I love Ibanez Jems. I have two. Well, actually I got one, more than 10 years ago, but my wife loves Steve Vai so much that she wanted one herself, so I had to get two. Now here’s an interesting Jem build from Erik Phariss with the XR pickups. Erik graciously allowed me to quote him:
So this is a Jem 7 (not seven string seventh generation) with a True temperament fingerboard that was done by Paul Guy in Sweden, the neck is factory original, maple and some sort of dark wood Ibanez did a stripe with, the body was sculpted dyed and finished by myself from a blank and is swamp ash and Purple Heart and a new previously unused ceramic finish on the wood.
All the electronics are from you guys and everything was cryogenically frozen all pots pickups, boards, cables and hardware including the lo pro Floyd Rose, locking nut, springs and claw.
Finally setup, the bolt in neck conversion and custom wiring were completed by Gary Brawer’s shop in San Francisco California.
The XR system with resonant filter is by far the very best pickup system I have played on any guitar anywhere! This system really is the lightning in a bottle secret sauce I have been looking for for years! Can’t wait to try the NU 2.0!
There is no one single greater investment in your guitar tone that can be made by replacing frequency squishing and tone sapping old technology with Cycfi pickups!
—Erik Phariss guitar player, designer and tone hound.
Cryogenically frozen? I initially thought Erick was joking, until I Googled and read this: NitroFreeze. I’ll bet he’ll chime in after I post this.
Here are some pictures of this lovely build.
