Guitar of the Day: Ibanez RG220

The news of Prince's passing dampens the mood for me. I really loved his music, and I feel like 2016 has just been absolutely brutal to the music world. And it's only April. Enough already!

But as much as I'm saddened by Prince and all of the other truly amazing artists we've lost this year, I am still excited that I'm going to be able to share my music with you very soon, so continuing with the daily guitar posts, today's guitar is my 1998 Ibanez Guitars RG220. This was my first Ibanez guitar, and I still remember the day I picked it up from my first ever visit to a Guitar Center in California.

A few years ago, I decided to upgrade the pickups in this guitar from its fairly ho-hum stock passive humbucker pickups to a set of active EMG 81/85 pickups. The difference in tone was striking to say the least.

The EMG pickups made this guitar a perfect candidate for the heavy metal rhythm parts on "Zero" and "Ethereal", which I doubled on the Les Paul. When I'm recording I tend to double my rhythm parts using different guitars because each instrument has its own tonal character, and adding them together creates a rich harmonic texture.

Go throw some Prince on your playlists and crank it up!

See you tomorrow with another guitar from the album!