tremolo patch and the bridge pickup on the guitar to get some twang.
The second, with the ACH neck pickup, is a slow blues tune in D using my 2x12 Crunch patch. ACID Music samples provided the drum, bass and rhythm guitar tracks for these two clips.
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The third clip is a blues shuffle jam track clip done with the Seymour Duncan Seth Lover neck and the GFS Vintage '59 bridge also using the Bluesy Tremolo patch.
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The fourth clip is of the GFS Vintage '59 bridge using the 2x12 Crunch patch playing along to a surf-ish jam track.
My Performances on SoundClick that Feature This Guitar
