Man oh man, I have been itching to get my grubbies on one of these things ever since I heard they were going to become a reality. I never really spent a lot of time listening to Fear Factory or Divine Heresy, but I’ve always been seriously impressed by his taste in guitars. He had the reverse headstock on his 7 string RGs long before I saw them anywhere else, and his collection of Ibanez LA Custom Shop and customized Ibanez of various types is a serious jealousy problem for me.
I also love the RGD series of 26.5″ scale guitars (despite being reamed in the comments section of my KM-7 review for saying that it’s not really suited for leads. Shut up.) because I like to tune down and keep some tension on my strings (unlike Gibson who hates that). But the RGDs have never had a reverse headstock.
UNTIL NOW! The dude has finally gotten his way and received the signature guitar he most certainly deserved as a longtime walking Ibanez advertisement, the DCM100 – and it’s rad. A single humbucker because fuck you, and a single knob because fuck knobs, and all the other awesome features of an RGD but with that reverse headstock I need to have. Interestingly he’s also opted for a mahogany body, which won’t be friendly for your back but at least it’s tonally different from the ubiquitous basswood that every Ibanez seems to be made of.
Sure, I’m shallow. But a guitar can’t just play and sound right, it has to look right too. And I think the shape of a guitar is the most important visual statement it makes, even more so than the color or any other feature. Which brings me to the only thing I don’t love about this thing (without actually having touched one): the color. I had an EBMM JP6 in the Mystic Dream finish which is almost the same (a color changing finish that changes from an ugly shade of green to an ugly shade of purple) and I didn’t understand the hype or the extended range price tag. But, I’ll take what I can get.
