The MC3000 is a Musician series solid body electric guitar model introduced by Ibanez in 1980. It is a limited edition model which was made in Japan by FujiGen.
Like most Musician models, the MC3000 features neck through body construction. It has body wings made up of an ash core sandwiched between two thick layers of either koa or zebrawood on a eleven-piece neck with a 24-fret ebony fingerboard with pearloid dot position markers. Components include a pair of Ibanez Super 88 humbucking pickups mounted in integrated plastic covers, a Tune-o-matic style Gibraltar bridge and tailpiece with scalloped "cloud" ornament, a bone and brass nut, wood or solid brass Sure Grip control knobs, and VelveTune machine heads.
The MC3000's electronics are what really distinguish it from the regular production MC500 or MC550. On-board controls consist of a master volume and tone control, a gain (±6dB boost/cut) control, and a 3-band active EQ (bass, mid and treble) powered by a 9V battery. In place of a typical 3-way pickup selector on the upper horn, it has three mini-toggles; the first (closest to the tip of the horn) acts as a standard 3-way pickup selector (bridge/both/neck), and the other two are Tri-sound switchs for each pickup to allow the individual coils of each humbucker to be split or connected in either serial or parallel. Rounding out the controls, two mini-switches on the lower bout activate the active EQ (with an indicator LED) and activate and on-board effects loop (OBEL). The face-mounted output jack sends the signal directly from the pickups (bypassing all on-board controls) to the OBEL and then back into the guitar using a TRS cable. The signal then runs through the on-board controls which feed the second, side-mounted, output. When the guitar is used with just a single cable from the side-mounted jack (i.e. without the OBEL) then the OBEL toggle effectively acts as a kill switch.
The MC5000 is a related model with similar electronics but with Tree of Life vine fretboard and headstock inlays.
The MC3000 was produced in very limited numbers and was discontinued in 1981.
