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Ibanez SRFF805 sound issue...
- Thread starter Evenian
- Start date
Rule out whether it's covered under warranty, first. If you paid with credit card, a lot of them will double your warranty, as long as you register the item, providing original warranty doc and receipt.
I paid with PayPal thru reverb. I never registered the bass.
So I just took the cover plate off and found one of the pickup red wires with a back plate screw hole thru it and one of the smaller black wires from the other pickup was only attached to the 1/4 jack by one strand of wire. I resoldiered the jack connection and put a piece of foam in the hole to keep the wires away from th back plate screw. Also two wires were melted thru and I could see bare wire. They weren’t touching anything, but *** kinda work are they doing over there at Ibanez. This is ridiculous. Anyway, neither of these two things I fixed resolved the issue...
What I meant is if you used your credit card (via PayPal)... check with your CC company to see if they offer extended warranties on full purchases using your CC... if they do, register your purchase with the CC company.
I had QC issues with mine, as well... bad barrel jack, which was hiding a miswired condition... I got it at a closeout discount, right off the bat, and Sweetwater discounted it even more with the issues I experienced.
I repaired both issues myself, and really love it... now.
Take care of business, so you can either enjoy yours, or make someone accountable, for the hard earned money you spent on this... doesn't Reverb have buyer protection, as well?
Mine has been doing it for years... in order to compete for your business, I would think most CC companies would offer the same benefit, these days.
I hope you took pictures of what you found.
I suspect the melted wires are the problem.
Certainly they should have done a better job to begin with.
Sloppy factory workmanship should be covered under warranty on a new bass.
I hope you didn't screw yourself when you tried to fix it yourself.
I suspect the melted wires are the problem.
Certainly they should have done a better job to begin with.
Sloppy factory workmanship should be covered under warranty on a new bass.
I hope you didn't screw yourself when you tried to fix it yourself.
I don’t know if they do or not. I don’t even know where to begin tryin to hold anyone accountable. If Ibanez doesn’t respond to me, I’m not sure what I’m gonna do. Every time I have tried to get something warrantied, I have had bad experiences...nobody wants to take responsibility.. by the looks of the wiring behind the cover, I’m sure this bass will be plagued with issues in the future...I’m super frustrated and irritated with this whole ordeal. I’m very busy and I don’t have time to chase phone calls and emails that will prob not end in my favor. Like I said, I have no idea where to start.
I did take pics. I don’t see how the melted wire coating is the problem since it worked fine for 10 months. Plus they were wire tied and not moving around. The only thing I did was resoldier one wire which I could easily put it back how it was when I found it.
You've got many variables and they should be checked in a way to eliminate them. The following is just my opinion.
You have an Ibanez that’s unquestionably worth fixing, and even with no help from the seller or from a warranty, a professional repair is worthwhile. Electrically, guitars are extremely simple devices, particularly in passive mode. A professional repair should not be that expensive, even if a new eq is needed. Most times, however, it’s a connection issue. Problems tend to be singular and simple, unless an attempted repair has added additional challenges. Still, here’s what I would do to narrow it down, if you are interested in looking further yourself.
1: You mentioned you were going to check the pickups (pan them and see if they are reasonably equivalent). Since this takes only a few seconds, I’ll assume you’ve already done it and they are not the problem. Pickups are so simple, they rarely go bad anyway, except for a bad connection, and there’s virtually no chance of both being bad, so if they seem about equal in output, they’re good. You also have already verified the cable, the strings, and pickup height
2: If pickups seem ok, and you’re comfortable using an ohmmeter, put the bass in passive mode and check the volume pot, the treble pot, the active/passive switch, and the output jack (particularly the ground: sleeve). A poor ground on the jack can cause all sorts of grief. The treble pot is your tone control in passive mode, so it’s still in the circuit and needs checking. The pots should read approximately the rated ohms across the outer connectors, and you should be able to verify that the resistance between the center tab and both outer tabs changes between rated ohms and zero as you sweep the pot. Checking the pots should be done with them out of circuit, so skip this if you’re not sure you want to go there. A bad connection at the pot is way more likely than a bad pot, so at least reheat the solder. Keep in mind that a bad solder joint can be internal and doesn’t always look bad.
3: Check the active eq circuit. Maybe the active eq has the problem, and your bass is working properly in passive mode. You may not be used to the passive sound in the SR. I also have an upper-level SR (SR1600): different pickups but very similar electronics. I don’t care for the sound in passive mode. Besides the obvious lower gain, it seems to be a little bland and thinner than I’d like. If you were accustomed to using your bass in active eq mode with some boost in any or all the EQ bands, passive mode will have a significantly different sound and level, and that’s just normal. I’d check this by putting in a good battery and switching to active eq mode. Even if there’s a problem elsewhere, all three of your eq pots should still work (boosting and cutting the bass, middle, and treble), and you should still hear a very different sound (good or bad) when you switch between the active and passive modes. If you notice no difference, the eq circuit board, an eq pot, mid switch, or the wire and connections between the eq-related components is likely the problem.
I hope that is helpful, and good luck!
You have an Ibanez that’s unquestionably worth fixing, and even with no help from the seller or from a warranty, a professional repair is worthwhile. Electrically, guitars are extremely simple devices, particularly in passive mode. A professional repair should not be that expensive, even if a new eq is needed. Most times, however, it’s a connection issue. Problems tend to be singular and simple, unless an attempted repair has added additional challenges. Still, here’s what I would do to narrow it down, if you are interested in looking further yourself.
1: You mentioned you were going to check the pickups (pan them and see if they are reasonably equivalent). Since this takes only a few seconds, I’ll assume you’ve already done it and they are not the problem. Pickups are so simple, they rarely go bad anyway, except for a bad connection, and there’s virtually no chance of both being bad, so if they seem about equal in output, they’re good. You also have already verified the cable, the strings, and pickup height
2: If pickups seem ok, and you’re comfortable using an ohmmeter, put the bass in passive mode and check the volume pot, the treble pot, the active/passive switch, and the output jack (particularly the ground: sleeve). A poor ground on the jack can cause all sorts of grief. The treble pot is your tone control in passive mode, so it’s still in the circuit and needs checking. The pots should read approximately the rated ohms across the outer connectors, and you should be able to verify that the resistance between the center tab and both outer tabs changes between rated ohms and zero as you sweep the pot. Checking the pots should be done with them out of circuit, so skip this if you’re not sure you want to go there. A bad connection at the pot is way more likely than a bad pot, so at least reheat the solder. Keep in mind that a bad solder joint can be internal and doesn’t always look bad.
3: Check the active eq circuit. Maybe the active eq has the problem, and your bass is working properly in passive mode. You may not be used to the passive sound in the SR. I also have an upper-level SR (SR1600): different pickups but very similar electronics. I don’t care for the sound in passive mode. Besides the obvious lower gain, it seems to be a little bland and thinner than I’d like. If you were accustomed to using your bass in active eq mode with some boost in any or all the EQ bands, passive mode will have a significantly different sound and level, and that’s just normal. I’d check this by putting in a good battery and switching to active eq mode. Even if there’s a problem elsewhere, all three of your eq pots should still work (boosting and cutting the bass, middle, and treble), and you should still hear a very different sound (good or bad) when you switch between the active and passive modes. If you notice no difference, the eq circuit board, an eq pot, mid switch, or the wire and connections between the eq-related components is likely the problem.
I hope that is helpful, and good luck!
Last edited:
Ric5
Inactive
- Jan 29, 2008
- 29,772
- 30,452
- Disclosures
- I like 5, 8, 10, and 12 string basses
Thanks for all the good info. I have done everything you suggested except tested pots with an ohm meter. I have always used the bass in passive and bypassed the eq because I hate eq settings on the bass since the are very hard to duplicate in recordings. All the pots work as far as sound variation when rotated. If the eq settings are set to “12 o’clock” or the neutral position, it sounds the same as it does in active mode. Everything seems to function as far as switches or pots, it just sounds weak, muddy and has less volume. Like I said before.. even the wave is way smaller when recording. When I got the bass I did recording test in all positions to see what was going on since I didn’t receive any manual or paperwork with the bass. Recordings had very minimal differences between active and passive, but both still sounded louder, clearer and better over all than my 505...so anyway, I will try to eliminate more things using your advice. I don’t want to get to carried away until I hear back from Ibanez, just Incase this is covered. I’m not hopeful of a response tho, it’s been two days...
I did, one of the smaller black wires was holding on by one thread, which is dumb since it came from the factory like that. I fixed that connection, to no avail. Prob still exists...
Cicuit board, connection should be ok, but remmember that when you connect that bass and fx through amp to cab, you will never feel that loss of power in the sound, though in recording te problem will be heard quite well.
Yeah, I don’t play thru a cab, just record directly into a DAW. I noticed something was wrong cause the wave was really small..I soloed the track and realized something was wrong.
