ibanez
Ibanez is a guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki and based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese
musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in the United States and Europe.
In the 1960's Japanese guitar makers started to mainly copy American guitar designs and Ibanez branded copies of Gibson, Fender,
and Rickenbacker models started to appear. This resulted in the so called Ibanez lawsuit period. After the lawsuit period
Hoshino Gakki introduced Ibanez models that were not copies of the Gibson or Fender designs such as the Iceman and Ibanez Roadstar.
The company has produced its own guitar designs ever since. The late 1980s and early 1990s were an important period for the Ibanez
brand. Hoshino Gakki's relationship with Frank Zappa's former guitarist Steve Vai resulted in the introduction of the Ibanez JEM
and the Ibanez Universe models and after the earlier successes of the Roadstar and Iceman models in the late 1970's, early 1980's,
Hoshino Gakki entered the superstrat market with the RG series which were a lower priced version of the Ibanez JEM model.
Hoshino Gakki also had semi acoustic, nylon and steel stringed acoustic guitars manufactured under the Ibanez name.
Tama acoustic guitars were made from 1974-1979 at the Tama Drum factory. In 1979 the Tama acoustic guitars were renamed as the
Artwood Series and were also made at the Tama Drum factory. Most Ibanez guitars were made for Hoshino Gakki by the FujiGen guitar
factory in Japan up until the mid to late 1980s and from then on Ibanez guitars have also been made in other Asian countries
such as Korea, China and Indonesia. During the early 1980s the FujiGen guitar factory also produced most of the
Roland guitar synthesizers, including the Stratocaster-style Roland G-505, the twin-humbucker Roland G-202 (endorsed by
Eric Clapton, Jeff Baxter, Yannis Spathas, Mike Rutherford, Andy Summers and Steve Hackett) and the Ibanez X-ING IMG-2010.
In the 1970's, the Nisshin Onpa company, who owned the Maxon brand name, developed and began selling a series of effect pedals in
Japan. Hoshino Gakki licensed these for sale using the name Ibanez outside of Japan. These two companies eventually began doing
less and less business together until Nisshin Onpa ceased manufacting the TS-9 reissue for Hoshino Gakki in 2002.