Ibanez RG7421-WNF

Très belle guitare
bonne finition
Les micros sont bons bien que manquant un peu de patate.
(habitué à des actifs.)
le manche est très agreable.

Seule bémol:
Le tirant des cordes est un peu léger,surtout pour la corde de Si grave.
Accordée en standard ça va encore mais à partir du drop A c'est trop mou.
(J'ai mis une .60 pour le Si grave et un jeu en .52-.11 pour les autres.)
Pour du drop A c'est très bien.

Rapport qualité/prix excellent.

Does the job as an entry level 7 string. Requires some serious tuning though.

Out of the box experience: As expected for a an instrument that came straight of Indonesia and was probably exposed to many temperature and humidity variations.
Wood was extremely dry, neck had a big bow, and the nut was sitting far too high above the frets to allow for smooth action or proper intonation tuning. After lowering the nut by a good millimeter, changing the stock strings, tightening the truss rod, intonation and pickups adjustment, + a fair amount of polish, guitar came to life.

The good: neck is relatively pleasant, tuning is surprisingly stable.

The bad: the nut ruins it all. Having to take it out to sand it off from the bottom was not expected. Even the string slots are not cut cleanly. This will probably get upgraded to a Black Tusq.

Pickups: midrangey and a bit noisy but nevertheless warm and sweet sounding. not the clearest in the lows but ok for blues tones. Sound far warmer than entry level EMGs. For serious metal or recording, an upgrade should still be considered.

Fretwork: not as good as a Prestige that cost four times as much, but roughly ok. Some scratches on the upper side of the fretboard that look ugly but don't harm playability.

Update after 6 months: 3 frets went loose around 6th-8th position and required replacing by a proper luthier. As of today it plays ok with a proper nut and some fretwork, but overall, this guitar was too much trouble for what it is worth. The walnut natural finish is wearing out in an ugly way also.

Update after 3 years: Adding back some stars, as surprisingly, this is still my main guitar and it gets played almost daily (I am not gigging though).
It ended up being pretty good after letting the wood cure, applying a ton of oil, changing the nut for a Black TUSQ XL, and of course replacing the stock pickups with a pair of Di Marzio D Activators.
Apart from the cosmetics, that guitar is just comfortable and light, it resonates well, stays relatively well in tune, and the neck is thin and fast (warning: this is the 2016 model with the basswood body. Newer models come with a mahogany body and are way heavier, they also seem to have also a thicker neck).
My problem now is that the frets are getting serious wear marks, but this is a rather good thing, isn't it?

Performance:
The first thing that I noticed was the lack of tuning stability and bad action. I adjusted the truss rod and the bridge action in the first place. It wasn't too bad, but not good enough for me. The nut is a terrible piece of plastic. It slotted badly and strings tend to stuck in the cavity, that eventually make tuning impossible. Definitely needs a proper graphite nut. Otherwise, it's not playable. Do add a graphite nut to your order and replace it immediately before even playing it. Tuners are ok, but not great. Consider replacing them in the future. Frets are ok, no sharp edges, a little bit rough but ok overall. Neck-body joint is ok, the bevel makes it easy to access higher frets.

Visual:
I liked the wood finish, and the main reason why I got this guitar is that, no regrets. The body is constructed from 3 pieces of wood (normal I guess for this price range guitar?) Not visible from a distance, you have to look carefully. Neck and body colour supposed to be matching, but not, there is a little tonal difference. Also, the body has a yellowish-brown, but the fingerboard a reddish-brown, don't buy it if you have OCD :)

After 3 months of using:
It plays nicely. I feel too much vibration on the body while playing it, probably because of the low density wood? Pickups are ok but, when I do recording with it, higher strings sound muddy, and I used to add EQ and Compressor to correct it. Should be ok for beginners.

For the future:
I am not super happy with it but I am not planning to sell or return it :) I will probably make it a project guitar and work a little bit on it. Modification list involves, a graphite nut, locking tuners, DiMarzio LiquiFire pickups, a killswitch and ebonizing the fretboard. Also some fret work LOL