mutant!
09-08-2006, 06:42 PM
I always thought Soundgear was the budget range. Apparently not. :confused:
I played the SR500 today for like half an hour and it was pretty cool. I liked the neck, but it could be better - it might have been too thin - but it was nice and narrow; the fretboard had a very good feel to me. The 24 frets are a nice feature. The body shape looks hawt, and the finish!!!1
The Bartolini's sounded very nice to my inexperienced ears. I was running into a Crate BT100 (pretty much the only big bass amp available here, other than Behringer models), and by boosting my low mids and treble I could get sweet tone going. The bass allowed me to get a number of different sounds by altering the way I play - pick or fingerstyle, neck or bridge, hard or soft. Also, the onboard electronics seemed very nice; without tweaking the amp at all, I could pretty much summon up the entire arsenal of tones that I have a use for.
I also took my Big Muff along so I could check out how the bass responds to that. The pedal didn't kill as much bass as I expected it to; in fact, I was turning the pedal's tone knob to the treble side to get more clarity and edge and less muddy "whoomph".
I didn't play around with the onboard EQ all that much; however, I did manage to summon up as dub-y a tone as is reasonably possible with brand-new Elixir rounds. Also, I noticed that cranking the mids gave me the fattest distortion EVAR with the Muff. :cool:
I was having a fun time playing the intro riffs from Schism and The Pot. :D I could get pretty close to Chancellor's sound, and altering the way I play (and toying with the blend pot, awesome toy that) allowed me to grind out some fat Ben Kenney Incubus lines.
I was also able to get the bass to sound reasonably guitar-like with the Muff on - especially when palm-muting.
So all in all, this was a very nice bass; and although I haven't played many basses at all (never touched a J or a Ray or a Corvette), this was the best by far and I might come back to it later.
I only have a few questions:
1) I know Ibanez guitars are renowned for having the fastest action imaginable, so is it reasonable of me to try and find a bass with a lower action, or is this as low as it gets?
2) I got a lot of fret buzz as a result of my bad technique (not the kind that results from just having a poorly-setup bass). Will this go away as I improve, or should I keep looking?
PS: AND!!! I was extremely surprised to find out I'd been playing on Elixirs - they feel totally different from their guitar counterparts. I remember when I had them on my Les Paul, and my friend had them on his Taylor; they felt so weird and icky. Not cool at all. The bass ones rock hard, though. Feel very nice, and I like the tone. Although I might still try the legendary Rotosound.
I played the SR500 today for like half an hour and it was pretty cool. I liked the neck, but it could be better - it might have been too thin - but it was nice and narrow; the fretboard had a very good feel to me. The 24 frets are a nice feature. The body shape looks hawt, and the finish!!!1
The Bartolini's sounded very nice to my inexperienced ears. I was running into a Crate BT100 (pretty much the only big bass amp available here, other than Behringer models), and by boosting my low mids and treble I could get sweet tone going. The bass allowed me to get a number of different sounds by altering the way I play - pick or fingerstyle, neck or bridge, hard or soft. Also, the onboard electronics seemed very nice; without tweaking the amp at all, I could pretty much summon up the entire arsenal of tones that I have a use for.
I also took my Big Muff along so I could check out how the bass responds to that. The pedal didn't kill as much bass as I expected it to; in fact, I was turning the pedal's tone knob to the treble side to get more clarity and edge and less muddy "whoomph".
I didn't play around with the onboard EQ all that much; however, I did manage to summon up as dub-y a tone as is reasonably possible with brand-new Elixir rounds. Also, I noticed that cranking the mids gave me the fattest distortion EVAR with the Muff. :cool:
I was having a fun time playing the intro riffs from Schism and The Pot. :D I could get pretty close to Chancellor's sound, and altering the way I play (and toying with the blend pot, awesome toy that) allowed me to grind out some fat Ben Kenney Incubus lines.
I was also able to get the bass to sound reasonably guitar-like with the Muff on - especially when palm-muting.
So all in all, this was a very nice bass; and although I haven't played many basses at all (never touched a J or a Ray or a Corvette), this was the best by far and I might come back to it later.
I only have a few questions:
1) I know Ibanez guitars are renowned for having the fastest action imaginable, so is it reasonable of me to try and find a bass with a lower action, or is this as low as it gets?
2) I got a lot of fret buzz as a result of my bad technique (not the kind that results from just having a poorly-setup bass). Will this go away as I improve, or should I keep looking?
PS: AND!!! I was extremely surprised to find out I'd been playing on Elixirs - they feel totally different from their guitar counterparts. I remember when I had them on my Les Paul, and my friend had them on his Taylor; they felt so weird and icky. Not cool at all. The bass ones rock hard, though. Feel very nice, and I like the tone. Although I might still try the legendary Rotosound.