Ibanez Portamento Club

[coyote1]

My 6-string Portamento is the most humidity-sensitive instrument I've ever owned. Past few days have been humid in this region.... four of the strings are laying on the neck. I played it just a week ago and it played beautifully.

I'll just leave it alone until the air dries out a bit.

 

[tellheryousawme]

My 6-string Portamento is the most humidity-sensitive instrument I've ever owned. Past few days have been humid in this region.... four of the strings are laying on the neck. I played it just a week ago and it played beautifully.

I'll just leave it alone until the air dries out a bit.

My 4er was terrible at the beginning, during a couple years. Now it is stable, more than three years passed since I adjusted the neck last time.

 

[Idle Plucker]

My 4er was terrible at the beginning, during a couple years. Now it is stable, more than three years passed since I adjusted the neck last time.

Yes. I had a similar experience with my 5-string, enough to stop me using it for a while. Took several years to settle down, then stabilised, which was a huge relief. I've had similar experiences with other Ibanez instruments (even had a GWB 35 shift so much on me during a gig that it became unplayable and I had to adjust the truss rod mid-set, not a pleasant experience with the rest of the band twiddling their thumbs and looking daggers at me). Fortunately the Portamento never shifted quite as much as that.

 

[Bill Clifton]

Been putting it off for a while but finally went ahead and bought the srf700. Had the 706 for a while a loved it. So now I have the 706 and the gwb35 and the 700 with some other Ibanez fretted basses. i don't if it's me but playing the fives and the sixes have made me a better 4 string player. Love these Portmento basses the sound you can get with the piezo and the bridge put is amazing

 

[tellheryousawme]

i don't if it's me but playing the fives and the sixes have made me a better 4 string player.

I tried it twice buying two 5-string basses, one fretless one fretted. After a short period of adaptation I was doing quite well, but the drama was when I got back to 4-string, I was hopelessly wrong. So, playing the fives made me a worse 4-string player

 

[kirkdickinson]

My 6-string Portamento is the most humidity-sensitive instrument I've ever owned. Past few days have been humid in this region.... four of the strings are laying on the neck. I played it just a week ago and it played beautifully.

I'll just leave it alone until the air dries out a bit.

I haven't adjusted mine in two years. I have one of the first ones in the states so mine might be a little older. I heard about the 706's coming and preordered mine from Sweetwater months before it was even shipped.

 

[coyote1]

It occurs to me I might not be in this 'club'. My 706 to the right, with a couple of my other basses:

 

[kirkdickinson]

Well... I think my christmas present for my Ibanez Portamento 706 is going to be in my mailbox today. I replaced the factory strings fairly quick even though they were pretty good strings. At the time, I had been dying to try the LaBella Gold/White strings. So off went the D'Addario and on went Labella Gold/White tapes.


La Bella Strings

They have been on there about 3 years now. I still like them, but have been hearing about the Thomastik-Infield strings for so long, I just had to try them.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00162ZSWQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I will carefully remove and store the old strings because they are still as good as new.

Anybody else running Thomastik-Infield strings?

 

[kirkdickinson]

Well... I think my christmas present for my Ibanez Portamento 706 is going to be in my mailbox today. I replaced the factory strings fairly quick even though they were pretty good strings. At the time, I had been dying to try the LaBella Gold/White strings. So off went the D'Addario and on went Labella Gold/White tapes.

View attachment 4076843
La Bella Strings

They have been on there about 3 years now. I still like them, but have been hearing about the Thomastik-Infield strings for so long, I just had to try them.

View attachment 4076844
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00162ZSWQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I will carefully remove and store the old strings because they are still as good as new.

Anybody else running Thomastik-Infield strings?

So, the new strings for my Ibanez SRF706 Portamento didn't show up until Saturday. I usually wouldn't change strings the day before playing live, but what the heck. I was going to practice a couple of hours and then have a band run through before the Sunday service. Plenty of time to break in.

I was impressed with the strings. Hard to know exactly how they sound with the in-ears and the live stream guy must hate bass because listening back to it, I still have no idea how I sounded. The FOH guy is a full on working PRO sound guy (and bass player) that is mixing now every sunday. After the set, he came up to me and said the bass sounded awesome. I say, cool, just put some new flats on my fretless. He says... "That was fretless"? Didn't sound like fretless. Wow!

My intonation must have been pretty good yesterday and I kept my glisses to a minimum.

Last night I decided to give the bass a setup because the TI's have a lot more tension than the LaBellas. Wow, that made a world of difference. I was able to get my relief almost to zero and very low action. The bass sounds and feels a lot different after the setup. I eventually got a whole turn tighter on my truss rod, maybe more and one or two turns on each saddle. I have the strings on the deck without buzzing out. No measurements, totally set by feel. This neck is amazingly true for a $1049 bass.

One thing I really really noticed was that the "C" string on the TI's is much more usable than the LaBella. On the LaBella C string, above the 12th fret, there just didn't seem to be enough string mass to sound much of a note. No problem with the Labella. I also seem to be able to be more accurate hitting pitch on all strings up higher.

So far.... I like!!

 

[Aidil]

is the person in this YouTube clip a member here...?

 

[Stephen]

How have people been liking the Panga Panga fingerboards as compared to the Rosewood?

 

[Supadope]

How have people been liking the Panga Panga fingerboards as compared to the Rosewood?

I have two fretless basses. A Vantage with a rosewood fretboard from the 90's which I've had numerous string types including a few round wound sets. The fretboard is still like the day I got it.

I also have a 705 with the panga fretboard. I really like this bass, but I have only had the original Chromes and a set of GHS pressure wounds on it, and it's starting to show wear. I don't think it will stand the test of time.

 

[kirkdickinson]

How have people been liking the Panga Panga fingerboards as compared to the Rosewood?

I have the first run of SRF706 in the US, one of the first two shipped and sold at Sweetwater. Mine is rosewood. I like it. Not sure about the Panga Panga, I haven't played one. My concern with Panga Panga is that (IMHO) it is really a poor choice for fretless. The softest rosewood has a Janga rating of 2200 with E. Indian Rosewood at 2440 and Amazon Rosewood at 2620 while Panga Panga is 1,640.

I have run flats on mine because I don't really feel that even Rosewood is hard enough for rounds. The Panga Panga might be ok for flats?

 

[Aidil]

How have people been liking the Panga Panga fingerboards as compared to the Rosewood?

Mine is the rosewood version dated 2016. Still looking good throughout these years. I've never use rounds on it. Other than stock Cromes which were used only for a short period, it's been carrying D'Addario tapes.

And I should've been able to compare it with the panga-panga board of the SRH505F had Ibanez local distributor brought one in. Owning the Portamento SRF705 doesn't stop me from GASsing for the Aerium SRH505F.

 

[A Jazzy Doom]

How have people been liking the Panga Panga fingerboards as compared to the Rosewood?

The SRF706 is my only fretless, so while I think the Panga Panga has mostly been fine, I can't compare it directly with rosewood.

I just have the stock Chromes on, and haven't noticed very much fretboard wear yet from normal use. There are some subtle lateral marks on the surface which could be from either thoughtless bending, or maybe turning the instrument over in my lap to access the piezo level adjustment screws. That said, I noticed these marks very early on, and they don't seem to have worsened in the intervening months.

When the bass first arrived, I had a couple very buzzy spots on the G string that seemed to be associated with the grain pattern - I hypothesized that maybe the grain was shrinking at different rates as it dried. Raising the action a bit helped in the short term, and then things improved further through the summer, but I am curious to see if the buzz gets worse again as we enter the driest part of winter.

I would like to try putting rounds on this bass at some point, but based on the markings that I'm seeing from the Chromes, I don't see myself doing so anytime soon.

 

[kirkdickinson]

My 6-string Portamento is the most humidity-sensitive instrument I've ever owned. Past few days have been humid in this region.... four of the strings are laying on the neck. I played it just a week ago and it played beautifully.

I'll just leave it alone until the air dries out a bit.

Mine seemed to be more sensitive for the first couple of years. Not so much any more. Very little seasonal adjustments are needed now.

 

[kirkdickinson]

View attachment 4076844
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00162ZSWQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Anybody else running Thomastik-Infield strings?

After the strings were on a couple weeks to settle in, I did a complete setup on my bass. Holy Sh!z... I have never had a bass set up with this close of tolerance. I have a near dead flat neck with probably less than the thickness of two sheets of paper relief. With action very very low. This is so easy to play. Amazing.

I have played basses far more expensive than this 706 that could in no way have action and relief so close. Can't believe that this wasn't Pleked or something!!! Sweetwater offered to do the Plek when I ordered it for a discounted price, but I didn't figure there would be a need on a new bass. I was right. I do not believe that Pleking would make this one better.

 

[Matthew_84]

is the person in this YouTube clip a member here...?

This was an interesting video. One thing the video maker didn't touch on is that a CA finish opens up your string selection.

I've replaced the Chromes with coated Elixirs, which really open up the sound, but I'd love to throw Sunbeams on this thing, but am scared to with the panga panga board mine has.

also, I'm curious if he used chromes on those tests. He's not going to get the sound he's aiming for with them.

 

[Matthew_84]

Yeah, this panga panga board is soft... I just took off the coated Elixirs (which don't feel as soft as I was expecting) and put on Chromes back on and noticed the board had the normal wear markings, but I could actually feel them. I know that's bound to happen eventually, but to be honest, I've played this bass very little compared to the other fretlesses I've had throughout the years with synthetic ebonol or real ebony and I haven't been able to feel the marks on them.

It's fine for my purposes (as I did buy this bass to wear flats), but just makes it clear that if I want to string up a fretless with rounds and get to singing again, I should probably use another board (or CA this one, which I don't want to do).

 

[Matthew_84]

@kirkdickinson (or anyone else for that matter), how do you like the TI Jazz Flats on this thing? I know how much you like the action, but how do they sound? I'd looking for a flat that sings a bit more than my Chromes do