When I worked at a pro music shop in the mid to late 80's the shop got three of the AH-10's. Two Red and one Green IIRC. I do recall the fretboard radius felt very flat (20"?) like a Classical guitar. Reason I remember that is I would have bought the Green one if it had a rounder Gibson 12" radius. Very cool guitar. 👍
This is funny, I bought one brand new green AH 10 in 1987 when I was a GIT student, I used to jam with Allen, great guy and musician, one day he asked to try my Ibanez and said « wow, let me know if you want to sell it… ». I add a 59 Seymour at the neck to achieve a Jazz tone, neck and body were perfect. Allen was a great support during my student time, really enjoyed play together on jazz standards,Allen is a great guitar player , wonderful touch and great time !!….
Great !!!! Nice memory of that old and good time and the jams with you , Joe Diorio and others great, you still play wonderful !! Hope you are fine !!…..
Well, that was a bargain and a keeper! You can’t go wrong with mid 80s Ibanez anyway. Love my am205s. Btw the Carvin Holdsworth is also a great guitar. Anyway welcome back Mr Hinds. Love your playing
Great video and playing Allen, and I like your music. And you're right about Allan's tone, always the very best! Same for his playing and music. But you get much closer to him than I do... also sound wise. 👍
I totally agree you can tell so much about a guitar from its unadorned bridge pickup. And of course Allan only used the bridge (that I know of). When I pulled out my Carvin TL60 for the first time, plugged it in switched to bridge and played I nearly fell out of my chair it was so clean and sweet. I KNEW I had a good 'un!
Picked up one last year with the original hard shell case. It is a fantastic guitar and my youngest daughter has already made claim to it. 😂 Where did you find this one for $700? That’s a great price!
The impact of the magnetic field on sustain is highly dependable on the amount of material in a string that is susceptible to magnetic pull. Nickel is diamagnetic, so the more Nickel content, the less a pickup will pull on a string.
The Ibanez AH-10 is from the Roadstar II series. All the "Roadster" and "Roadstar II" series are great guitars and as you mentioned before, are still affordable ! I´m a big Hodsworth fan and have still one of his first vinyl-recordings with the band "Tempest"
It is not based on the RoadStars. I have a few RS S2s and an AH-10 and outside of the strat shape these differ greatly. AH10 is considered Ibanez's first basswood guitar pre JEM 7s), has a routed tone chamber, has a wide neck at the nut, and smaller string spacing tremolo at the bridge that is unique for only these guitars. It has an aluminum block instead of zinc as found on the RoadStars, has a shorter tremolo arm, and the unique string spacing makes the strings much more equidistant along the ebony neck. The pickups are custom wound with individual pole piece adjustments. The neck is a unicorn in the Ibanez catalogue, as is the PowerRocker with the alloy block and different castings.
Another factor (besides reduced magnetic pull on the strings) that may contribute to the unique warm sound of some single pickup solid body guitars is the lack of the cavity for a neck pickup. So there’s more wood between the neck pocket and the bridge. (And with Les Paul and SG Juniors, there’s not even a bridge pickup cavity, since these models have a single “dog ears” style P90, which is surface mounted.)
1997 I bought a used AH-10 from a shop in Sweden for about 200 dollars. Sadly I sold it 10 years later. It had the best neck I ever played (love the flat 17 inch radius), but since I like neck pickups better than bridge pickups an AH-20 would have been a better fit for me. AH-20 is sadly even more rare than the AH-10. For some years I used it with a Roland VG-8 which was awful (so maybe you have my old guitar with the drilling 😂) I sold mine for 400 dollars together with a Marshall Shredmaster. Of course a few years later both the guitar and that pedal where sold for much more. Some bad decisions on my part 😄 Great guitar, but I would still prefer the AH-20 which have a neck pickup and a bridge pickup. Great playing as always. Regards, David
Well, if you find an AH10 you can just add a neck pickup and an Ibanez (not Fender) 5-way switch which then gives it 5 different sounds. I have done it myself and it was easy. Allan did it too eventually, as the cover of Eidolon shows. It now is my favourite guitar out of the five I have, including Strats and an Ibanez LP. The thin and flat neck is just the best of all of them.
Hi Allan I have a few Ibanez guitars, one of them is a 540s before gambale's era, sounds amazing, I am a big fan of Holdsworth and I try to reach that tone on my lead sound, I love how you play and I hope to find some Ibanez AH , greetings form Argentina
I have an AH20 that was allegedly owned by Alan Holdsworth, it's feasible I guess as I live near his home town (although he lived mostly in USA from the 80s). The guitar has had the scratch plate replaced with just a pickup selector switch, a volume pot and no tone control pot, apparently at Alan's request. Someone has at some point replaced the original pickups with Seymour Duncan. Sadly no provenance came with the guitar so I possess no proof of the claim ... but it plays and sounds wonderful..
At least in my experience, the missing magnetic field from a ‚missing‘ neck-pickup does not add to the sustain significantly. A little bit,yes, but not that much. However, what you get with only a single bridge-pickup is a fuller sound with a noticeably richer frequency-spectrum, since the string can just vibrate more freely, without the perturbation coming from the magnetic field of an additional neck pickup. That is why Allan’s sound on his single-pickup models, or the sound of other people like Jared James Nichols or Phil X is so „thick“ and awesome. Anyways, just my 5 cents on this issue … Great sound on those clean chords in your demo, by the way :-).
I will tell you about a great guitar. I played a Exotic Allen Hinds Esquire in a shop and it was one of the best guitars I have played. I wanted to buy it but it was quite a bit of money so I went home to think about buying it. When I went back to the shop to buy it…..it was already sold. Def the one that got away.
I've had a couple AH10's over the years. The last one I bought I picked up on vacation with my GF. She wasn't pleased. LOL! I still have it. I never had much luck with the tremolo, when set up floating it seems to not want to come back to zero, it's always sharp or flat. I tried different springs and lube on the pivot points, etc. I may fool around with it some more to see if I can get it to work better. FWIW, Allan hated the production version of this guitar. His proto which he was always pictured with using was actually made by Valley Arts (with Ibanez logo) and he loved that one.
He must have liked at least a couple of the production models because I’ve read interviews with him from the mid 80’s stating that he convinced Ibanez to give him one or two of the production models during NAMM, I think.
Great review of that guitar. I remember seeing Holdsworth playing it in the '80s. Sounded great to me, and, if I'm not mistaken, similar tone (clean AND overdriven) to the Charvel model Bill Connors was playing at the time. I myself am definitely a Fender guy, I relate more to my Jeff Beck strat and I just got me a Charvel Pro-Mod Marco Sfogli model, also very versatile and warm. You should check it out, if you ever run across one.... 🙂
Man, beautiful, tone, and playing! As always. Can I ask, what delay are you using? It really gives a beautiful ambient sound in the background. I really want to find one of these guitars now!
Good demo thanks I've owned an AH10 since 2011. Been getting into trying it more recently for over driven AH tone I use a Bill Rupert boogie dual rec Kemper profile. It's very good. My AH 10 came fitted with swine's head hot PU. And the original in the case. I decided to refit original PU only to find its open circuit 😢 So I now need to track down an ah10 pu to keep it original. Or if I can't get one then from what you say around 8.4k ohm seymor Duncan might be close as a substitute ?
I guess that's affordable, for a Pro guitarist anyway. But be honest. If you could only afford one guitar and you need to work.... would you bank it all on a low bid that you may or may not win? Or would you buy somethings that makes more sense with today's money (Right now the only listings on reverb for this model are over 2k)
Oh no. It’s not a utility guitar. Kinda a one trick pony. But in a world of shred guitars, custom shop, vintage world stuff that people pay at least 6k for This can be a great find. On eBay there is one for 699. 3 for between 1200 and 1400. Maybe I will stop this whole series. When people complain that the guitars not “affordable”. Maybe it’s not “great” either to many.I just try to find forgotten prices that are still on the grasp of most
@@allenhindsguitar Don't stop this series, Allen! People will complain no matter what. I'm sure there are more people who like the series more than the people who complain.
Unfortunately, they weren’t that popular. It would’ve helped Alan if they had been. He didn’t often speak badly about equipment in public, but Holdsworth famously hated these instruments. They played well enough but Ibanez never caught up with what he was wanting to do at that time.
One pickup guitar sound bigger because there are less electronics for the electricity to pass through. Esquire first position is the pickup directly to the cable. So even less electronics in the way. The other thing is pseudoscience mythology.
I bought an AH 10 in 2004 in Hawaii for 250.00. Still own it and it is still an amazing guitar.
Allen, you're one of today's Guitar Heroes and one of my inspirations. I hope you're doing fine, great to hear from you!
I was totally unaware of this guitar. When I first saw the title and the “AH-10” designation, I thought “Wow! Allen has a new sig model with Ibanez!”
Looks like a great guitar. Thanks for the vid.
When I worked at a pro music shop in the mid to late 80's the shop got three of the AH-10's. Two Red and one Green IIRC.
I do recall the fretboard radius felt very flat (20"?) like a Classical guitar. Reason I remember that is I would have bought the Green one if it had a rounder Gibson 12" radius. Very cool guitar. 👍
This is funny, I bought one brand new green AH 10 in 1987 when I was a GIT student, I used to jam with Allen, great guy and musician, one day he asked to try my Ibanez and said « wow, let me know if you want to sell it… ». I add a 59 Seymour at the neck to achieve a Jazz tone, neck and body were perfect. Allen was a great support during my student time, really enjoyed play together on jazz standards,Allen is a great guitar player , wonderful touch and great time !!….
So? Do you want to sell it or not ??!! Haha. Thanks pascal.
Great !!!! Nice memory of that old and good time and the jams with you , Joe Diorio and others great, you still play wonderful !! Hope you are fine !!…..
I’m glad you posted this because a lot of people spread the idea that Allan just thought all these guitars were crap.
Just got mine….love it!!!!
I bought the “Monkeys and Slides” album from iTunes after hearing the opening theme from this video episode. Fantastic album! Highly recommended.
Well, that was a bargain and a keeper! You can’t go wrong with mid 80s Ibanez anyway. Love my am205s. Btw the Carvin Holdsworth is also a great guitar. Anyway welcome back Mr Hinds. Love your playing
Great video and playing Allen, and I like your music. And you're right about Allan's tone, always the very best! Same for his playing and music. But you get much closer to him than I do... also sound wise. 👍
Great to have you back uploading another episode man . Hope you are doing well . I like these nugets of knowledge from guitarplayer of your caliber.👍
Great video. Love your playing and the guitar.
Hard to found it now... and harder after this video ;)
Same Dunlop frets that Bill Delap used with his builds.
I totally agree you can tell so much about a guitar from its unadorned bridge pickup. And of course Allan only used the bridge (that I know of). When I pulled out my Carvin TL60 for the first time, plugged it in switched to bridge and played I nearly fell out of my chair it was so clean and sweet. I KNEW I had a good 'un!
Totally looking forward to receiving mine which I just snagged……like your work, Allen….
Picked up one last year with the original hard shell case. It is a fantastic guitar and my youngest daughter has already made claim to it. 😂
Where did you find this one for $700? That’s a great price!
I have one green colour..
@@dinojobrider82-xo1oc nice! Is it for sale? Lol
The green ones are very rare!
The impact of the magnetic field on sustain is highly dependable on the amount of material in a string that is susceptible to magnetic pull. Nickel is diamagnetic, so the more Nickel content, the less a pickup will pull on a string.
Haha, one man's D is another man's C. Makes for some funny pictures in my head. Great video on a great guitar, as always, Allen.
The Ibanez AH-10 is from the Roadstar II series. All the "Roadster" and "Roadstar II" series are great guitars and as you mentioned before, are still affordable ! I´m a big Hodsworth fan and have still one of his first vinyl-recordings with the band "Tempest"
Wonderful playing & violin solo last tracks
It is not based on the RoadStars. I have a few RS S2s and an AH-10 and outside of the strat shape these differ greatly. AH10 is considered Ibanez's first basswood guitar pre JEM 7s), has a routed tone chamber, has a wide neck at the nut, and smaller string spacing tremolo at the bridge that is unique for only these guitars. It has an aluminum block instead of zinc as found on the RoadStars, has a shorter tremolo arm, and the unique string spacing makes the strings much more equidistant along the ebony neck. The pickups are custom wound with individual pole piece adjustments. The neck is a unicorn in the Ibanez catalogue, as is the PowerRocker with the alloy block and different castings.
Another factor (besides reduced magnetic pull on the strings) that may contribute to the unique warm sound of some single pickup solid body guitars is the lack of the cavity for a neck pickup. So there’s more wood between the neck pocket and the bridge. (And with Les Paul and SG Juniors, there’s not even a bridge pickup cavity, since these models have a single “dog ears” style P90, which is surface mounted.)
Good point thanks
1997 I bought a used AH-10 from a shop in Sweden for about 200 dollars. Sadly I sold it 10 years later. It had the best neck I ever played (love the flat 17 inch radius), but since I like neck pickups better than bridge pickups an AH-20 would have been a better fit for me. AH-20 is sadly even more rare than the AH-10. For some years I used it with a Roland VG-8 which was awful (so maybe you have my old guitar with the drilling 😂) I sold mine for 400 dollars together with a Marshall Shredmaster. Of course a few years later both the guitar and that pedal where sold for much more. Some bad decisions on my part 😄
Great guitar, but I would still prefer the AH-20 which have a neck pickup and a bridge pickup.
Great playing as always.
Regards,
David
Well, if you find an AH10 you can just add a neck pickup and an Ibanez (not Fender) 5-way switch which then gives it 5 different sounds. I have done it myself and it was easy. Allan did it too eventually, as the cover of Eidolon shows. It now is my favourite guitar out of the five I have, including Strats and an Ibanez LP. The thin and flat neck is just the best of all of them.
@@rudylongyard2465 Hi. Yes modifying the AH-10 is an option. I will see if I can find it for a reasonable price.
Best regards,
David
Hi Allan I have a few Ibanez guitars, one of them is a 540s before gambale's era, sounds amazing, I am a big fan of Holdsworth and I try to reach that tone on my lead sound, I love how you play and I hope to find some Ibanez AH , greetings form Argentina
Well that was cool. I was not familiar with this guitar thanks for sharing.
I have an AH20 that was allegedly owned by Alan Holdsworth, it's feasible I guess as I live near his home town (although he lived mostly in USA from the 80s).
The guitar has had the scratch plate replaced with just a pickup selector switch, a volume pot and no tone control pot, apparently at Alan's request.
Someone has at some point replaced the original pickups with Seymour Duncan.
Sadly no provenance came with the guitar so I possess no proof of the claim ... but it plays and sounds wonderful..
Wow. Cool story. Yeah, wouldn’t it be great to find a picture of him with a guitar? Yeah they’re great guitars
Holdsworth, the best there was... AH10, marvellous beast. No hat today... :D 10:30 that dream tone
Haha
At least in my experience, the missing magnetic field from a ‚missing‘ neck-pickup does not add to the sustain significantly. A little bit,yes, but not that much.
However, what you get with only a single bridge-pickup is a fuller sound with a noticeably richer frequency-spectrum, since the string can just vibrate more freely, without the perturbation coming from the magnetic field of an additional neck pickup. That is why Allan’s sound on his single-pickup models, or the sound of other people like Jared James Nichols or Phil X is so „thick“ and awesome.
Anyways, just my 5 cents on this issue …
Great sound on those clean chords in your demo, by the way :-).
I will tell you about a great guitar. I played a Exotic Allen Hinds Esquire in a shop and it was one of the best guitars I have played. I wanted to buy it but it was quite a bit of money so I went home to think about buying it. When I went back to the shop to buy it…..it was already sold. Def the one that got away.
Oh shoot. I hate when that happens. Maybe I can help you get into another one day. Thanks
I've had a couple AH10's over the years. The last one I bought I picked up on vacation with my GF. She wasn't pleased. LOL! I still have it. I never had much luck with the tremolo, when set up floating it seems to not want to come back to zero, it's always sharp or flat. I tried different springs and lube on the pivot points, etc. I may fool around with it some more to see if I can get it to work better. FWIW, Allan hated the production version of this guitar. His proto which he was always pictured with using was actually made by Valley Arts (with Ibanez logo) and he loved that one.
He must have liked at least a couple of the production models because I’ve read interviews with him from the mid 80’s stating that he convinced Ibanez to give him one or two of the production models during NAMM, I think.
Great video Allen!!! I'm off to Reverb to look for one!
Cool
MY BUDDY HAS A ROADSTAR AND IT'S SUPER HEAVY
Great video 😊
Great review of that guitar. I remember seeing Holdsworth playing it in the '80s. Sounded great to me, and, if I'm not mistaken, similar tone (clean AND overdriven) to the Charvel model Bill Connors was playing at the time. I myself am definitely a Fender guy, I relate more to my Jeff Beck strat and I just got me a Charvel Pro-Mod Marco Sfogli model, also very versatile and warm. You should check it out, if you ever run across one.... 🙂
Man, beautiful, tone, and playing! As always. Can I ask, what delay are you using? It really gives a beautiful ambient sound in the background. I really want to find one of these guitars now!
BOSS DM2
@@djefferson5669 really? It sounds like it’s got a bit of modulation on the repeats.
It’s a Strymon, he shows it on the screen around 8:40.
That guitar sounds great... but thinking that you have something to do with that!
Hei Allen. Cool !
Good demo thanks
I've owned an AH10 since 2011.
Been getting into trying it more recently for over driven AH tone
I use a Bill Rupert boogie dual rec Kemper profile.
It's very good.
My AH 10 came fitted with swine's head hot PU.
And the original in the case.
I decided to refit original PU only to find its open circuit 😢
So I now need to track down an ah10 pu to keep it original.
Or if I can't get one then from what you say around 8.4k ohm seymor Duncan might be close as a substitute ?
Sure. Seymour could wind anything
👍😊🇸🇪
What pedal are you using when you kick in the overdrive?
I'm curious what overdrive pedal you're using here Allen ?
I usually don’t use an overdrive pedal. I use the overdrive channel of the Redplate amp, the Redplate black line.
@@allenhindsguitar sounds really great, thanks !
I cant believe it, I´ve been looking this and I didnt find for less than U$ 1280,00
I challenge anyone to find an Ibanez guitar with longer sustain than this instrument
I guess that's affordable, for a Pro guitarist anyway. But be honest. If you could only afford one guitar and you need to work.... would you bank it all on a low bid that you may or may not win? Or would you buy somethings that makes more sense with today's money (Right now the only listings on reverb for this model are over 2k)
Oh no. It’s not a utility guitar. Kinda a one trick pony. But in a world of shred guitars, custom shop, vintage world stuff that people pay at least 6k for This can be a great find. On eBay there is one for 699. 3 for between 1200 and 1400. Maybe I will stop this whole series. When people complain that the guitars not “affordable”. Maybe it’s not “great” either to many.I just try to find forgotten prices that are still on the grasp of most
@@allenhindsguitar Don't stop this series, Allen! People will complain no matter what. I'm sure there are more people who like the series more than the people who complain.
@@allenhindsguitar Please don't stop your series. You always provide valuable info . . . Thanks,
Unfortunately, they weren’t that popular. It would’ve helped Alan if they had been. He didn’t often speak badly about equipment in public, but Holdsworth famously hated these instruments. They played well enough but Ibanez never caught up with what he was wanting to do at that time.
The bridge doesn't deliver in my experience. I think you can fit a SuperVee bladerunner trem if you need serious whammy work. FWIW
That’s good to know. Yeah. Without the arm I haven’t had a chance to mess with it much. Thanks
One pickup guitar sound bigger because there are less electronics for the electricity to pass through.
Esquire first position is the pickup directly to the cable. So even less electronics in the way.
The other thing is pseudoscience mythology.
Welcome back