Ibanez JSM10

In December of 2025 one of my personal students contacted me and said,

"I have a new Ibanez John Scofield model guitar and God told me to give it to you."

I believed him. After all, this wasn't the first time (see: PRS McCarty Hollowbody II: My God-Given Guitar).

Turns out he was just jacking with me; he had read the whole 3-part saga of my McCarty Hollowbody that starts with the above link.

However, he was serious about getting rid of the guitar and was willing to trade me 2 months worth of lessons for it.

I told him I was interested but wouldn't commit without playing it first and to bring it to his next lesson.

He did and I agreed to the deal. He told me he'd bought the guitar "a year ago" and hardly ever played it. He figured I'd get a lot more use out of it than he ever would. That's probably true. So it was a year old but in new condition. Even the case (a very nice hard-shell) didn't have a scratch on it.

I'll save you from doing the research; these guitars go for $1399 when new. Two months worth of lessons is $280. That's almost God-given!

It needed a little bit of work so I left it with Fountain City Guitarworks; the nut had come unglued and also needed a little bit of filing. They replaced the input jack and did a standard Setup and Intonate - $150. That's $430 for a $1400 guitar. I've already made more than $430 gigging with it. Pretty sweet deal!

Based on the serial number (PW24030574) the guitar was manufactured in Indonesia in March of 2024, so my student was on the up-and-up about it's age. For those who are interested in the technical specs I'm not going to take the time, you can go here for that info.

I will focus on the things that are of interest to me.

First, the only negative: it weighs a little more than my PRS SE Hollowbody, which weighs a little more than my God-given guitar, a McCarty Hollowbody II. The weight factor is going backwards.

However, it’s not even close to being as heavy as my 1979 Ibanez Artist, which was my main guitar for many years, and is kind of the template (in my mind, anyway) for the Scofield models.

Now we're not talking about a lot of weight here, but we are talking about my 70-year-old guitar back! Weight has definitely become a huge factor in which guitar I choose for any particular gig.

With that out of the way, there are plenty of positives:

1) Gold hardware. I don’t really care; I’ve never bought a guitar based on aesthetics, but my wife noticed it right away. She thought it was so beautiful she actually showed up to the first gig on which I played it!

2) The neck is fat - I like that. I don't adhere to or require any specific kind of neck. I like what I get used to and I can get used to almost anything, but I seem to get used to wide fat necks quicker.

3) Strings: The factory ships it with .10's. NOPE! .011 to .049. The .11 set feels great to me. I can easily get a whole-step bend on any of the top 3 strings. If it's further up the neck I can get a step-and-a half.

I generally like strings on the heavier side because:

1. Darker, rounder tone.

2. They stay in tune better - especially the G string.

3. I hate the sound of a string fretting out if you pick it too hard (tink! tink! tink!). The lighter the string the more potential there is for that to happen. With heavier strings I feel like I have a wider continuum of soft-to-hard pick attack and therefore a wider range of dynamics.

4) There are two Super 58 Humbucker pickups with moderate output. Their associated controls are laid out in the classic Gibson-type arrangement; separate volume and tone for each pickup with a 3-way toggle switch for configuring the sound how you want.

That is what I prefer - especially separate volume controls for each pickup. So much so that I've modified 2 PRS models that came with a Master Volume control by adding another volume knob to the guitars so that I would have separate volume controls for each pickup.

Ibanez JSM10 Tri-Sound Switch

But...there is something extra on this guitar! There's a 2nd 3-way toggle switch. It affects only the neck pickup. As per my habit, I don't try and figure anything out, I just start turning knobs and flipping switches to find out how the sound is affected. I found a setting I liked and then educated myself later. Here's the deal:

The Tri-sound switch allows the player to access multiple "voices" of a humbucking pickup:

• On the left as a serial-connected humbucker.

• On the right as a parallel-connected humbucker. This is the setting that I prefer; it's rounder, darker and has a slightly higher output than serial.

• The center position is as a single coil. That is special! If you don't know the difference sound-wise between Fender and Gibson guitars this is it. Gibson = double coil, Fender = single coil.

Yes, I know there are all kinds of hybrids but the double coil/single coil distinction represents the two main templates in electric guitar sound and performance.

I said I like a warm, dark tone. That's double coil Humbuckers. However, there are situations where I want a brighter, thinner, twangier sound. With the pickup selector switch in the middle, so that both pickups are engaged, and the neck pickup set to single coil...yup, it's great for Funk, R&B and Soul rhythm guitar parts which are usually done with Fenders.

So Ibanez's Tri-sound switch represents being able to access another dimension in terms of sound that's normally unavailable on a guitar like this. I'm excited about this aspect of the Ibanez JSM10 guitar. It will take some time for me to be able to automatically throw the switch combinations I want in a performance situation. I'm not there yet - but I'll get used to it!

First gig with Ibanez JSM10 - January 10, 2026

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