Bought this one the other night on the cheap, supposed to be here in a few days… I’m going to replace those bridge saddles with Fender Merican saddles, plus it has some black tuners on it that aren’t original that I’m going to replace with some chrome ones… These are supposed to be great strat style guitars and rival anything they’re putting out nowdays. We’ll see!
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I’m going to get a fender american standard string tree thingy for it too. I hear these are supposed to be great playing guitars, with awesome necks/fretwork, good pickups with staggered pole pieces, Wilkinson trem etc… those chinese bridge saddles gotta go though!
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Wow just got it and tuned it up… that was fucking fast. Awesome guitar too,plays amazing, sounds great, fat neck compared to my others.
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Lots of Aria stuff really rocks. Back in the late 70s early 80s they got sued by Gibson for cloning ES-335s and jazz guitars. 2 friends have those Lawsuit 335s and say they’re better than Gibson ever made.
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Yeah I was watching a vid and a guy was saying if you want a strat, go get you one of these… then I saw other people raving about them and saw this one for $160 for it on the bay… I’ll probably put another $40 into it for mostly cosmetic purposes to get it more like the original but it’s great the way it is and way better than any of the Fender shit I’ve played lately.
I would like to wheel and deal some guitars but my problem is I want to keep them all. 
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Yeah it’s kind of a universal problem. Last time I started “trading” stuff I ended up with 5 basses and 2 baritones, not to mention a couple of extra guitars and even a couple of mandolins which I can hardly even play.
I think it’s known as GAS, guitar acquisition syndrome.
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Improvising over a backing track, this guitar hasn’t ever even really been broke in, hardly any fret wear on it.
Youtube’s anti shake video shit made things weird.
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Sweet! It sounds like there might be some lacquer or dirt or even file scratches on some frets…am I just hearing things?
I think I know what you’re talking about, I think it’s just the amp preset I’m using which is clean but kind of dirty. the frets look/feel perfect.
I hear what you’re talkin bout…I think it’s the patch on this line 6 thing I’m using. The action is super low at the moment even after I raised it a little and it does have a little fret buzz in spots. I’ll probably raise it a little more.
I am getting rid of the bridge saddles on it first… here’s one of the reviews on them, the other 7 people thought they were ok but they look cheap and junky to me. Plus the screws stick way up. Getting some fender standard saddles.
junk
They ruin the tone of your guitar. The rollers are loose fitting. You get what you pay for. Chinese junk.
and I"m going to get some different tuners… I might sand off the paint job or parts of it, burn the headstock with some cigarettes, rust out some of the parts like the jack metal piece, and then sell it as one of those relic things… I need to build a work bench down in the basement… I’m thinking some 2x4’s and a sheet of plywood should do it.
There are probably forums on how to make a fake antique look real. Maybe even some YT stuff. I know a few guys around here who have done a ton of that, like even a very believable fake NoCaster that sold on ebay for pretty big dough.
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There’s some guys doing it on the tube and showing how they do it… this dude goes all out…
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Nice
I’ve thought of selling my fender as a natural relic and with the whole history of it. It has a bunch of chips, cigarette burns etc. that all got there naturally.
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That might be cool, maybe include an itinerary of all the bases around the world you played it at, and any other significant things it’s done, like opening for Santana or whatev.
Exactly. the provenance is the thing.
I just fucked around with this Ibanez heavy metal guitar for a couple hours… put a stop thing in for the floating whammy bar (whoever came up with that shitty idea anyways? I blame Vai and Satriani) filed some sharp dings out of some of the frets and sanded them with some finer paper. (I need to get a crowning file and a fret level block here eventually)… Anyways, now the guitar and the whammy bar stay in tune pretty good even though it’s a cheap Floyd Rose imitation and only locks at the nut.
I gave like $100 for the thing on ebay in 2004, there’s one up there now in bad shape for $300 with like 20 people watching it, plus I have a nice Ibanez hardshell case for it.
Speaking of Satriani, his old place above Lake Tahoe is up for sale.
Wow never thought he made that much dough.