Ibanez has a long and varied history dating back over 100 years. The company began life in Japan in 1908 originally as the Hoshino Gakki manufacturing and selling stringed instruments. By the 1960’s these were distributed in the US through the guitar maker Harry Rosenbloom and his Elger Guitars company. By the early 1970’s Elger Guitars had been renamed “Ibanez USA” and had their headquarters in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, acting as a distribution and quality-control center.
Ibanez guitars have long been associated with Rock and metal as the guitars included highly stylized body shapes, slimmer necks and flatter fingerboards coupled with modern electronics featuring high output designs and pickups.
For many years the company has been synonymous with rock players and has a variety of artists using their guitars including Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana.
