Not long ago, I was jonesing for an 80s Ibanez. I've been working on unfinished bass building projects and was basically down to one bass to play, so I wanted something that would be a fun player, not terribly pricey, and ready to roll.
When my anniversary came along, my lovely wife said I should get a bass and she'd chip in on it, which was extra cool of her!
Feeling somewhat nostalgic for the 84 Roadstar RB850 I'd sold a while back, I began looking for another one like it. And there were a few that I'd eye-humped for a while before coming across a 1985 Ibanez Musician MC-824. This bass has the same electronics setup as the Roadstar (2 big humbuckers, passive VPT with push/push knobs for coil cut), but was neck through.
After a few days of pondering it, asking my TB consiglieri (@rogerbmiller) what he thought, and chin scratching, I decided to inquire about it. The bass was at GC out of state, so I needed to see more pics and hear more about the bass. I called the shop, talked to a nice guy who sent some pics and basically decided "this is the one!"
So I bought it. And I waited patiently for 3 whole days before it showed up at work.
In a wonderful twist of fate, I lucked out with a non-horror GC story: It was packed very well and in better shape than described. Oh, and I was expecting a tank (like earlier 924s I've played) but this thing is just a little over 9 lbs! And it even had Dunlop straplock buttons already attached... SCORE!!!
Was it perfect? No. There was some fret wear and buzz, a few dings that could use some touchup, the standard "31 year old bass" needs. So I leveled, crowned and polished the frets, cleaned it all and used some nail polish to fix a few little chips.
And with that, I played this bass and was completely shocked at just how nice it really is. Very fast neck, solid feel and huge sound. All passive, mind you.
What I wasn't loving was the single coil mode. It had the dreaded hum and cut volume pretty drastically. Plus, the push/push setup didn't really have a visual indicator of the "modes" of the pickups. And what I did on the RB850 was to swap for push/pull knobs and wire it Series/Parallel for each pickup.
So I did it to this one as well.
Once equipped with the right pots and superior wiring scheme, this bass absolutely SLAYS. Unfortunately, the old knobs didn't fit, so I just found what I had in the parts drawer for the moment.
But yeah, the parallel mode on this bass is totally boutique. It has that really clean but funk-nasty snap when slapped or dug into.
The series just breathes fire! There's so much beef in these pickups. Solo the neck in series and a P bass will be left feeling a bit inadequate.
All in all, I'm so happy with this bass. I've been on a Stingray kick for a couple years now, abandoning 2 pickup and passive basses... but this came in and really hit on all cylinders for me. All of the power of the Rays (and more!), more clarity and funk with the parallel modes, quite a jack of all trades kind of bass.
If you ever find one of these and like a really present passive bass that won't break the bank and sounds like a total boutique beast, this is what you want!
(I attached some sound clips. "Slap happy" is all parallel, both pickups, "Dialed" is a nice setting that I liked and "Mix" is like a demo of the modes)
((and I was just screwing around on the recordings, sorry for the sloppy playing, the fret buzz was before I did the fret work, too))
When my anniversary came along, my lovely wife said I should get a bass and she'd chip in on it, which was extra cool of her!
Feeling somewhat nostalgic for the 84 Roadstar RB850 I'd sold a while back, I began looking for another one like it. And there were a few that I'd eye-humped for a while before coming across a 1985 Ibanez Musician MC-824. This bass has the same electronics setup as the Roadstar (2 big humbuckers, passive VPT with push/push knobs for coil cut), but was neck through.
After a few days of pondering it, asking my TB consiglieri (@rogerbmiller) what he thought, and chin scratching, I decided to inquire about it. The bass was at GC out of state, so I needed to see more pics and hear more about the bass. I called the shop, talked to a nice guy who sent some pics and basically decided "this is the one!"
So I bought it. And I waited patiently for 3 whole days before it showed up at work.
In a wonderful twist of fate, I lucked out with a non-horror GC story: It was packed very well and in better shape than described. Oh, and I was expecting a tank (like earlier 924s I've played) but this thing is just a little over 9 lbs! And it even had Dunlop straplock buttons already attached... SCORE!!!
Was it perfect? No. There was some fret wear and buzz, a few dings that could use some touchup, the standard "31 year old bass" needs. So I leveled, crowned and polished the frets, cleaned it all and used some nail polish to fix a few little chips.
And with that, I played this bass and was completely shocked at just how nice it really is. Very fast neck, solid feel and huge sound. All passive, mind you.
What I wasn't loving was the single coil mode. It had the dreaded hum and cut volume pretty drastically. Plus, the push/push setup didn't really have a visual indicator of the "modes" of the pickups. And what I did on the RB850 was to swap for push/pull knobs and wire it Series/Parallel for each pickup.
So I did it to this one as well.
Once equipped with the right pots and superior wiring scheme, this bass absolutely SLAYS. Unfortunately, the old knobs didn't fit, so I just found what I had in the parts drawer for the moment.
But yeah, the parallel mode on this bass is totally boutique. It has that really clean but funk-nasty snap when slapped or dug into.
The series just breathes fire! There's so much beef in these pickups. Solo the neck in series and a P bass will be left feeling a bit inadequate.
All in all, I'm so happy with this bass. I've been on a Stingray kick for a couple years now, abandoning 2 pickup and passive basses... but this came in and really hit on all cylinders for me. All of the power of the Rays (and more!), more clarity and funk with the parallel modes, quite a jack of all trades kind of bass.
If you ever find one of these and like a really present passive bass that won't break the bank and sounds like a total boutique beast, this is what you want!
(I attached some sound clips. "Slap happy" is all parallel, both pickups, "Dialed" is a nice setting that I liked and "Mix" is like a demo of the modes)
((and I was just screwing around on the recordings, sorry for the sloppy playing, the fret buzz was before I did the fret work, too))
