2026 Ibanez AS7328 Baritone | An affordable doom and ambient tone machine! First Look Review & Demo

This is the 2026 Ibanez AS7328 Artcore Baritone: a new, and affordable sub $1,000 baritone guitar that’s not super pointy!

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At Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/633166?offid=...
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/nXq9m7
At Ibanez: https://www.ibanez.com/usa/products/d...
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When I say “not super pointy”, I mean that the AS7328 is an affordable baritone guitar that’s not just built for an all-out metal assault – which is quite a rarity.

This hollow body guitar is part of the Ibanez Artcore series, and its larger, semi-hollow body, gentle curves and Classic Elite humbucking pickups all go towards making this a baritone that’s going to be well suited to lower gain players too.

Because baritones can be fantastic tone machines for way more than just metal, doom and sludge: they’re incredible ambient beasts, fantastic country twangers, and great all-round difference-makers when it comes to all manner of alternative and rock styles as well.

And while I didn’t have time to go through all of these sounds in today’s whistlestop first look at the AS7328, I do get to showcase it for you in quite a few musical ways.

Specs-wise, though, this looks like being a great choice too: the body is linden, and the set neck is a 3-piece nyatoh affair. This particular model comes finished in a deep, and rather lovely, Tobacco Brown finish.

Being a baritone – and strung to B standard tuning (that’s, from the lowest string to the highest, BEADF# and B) from the factory – the AS7328 features a 28”/711 mm scale length, and comes with .014-.068 gauge strings. Meanwhile, the bound rosewood fingerboard features 22 medium frets for all your riffing needs.

The rest of the guitar’s hardware is Ibanez’s own: you get a Gibraltar Performer bridge, a VT06 tailpiece, and those aforementioned Classic Elite humbuckers. (One of my favorite personal guitars, my trusty Ibanez AS73FM, features the very same pickups, so I know these are going to be great for everything from warm, jazzy cleans to thick walls of heavy distortion!)

At time of filming (December 2025) I didn’t know what price the AS7328 was going to be. Obviously now the video is out we know the RRP, but when testing this guitar out I already knew that anything under $1000/€1000 would make it a steal! I’ve been looking for a decent, sub $1000 non-pointy baritone for a few years now… could the AS7328 be the one? Time to find out! (I was at Henning’s house for this video, so I was running the AS7328 through his Fractal Audio FM9!)

Enjoy my first explorations with this guitar, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!

00:00 Hello!
00:57 Specs and features
03:18 Clean sounds and discussion
06:08 Let’s add some gain for alternative/indie rock tones
07:32 Classic rock sounds
08:28 Hard rock sounds
09:49 Punk rock and chugging power chords
11:00 High gain metal sounds
11:39 High gain + delay for sludge/doom
12:39 Tuning down to Drop A for metal carnage
13:25 Final thoughts and goodbye

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Get all my gear at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0
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#Ibanez #Ibanez2026 #IbanezGuitars #IbanezArtcore #Baritone #BaritoneGuitar #IbanezBaritone #RichWordsMusic #NewGuitars2026

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