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My Bass – the Ibanez |
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I suffer from severe G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome, for those of you who may not yet suffer from this wallet crippling affliction) which has caused me great pains over the years I have been playing, and has also caused me to modify nearly every bass and piece of equipment I have ever owned. So needless to say, my current bass, an Ibanez BTB405QM (dark blue over maple) has followed the same pattern. I am not easily satisfied with my gear. No, I’ll rephrase that…I have a pretty sorry time of it when it comes to trying to keep a bass in its original state. I’ve de-fretted an expensive 6-string, changed pickups and EQ’s, and even taken the paint off a bass without the slightest idea of what might be lurking underneath (I was very lucky though – it turned out to be lovely). Vintage basses are clearly not for me though! However, for the most part, the meddling has resulted in a better instrument each time (for me at any rate), and one that I felt happier playing. The Ibanez is no exception. I must confess that I sought after the bass more because I had liked the new shape and wider neck than anything else. I have played many Ibanez basses, enjoying all of them, but as my playing has grown, so I have found the comparatively narrow Ibanez necks to be something of a constraint. So when I first read that the new BTB series was to have a more traditional neck I rushed out seeking one. The 405 is actually the bottom of the BTB range, but it was the one I liked the most. I A-B’ed a whole bunch of them, and the 405 came up trumps. Actually in fairness I didn’t bother trying the Bartolini equipped 1005 series, as the price tag was a little steep for me. This bass is actually about as close to perfect (for me) as anything I have owned. The neck, as I have said, is wide: 47mm @ nut; 76mm @ 12th fret, ¾ inch Fender style bridge spacing; the body, although heavy, is very tone satisfying, and the overall construction is sound. Oh, and you’ve gotta love the Monorail II (MR-2 [Pat. Pend.]) bridge that this baby sports. It adds a “string-to-string” clarity that I haven’t heard on any other bass in this price range. So why did I modify this bass if I was so happy with it? Two reasons I suppose. One – because I have a sick need to modify everything, and two – because I wanted more out of the bass. I wasn’t dissatisfied with the sound I was getting; I just knew that the bass would give me more with the right ingredients. So I put in two Seymour Duncan Bassline® pickups, and took out the existing 3-band EQ (with sweepable mids). After years of chasing after the elusive tone and playing with on-board EQ’s and dials, I have found the source of good tone – less on-board s**t and putting in better pickups. Sure, there are pickups and there are pickups, but the Duncans kick huge amounts of ass, and their sound is not genre specific at all – they’ll cover all basses (bad pun, but it’s a living). So it’s volume + volume + tone for me. Just recently I added two switches to the deal. Hey! I had two open holes from replacing the existing 5-knob set-up that the bass originally had, and that just plain screams out “MODIFICATION!” to a freak like me. They are on-off switches modifying the pickup configuration, and when set to “off” they don’t interfere with the circuitry at all (thanks Andy Barns). But when switch one is on, both pickups run at 100%, which gives me just about the best slap tone imaginable (well, I like to think so at any rate) and when switch two is on, only the bridge pickup is on, which is cool for soloing or tapping (as is my wont). It’s interesting however to note that when the pots are bypassed, there is noticeable difference in volume. The stock 250Kohm pots just don’t cut it, so I’ll be upgrading them to 1 Mega-ohm pots soon. See, there it goes again! So! There you have my bass. It’s great for me at the moment. I say at the moment, because I have no doubt that some day, in the not-too-distant future, I’ll change it or sell it. Actually, I’m hoping to not sell it at all, but rather get another one and de-fret it – a baby brother if you will. Maybe one day it’ll be played on a recording that you might hear, and then you can be the judge of my experimental illness! |
