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Sixer I just couldn’t pass up!

Bergerman

Bergerman

Supporting Member
Feb 23, 2004
941
2,833
62
Creswell, OR
#1
I’m pretty much a 4-string player. I played fives for several years, but switched back to fours only about 6 years ago. I’ve bought and tried a few 6-string basses over my career, but they never stuck, for whatever reason.

Cruising FB Marketplace a couple months ago, up pops a Ibanez SR506 in very neglected condition. I retired at the end of 2025 and was intrigued by the idea of bringing it back to life and seeing if I would enjoy having a 6-string around. It needed a lot of work but the “bones” were solid. Weight was amazing…slightly less than any of my 4-strings. The factory bridge was corroded beyond imagination and was also bent up at the rear…so it got replaced with an aftermarket 16.5mm bridge. Frets were leveled, crowned and polished as they were covered in some kind of greenish grunge and had a bit of wear.

The stock tuners had some of the tuner posts broken off at the string slot, so a new set of those were in order as well. I fully shielded the pickup and control cavities but the overseas BART MKI factory preamp seemed to have a fair amount of background hiss present and appeared to have undergone soldering surgery at the hands of an untrained chimp sometime in the past, so that was replaced with a 3-band Ming unit, which is totally quiet and a big improvement over the stock unit.

The inexpensive Ming pre came prewired with splined shaft pots, so I hit my parts boxes and scrounged some 70’s vintage Akai stereo knobs to finish it off.

It has proven interesting to have around and I may even gig with it next weekend. I really like the extended range and if my right hand can get on the same page as my left, I should be good to go! Some pics for your inspection:

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#5
Nice work! I myself prefer providing more of the lower end of the frequency spectrum of handheld stringed instruments, so I have little to no interest in a 6-stringer. Learned on fivers, migrated to fours for a while, now back to fivers. Certainly understand that to each their own, so by all means, go crazy with it!
👍
 
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#6
Bergerman said:
I’m pretty much a 4-string player. I played fives for several years, but switched back to fours only about 6 years ago. I’ve bought and tried a few 6-string basses over my career, but they never stuck, for whatever reason.

Cruising FB Marketplace a couple months ago, up pops a Ibanez SR506 in very neglected condition. I retired at the end of 2025 and was intrigued by the idea of bringing it back to life and seeing if I would enjoy having a 6-string around. It needed a lot of work but the “bones” were solid. Weight was amazing…slightly less than any of my 4-strings. The factory bridge was corroded beyond imagination and was also bent up at the rear…so it got replaced with an aftermarket 16.5mm bridge. Frets were leveled, crowned and polished as they were covered in some kind of greenish grunge and had a bit of wear.

The stock tuners had some of the tuner posts broken off at the string slot, so a new set of those were in order as well. I fully shielded the pickup and control cavities but the overseas BART MKI factory preamp seemed to have a fair amount of background hiss present and appeared to have undergone soldering surgery at the hands of an untrained chimp sometime in the past, so that was replaced with a 3-band Ming unit, which is totally quiet and a big improvement over the stock unit.

The inexpensive Ming pre came prewired with splined shaft pots, so I hit my parts boxes and scrounged some 70’s vintage Akai stereo knobs to finish it off.

It has proven interesting to have around and I may even gig with it next weekend. I really like the extended range and if my right hand can get on the same page as my left, I should be good to go! Some pics for your inspection:

View attachment 7504843View attachment 7504844View attachment 7504845View attachment 7504846View attachment 7504847View attachment 7504848
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That's really pretty! Excellent work!

FWIW, I purchased a beautiful silver sixer from Rondo Music about 17 years ago from their "scratch and dent" sale for $129. It was a setup nightmare. After trying to get decent sound out of it I finally put it on the shelf.

Then I retired five years ago and was cleaning up stuff and decided to sell it, but being retired, having the time I decided to give it another try. I was successful. It is now my main bass for playing in the church worship band. It works great because I'm becoming a bit of a John Entwistle. That is, the only guitar player just plays acoustic guitar - strumming chords. So I'm sort of "lead" bass. I get to do all sorts of fills and arpeggios. It makes playing a lot more fun. FWIW, I tuned the extra string to C (rather than B) to keep the fingering consistent.
 
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#11
Paul New said:
Can I send you my SR506 to rehab?

So the Ming pre fit easily?

How well does yours intonate in the second octave?

I have no further questions.
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I’m not a luthier or a technician, but I play both on TB 😉

The Ming pre fit just like the factory pre, so no issues there. The only problem was the Ming came with splined shaft pots as opposed to the original smooth shaft pots, so the factory knobs were no longer a great fit.

Intonation seems great up and down the fretboard…I was able to get my preferred minimal relief/low action setup once the frets were leveled and polished…couldn’t quite get there without the fretwork. The dual truss rods are also a great feature.
 
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#16
Bergerman said:
Cruising FB Marketplace a couple months ago
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I find that's a really dangerous thing to do, but luckily for me, I live in a small town away from major cities so there's very little of interest locally - there's actually very little for sale at all. If I'd come across your 506 near me, I would have done the same, even though I hardly need another Ibanez 6 (7 already), but I couldn't have let it die, because as you said, the bones are just so good.
Bergerman said:
The factory bridge was corroded beyond imagination and was also bent up at the rear…so it got replaced with an aftermarket 16.5mm bridge.
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That bridge looks like an Ibanez B16 (?) like on my 206 - the 206 also has the easily scratched brown finish. Mine is likely getting a refin, but I've seen YT videos on how to retouch it stock if that matters to you. My 206 has been gigged and I love it, but the 706 is my fave.

The only thing I don't like are the knobs, they look like they came off a Heathkit project.

Anyway, have fun with it.
 
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#17
Bergerman said:
I’m pretty much a 4-string player. I played fives for several years, but switched back to fours only about 6 years ago. I’ve bought and tried a few 6-string basses over my career, but they never stuck, for whatever reason.

Cruising FB Marketplace a couple months ago, up pops a Ibanez SR506 in very neglected condition. I retired at the end of 2025 and was intrigued by the idea of bringing it back to life and seeing if I would enjoy having a 6-string around. It needed a lot of work but the “bones” were solid. Weight was amazing…slightly less than any of my 4-strings. The factory bridge was corroded beyond imagination and was also bent up at the rear…so it got replaced with an aftermarket 16.5mm bridge. Frets were leveled, crowned and polished as they were covered in some kind of greenish grunge and had a bit of wear.

The stock tuners had some of the tuner posts broken off at the string slot, so a new set of those were in order as well. I fully shielded the pickup and control cavities but the overseas BART MKI factory preamp seemed to have a fair amount of background hiss present and appeared to have undergone soldering surgery at the hands of an untrained chimp sometime in the past, so that was replaced with a 3-band Ming unit, which is totally quiet and a big improvement over the stock unit.

The inexpensive Ming pre came prewired with splined shaft pots, so I hit my parts boxes and scrounged some 70’s vintage Akai stereo knobs to finish it off.

It has proven interesting to have around and I may even gig with it next weekend. I really like the extended range and if my right hand can get on the same page as my left, I should be good to go! Some pics for your inspection:

View attachment 7504843View attachment 7504844View attachment 7504845View attachment 7504846View attachment 7504847View attachment 7504848
Click to expand...
Really cool story and bass rescue! We need to hear more bass rescue stories like these on TB - regardless of the number of strings.

Enjoy it, play it in good health, and have fun!
 
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#19
Bergerman said:
I dug around for more knobs and found some others that fit…turns out the small, original smoked chrome knobs fit the splined shafts of the EQ pots pretty well, and the two Sadowsky-style knobs fit the volume and blend quite well. I may like this combo better than the large stereo knobs.

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I say go back to the stereo knobs.
 
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#20
These have been for many years the 'entry level' six for a lot of guys. You could hardly go in a pawn shop or on CL or EBay or Reverb and see lots of them for not a lot of money as they weren't big money when new. A lot of guys would try one, and more than a few would realize in fairly short order they wanted their Jazz Bass back, so many of them found long-term homes (just like this one) the second time around. They are great little axes, often overlooked like a lot of Ibanez basses.

Nice job and glad it's turned into fun for you. I love fixing one up like that. My two cents is like the OG knobs better . . . .
 

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