Ibanez MiKro

Good beginner electric guitars are hard to find, but the Ibanez miKro is a worthy choice--it offers surprising build quality and decent tone, especially considering the low price point. As a member of the Ibanez GIO series, it's specifically designed to be a value guitar for newer players or people on a budget.

While it's a series and not a line, it's comparable in terms of price and quality to Fender's Squier or Gibson's Epiphone. The result is a playable yet affordable guitar that won't make too much of an impact on your wallet. In this review, we'll take an in-depth look at the miKro to help you decide whether it's the guitar for you

Things to Consider Before Buying an Affordable Electric Guitar

Not all affordable electric guitars are high-quality instruments, and this is something that's important to keep in mind while shopping for one. However, there are a few things to consider in order to help your investment go further.

Most guitarists end up wanting to upgrade at some point, and you can modify your existing guitar to make it effectively worth more than when you bought it. Generally, it's good to choose an instrument with a playable neck and a decent-quality body tonewood.

Pickups are an important part of a guitar's sound, but most affordable entry-level instruments don't have excellent pickups. It's wise to pick a guitar whose tone you like, and then plan to upgrade the pickups down the line.

Our Picks for Review

Considering its affordable price, the miKro has a lot going for it. Let's look at some of the important features.

Tonewoods and Body Style

If you're considering buying the miKro, it's important to note that this guitar is a 3/4 size guitar, meaning it's 3/4 of the size of a full-sized instrument.

This is a design that's easier for smaller people to play, and it also makes a good travel-size instrument for most experienced players. Because the string tension on 3/4 guitars is lower than that of full-size guitars, it's also easier to do dramatic string bends.

In terms of body style, the miKro is a double-cutaway solid body, similar to the Fender Stratocaster. It's made of solid poplar. Poplar tends to be one of the softer, less-expensive tonewoods, but it has a richer, nicer sound than basswood, which is another wood commonly used in cheaper guitars.

Poplar sounds somewhat similar to alder, which is the wood used on many Stratocasters. If you want to hear what poplar sounds like compared to ash and mahogany (two other popular electric guitar tonewoods), check out this interesting video.

These guitars all have maple necks, but depending on the color you get, some have treated New Zealand pine fingerboards (made to look like rosewood) and some have maple. On miKros with treated pine fretboards, you get cool shark-tooth fretboard inlays. On those with maple fretboards, you get dot inlays.

Pickups and Sound Quality

The miKro has Ibanez PowerSound pickups. Obviously, when buying an inexpensive guitar, you can't expect the same quality pickups you get in a high-end instrument. However, given the price, the pickups in this guitar sound pretty good. A common complaint is that they sound somewhat "muddy," meaning they lack the biting clarity of better pickups.

The PowerSound pickups are also especially suited for playing metal, although their clean tone is respectable and surprisingly nuanced. If you want to hear what the miKro sounds like for yourself, check out this short video demo.

With this guitar, you don't get any coil-splitting abilities--three-way switching lets you play with either humbucker or with both at the same time.

Other Appointments

Many inexpensive or beginner guitars have cheap tuners that make it easy to go out of tune. However, this guitar doesn't seem to have any issues going out of tune. This video shows two miKros being played with plenty of string bends and holding tune just fine.

Like most less-expensive instruments, this one comes with a plastic nut. A plastic nut doesn't do much to improve the tone, but you can easily replace it with bone or a composite material that will improve sound and sustain.

Lastly, the miKro has a fixed bridge, meaning there's no tremolo arm. However, it's often the case that tremolo systems on cheaper guitars cause them to go out of tune, so this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Finish

The miKro comes in several different finishes. Here's a rundown of the options:

If you want to see one of these guitars in action, this video comparison shows off a black miKro and compares it to a Squier Mini Strat, too.

Reviews are an important part of the guitar-buying experience. Especially if you can't try out a guitar in person before you buy, reviews let you get a sense of whether other players have enjoyed playing the instrument. We've gathered a few reviews of the miKro from around the web.

This review is brief, but it echoes what many reviewers have said about the miKro--it's an excellent value for the price, but many players find that it needs a setup to improve the action, and many also have called the pickups "muddy."

This is a very thorough review of the miKro, and it outlines a lot of the reasons this guitar is a great value. From build to playability to sound, it does tend to outperform most models in the same price range.

This detailed assessment of the guitar covers some of the issues it has. But like most reviews of the miKro, this one comes to the conclusion that despite its issues, this guitar is a great value for the price.