The Pgm500CA is a guitar I adored for about 8 some years.
And since 31 July 2004 I own this beautiful guitar.
I won it on eBay and I had to pick it up in Germany.
With a temperature of 29ºC in my car and a hard-pain in my ass, we drove for my house to Stuttgart in 14 hours covering 1345km.
I guess I can speak now of a “terrifying guitar trip”.

The guitar is in mine collection now and I think it a very cool sounding and very beautiful guitar.
The first time when I saw this guitar was at a guitar clinic that Paul Gilbert did in Den Haag some where around the ’96 days, for promotion of the Laney amps

On this guitar you'll find the Tone Zone at the neck and the Humbucker From Hell at the bridge end.
I still think that this is the perfect combination when it comes to that unique sound of the Paul Gilbert signature licks.
You would expect a extreme sound of the Humbucker from Hell because of it's name, but it is everything but that, it will provide you a very clean, with high treble and Low mid and bass for that twang feel in your playing.
And the Tone Zone offers you the opposite from that, high mid and bass, with low treble.
And in the middle there is a Jem single, an over all clean and sharp pickup sound combination.

The bridge is a fixed bridge, and that was something different as the PGM30 series, where there is still a Floyd system.
Paul asked Ibanez to loose the Floyd on his signature models, since he was no long using the tremolo.

The mean reason for this was, on tour he wanted to get in tune right away, and with the lock nut system, this was getting in his way.
Because of this bridge, there is also no locking system on the neck, so you can easily tune this guitar.

And for a Floyd kind of bending, you will force your self to build some strength into your fingers with this bridge to get the same effect.

The neck is a 1-piece maple neck with a Rosewood fret board.
In the Neck there are 24 frets of size 6105 with clay cream dots.

Also the reversed headstock is in the CA (candy apple red) with the cream truss rod plate.
The body is made of rosewood, and gives the guitar a thicker sound.
This sound is much different that the PGM300 series.

The neck provides an easy access to all the 24 /6105 frets.
The radius of the neck is extremely thin and really gives you the best access to the neck you need to play those fast Gilbert licks.

This guitar is set-up with DR strings from 0.09, 0.11, 0.16, 0.24, 0.32, and 0.42, with low action on the bridge and neck, and the black Dimarzio clip-lock strap.
I have to say, if you are used to play any other Ibanez guitar, with a Floyd tremolo bridge.
You have to get used to this bridge, but ones you have pick it up and you get used to this setting, you will ROCK!!!!!
And like Paul said, I LIKE ROCK!!!!!

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