The Ibanez X-series DT-350 model

Many people that know me from the past think of me as being a typical Gibson guitar player. Though this was certainly true in the early years, the truth however is that at this moment I don’t actually own any Gibson built guitars. I sold the Gibson SG mentioned in an earlier article a few weeks ago. In fact over the years my mainstay during live performances has always been t he early 80’íes Ibanez X-series DT-350 model. In fact with Most Wanted I predominantly use two different black DT-350’s on stage. So what is the attraction of this model for me and what’s so special about it ? In this article I will try to explain and tell you a bit more about his guitar.

The DT-350 model came out in the early eighties as I believe the second wave of models after the initial Destroyer series which was basically a copy of the original Gibson Explorer model. This was the era of (big hair)metal and the NWOBHM (Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith played a Destroyer for a few years) and guitars in wild shapes and colors were really popular of course. The new X-series was one of the first Ibanez guitars that featured a Floyd Rose inspired locking tremolo called the Pro Rock’R. Nowadays this is nothing to be excited about but in those days this was a heaven send invention. These were the days of the whammy bar king Ed van Halen so one can imagine how excited we were when the first locking trems became available to us. Extreme pitch bends without going out of tune was unthinkable a few years before.

The DT-350 was described by someone as the Subaru Impreza of rock guitars. I find this both funny and true. No it was never a high end quality guitar and one could think of better wood than Basswood and Birch for the body of a guitar but the sound nevertheless was both clear and warm on the one hand and brutal on the other. The guitar has two high output (for the 80’ies standards that is) Ibanez V5 wax sealed humbuckers featuring two bar polepieces. At the time it was an affordable and very well build guitar as one could expect from a quality company like Ibanez. For two decades my DT-350’s have been delivering the meat and potatoes of the bands I played in and the model remains to be one of my favorites for live performances. I also quite like the shape of it as it allows me to play in different positions. If you’re a bit of a performer the star shaped body comes in quite handy. Also it’s quite light due to the not very sophisticated wood of the body.

What I find totally amazing is how the original Pro Rock’R Tremelo stays in a perfect working order after so many years of abuse on stages. Where other tremolo systems like the original Kahlers on my Charvels have either broken down of have become corroded by sweat, the Ibanez Trem is as precise and pristine as it was when I purchased the guitar. Floyd Rose like trem systems have evolved a lot since the 80’ies but I think it is a tremendous achievement of the Japanese engineers of Ibanez. The trems still do the job and my guitars just don’t go out of tune.

So isn’t there anything negative about these old guitars ? We’ll yes there is one issue and it’s a rather nasty one too. Though fastened with four screws I find the neck to be prone to movement. If you make a wild move the neck has the tendency to move slightly thus rendering your guitar totally and I mean totally out of tune within a split second. I’ve experienced this with both my DT-350’s on stage and I can tell that’s not what you want. I fixed these problems by removing the neck and adding glue to the join and for the second guitar I added two extra screws. As I have had the same problems with two guitars I take it this is a common problem for the whole series.

Another minor thing is that I found the original TEK GRIP plastic volume and tone knobs rather cheap looking and found they don’t offer the grip I wanted so I had them replaced by metal ones.

To sum it up, whenever you’ll see me performing live chances are very high you’ll see me playing one of these guitars. I cherish them as relics of the 80’ies which were in all reality the heydays of old school heavy metal.

Dino