Until recently my main bass was an Ibenez Roadstar II RB960BK that I bought new in 1986. At the time it was the top of the line bolt-on. If I didn't know better I would guess that the new Fender Aerodyne Jazz took it's design cues from this bass. The distinctive black arched-top with white binding is a huge giveaway. Fender also used the same body material, basswood, which I've only ever heard of them using on Mustangs. You can't see it in this pic though, since it's the only one I could find online. Mine's a lot more rock n' rolled though. Here's the address:
http://www.geocities.com/xcvxcv65/ibanez/ibanez-rb960bk.jpg
It's black with an arched/radiused top and white binding, gold hardware and brass knobs, has a 2+2 headstock, 24 fret neck, rosewood fingerboard, and two supposedly-active soapbars with tone and volume for each. As it turns out they're single coils with preamps stuffed into the cases, with no active electronics apart from that. While these low impedence pickups don't have a real hot output, they produce no noise at all and have a unique sound of their own. I've played it so long I have learned to get several excellent sounds out of it with various mixtures of pickups and hands. It also sounds fabulous through a Marshall guitar amp. I've recently retired this as my main bass having replaced it with a Lakland 55-94 Deluxe, a truly world-class instrument that I've been very fortunate to acquire. It's a 5-string burgundy quilted-maple with a rosewood fingerboard and custom wound Bartolini J and MM pickups with a tweaked version of the Bartolini NMTB active preamp. However, this also served to underscore how different sounding the Ibanez is. Through an SWR 350x and an Eden 210DXT both basses sound great. While the Lakland does both a MM and J thing well (plus some P sounds and a whole bunch of non-Leo tones), and my girlfriend's Fender American Jazz does it's thing beautifully also, the Ibanez still manages to hold it's own in delivering some great sounds. It's not really as nice as the Lakland, but very few instruments are. I still play all three instruments at different times, but the Lakland comes out with me as it takes the place of about three top-notch basses, plus it has that amazing Lakland B string. I'll put up pics of both once I figure out how.
PS Only guy I ever saw with one of these was Greg Norton from Husker Du.
http://www.geocities.com/xcvxcv65/ibanez/ibanez-rb960bk.jpg
It's black with an arched/radiused top and white binding, gold hardware and brass knobs, has a 2+2 headstock, 24 fret neck, rosewood fingerboard, and two supposedly-active soapbars with tone and volume for each. As it turns out they're single coils with preamps stuffed into the cases, with no active electronics apart from that. While these low impedence pickups don't have a real hot output, they produce no noise at all and have a unique sound of their own. I've played it so long I have learned to get several excellent sounds out of it with various mixtures of pickups and hands. It also sounds fabulous through a Marshall guitar amp. I've recently retired this as my main bass having replaced it with a Lakland 55-94 Deluxe, a truly world-class instrument that I've been very fortunate to acquire. It's a 5-string burgundy quilted-maple with a rosewood fingerboard and custom wound Bartolini J and MM pickups with a tweaked version of the Bartolini NMTB active preamp. However, this also served to underscore how different sounding the Ibanez is. Through an SWR 350x and an Eden 210DXT both basses sound great. While the Lakland does both a MM and J thing well (plus some P sounds and a whole bunch of non-Leo tones), and my girlfriend's Fender American Jazz does it's thing beautifully also, the Ibanez still manages to hold it's own in delivering some great sounds. It's not really as nice as the Lakland, but very few instruments are. I still play all three instruments at different times, but the Lakland comes out with me as it takes the place of about three top-notch basses, plus it has that amazing Lakland B string. I'll put up pics of both once I figure out how.
PS Only guy I ever saw with one of these was Greg Norton from Husker Du.
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