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Ibanez vs squire for metal
- Thread starter onlyneedsone
- Start date
Well, while we are on the subject.... This is in my possession as we speak.
An old rogue bass that had a home paint job. Not sure of how old it is, but it has yellow side inlay dots... They were originally white.
Yes, I know, I took a string off of it temporarily because of the string that snapped on my 5 string... I promise I'll buy more strings when I someday get cash in my wallet again....
An old rogue bass that had a home paint job. Not sure of how old it is, but it has yellow side inlay dots... They were originally white.
Yes, I know, I took a string off of it temporarily because of the string that snapped on my 5 string... I promise I'll buy more strings when I someday get cash in my wallet again....
That will work. I have a 1989 Korean squier HMV…
that means Heavy Metal, folks! 5 stringer:
H.M. basses (1989-1993). Concurrent with the Heartfield DR basses, Fender and Squier went specifically after metal players with several solid but equally short-lived H.M. basses (three guesses what “H.M.” stands for). The first two were Korean-made Squier models—1989’s H.M. Bass and five-string H.M. Bass V. With a street price around $300, they were affordable basses that appealed to the pointy-headstock set and offered flashy finishes such as “Electric Blue” and “Midnight Wine.” Both basses did reasonably well at the time, which led to the 1991 debut of Japanese-made Fender-branded versions; these had a modified H.M. Stratocaster body shape, three Jazz Bass pickups with five-way switching (the Squier versions were dual-pickup models with no switching), TBX tone controls (treble and bass cut rather than the treble cut-only of a conventional tone control), a more pronounced fingerboard radius (9.5” to the 12” of the Squier models), a graphite nut and a greater selection of finishes.
Mine has been hacked up by a goocher, but still..(electric blue) 5ver is loaded with active EMG's and sounds pretty good. Serial E9.
fnord!
Attachments
I wouldn't be going below a drop c ^^ most of the songs would be in drop c when we play metal though. Would a 5ver make bass harder to learn than a four?
I wouldn't consider it harder, so much as different. I mean, if you won't be going below drop c, you should be fine with a 4 string.
I would also recommend you getting slightly larger string gauges if you are going to be playing a lot in Drop C. Then have the bass set up for lower tunings.
How can you tell what guage strings are without the wrapping? Im goin to the ppawn shop next weekend to see what they've got there. I know there are ibanezes there at the very least they always have them.
About drop C tunings... does that mean that the incoherent growling and screaming needs to be done in some special key in tune and on pitch requiring drop tuning? Please enlighten me?
I think a lot will depend on the TYPE of metal you are playing. Metal is one of the most diverse genres of music around, so what kind of sound you want matters in relation to the type of music.
Squier:
Class Hard Rock/Metal
Stoner/Doom/Sludge
Progressive
Ibanez:
Trash, Speed or Power
Death or Grind
Progressive (depending on what kind of articulation you want)
Black
Any Fender will have a vintage sound to it that is more mellow in most ways, but also more "organic" than an 99% of Ibanez basses. The Ibanez basses tend to have a little more attack but also a tad cold because of the thin bodies and thin necks; you are getting almost all the tone from the pickups.
LTD basses are pretty nice for the price but are a little singular tone wise.
I've never really been a fan of Dean basses.
I haven't spent enough time with Schecter's basses to really make a judgement about them, but they seem to have some nice features for the money.
Squier:
Class Hard Rock/Metal
Stoner/Doom/Sludge
Progressive
Ibanez:
Trash, Speed or Power
Death or Grind
Progressive (depending on what kind of articulation you want)
Black
Any Fender will have a vintage sound to it that is more mellow in most ways, but also more "organic" than an 99% of Ibanez basses. The Ibanez basses tend to have a little more attack but also a tad cold because of the thin bodies and thin necks; you are getting almost all the tone from the pickups.
LTD basses are pretty nice for the price but are a little singular tone wise.
I've never really been a fan of Dean basses.
I haven't spent enough time with Schecter's basses to really make a judgement about them, but they seem to have some nice features for the money.
I play in CGCF and use a custom DR set of .120 .90 .70 .50. Depending on how you play and the setup of the bass you might be able to use a standard heavy set (110, 90, 70, 50). Its really hard to get the balance right on a drop tuning like that without resorting to mixing gauges from different sets.
I didnt care for the dean basses either but the schecters I tried were nice. They had a used red schecter diamond series bass when I went to guitar center that looked, sounded, and felt AWESOME! But I didnt have the cash...
The type of metal we'd be playing would be mostly nu metal and progressive metal (so similar to bands like of mice and men, asking alexandria, memphis mayfire, bring me the horizon ect...) and some occasional metallica and metalica like songs they wrote. The nu metal bands I named; bring me the horizon and asking alexandria both use fenders, of mice and men use fgn (old fender maker made the mij fenders I believe) and memphis mayfire uses a music man. And since these guys use fenders and a music man and I like the pj bass body and neck feel on the squire I thought that would be a good choice too. Seeing all the ibanez bass suggestions though and liking the weight and sound I could get from them I was torn between the two. If I see a deal I cant refuse on either of these two basses though I might hav to jump on it...
@socialleper thanks for the tip! I'll check out the strings after I get the bass and learn a bit.
All the advice and suggestions im getting herr is amazing. Thanks once again guys and gals
I learned on a 5 J. My standard answer to "is it harder?" Is to run my thumb along the B and reassure, "relax, it's merely a thumb rest." For most songs it is! But really, I have just a little irksome feeling when playing 4 and it goes away the more I go. I still feel most comfortable with my original 5 (Johnson by AXL, by the way-- alder, emg passive blades), but I'm a newb, not yet 2 years playing, and the majority has been with my original bass. It's just habit.
fnord!
And I thought that "playing metal bass" was when you used metal thimbles on your plucking fingers...
[so red faced]
j/k
[so red faced]
j/k
Agreed, you can rest on it, especially with heavy gauge strings... Like having a steel rod built in as a rest spot! Granted, I try to implement the extra string as much as possible by going to it instead of going down the neck on the E string... Very convenient to just go up another one. As long as you know which note is where, the heavy B is super useful.
As a halloween joke I was going to resurrect 13 zombie, Bass for Metal posts, but it might piss someone off. So I won't. Til April First.
