The Soundgear Club

[bordinco90]

Before you replace anything, you need to raise the pickups.

They will not go up any further.

 

[bordinco90]

100% raise the pickups higher. That might make the difference already - especially since you enjoy the tone of the 300 and it has the same preamp as the 500.

I tried to raise them, but they will not go any higher. Any ideas?

 

[Stinkoman20xx]

I tried to raise them, but they will not go any higher. Any ideas?

new foam under the pickups with a potentially longer screw?

 

[Nolan Tremblay]

This is the second SR bass I've owned. My very first bass in high school was an SR400 that I sort of Frankensteined over time replacing the bridge, tuners, pickups and other parts. I was way from playing for quite some time and have gotten back into it in the past 3-4 years. I always really wanted to play 6 string l, as most of my favourite players do, so I picked up this SR5006. Really nice bass. I think short of going with something truly custom this does everything well and the for and finish are extremely good. Very comfortable to play.

 

[Jay_Dub]

Has anyone had an issue with the bridge tabs bending up on the SR405QM? I've had the bass many years, and rarely play it, but need it for a tune, and the D string flew out of the bridge, and upon inspection, the tab is bent up, and metal fatigue is visible. I bent it back, started to tune up, and it did the same thing. I do not want to buy another bridge if this is a common, or documented problem. Any ideas appreciated thanks.

 

[iTzPrime]

They will not go up any further.

New foam or new springs with longer screws.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Has anyone had an issue with the bridge tabs bending up on the SR405QM? I've had the bass many years, and rarely play it, but need it for a tune, and the D string flew out of the bridge, and upon inspection, the tab is bent up, and metal fatigue is visible. I bent it back, started to tune up, and it did the same thing. I do not want to buy another bridge if this is a common, or documented problem. Any ideas appreciated thanks. View attachment 5289940

Known issue and, for some term, replaced by Hoshino under warranty. Don't know if that's still covered under that umbrella.

Riis

 

[iTzPrime]

Has anyone had an issue with the bridge tabs bending up on the SR405QM? I've had the bass many years, and rarely play it, but need it for a tune, and the D string flew out of the bridge, and upon inspection, the tab is bent up, and metal fatigue is visible. I bent it back, started to tune up, and it did the same thing. I do not want to buy another bridge if this is a common, or documented problem. Any ideas appreciated thanks. View attachment 5289940

Write to Ibanez this is a known fault and Ibanez usually sends you a replacement bridge

Known issue and, for some term, replaced by Hoshino under warranty. Don't know if that's still covered under that umbrella.

Riis

Someone was faster...

 

[Jay_Dub]

Terrific, thanks for the quick replies. I emailed them, we'll see what happens.

 

[Snert]

I always really wanted to play 6 string l, as most of my favourite players do, so I picked up this SR5006. Really nice bass. I think short of going with something truly custom this does everything well and the for and finish are extremely good. Very comfortable to play.

That's a particularly nice piece of Wenge on one of the few basses I'd like to own myself. I already have a few SR 6s so I can't justify it.

Welcome to TB, and enjoy that sweet axe.

 

[wintremute]

What Preamp to you currently have?

Whatever the stock is on the SR300. However, if I swap the pickups, I would preferably not use the preamp, and just use pedals.

 

[iTzPrime]

Whatever the stock is on the SR300. However, if I swap the pickups, I would preferably not use the preamp, and just use pedals.

Before buying anything, I would rewire the pickups to bypass the preamp. That way you can really get a feel if you just dislike the preamps or really the pickups.

Anyway once you have done it, the Aguilar Humbuckers are a good replacement.

 

[Nolan Tremblay]

That's a particularly nice piece of Wenge on one of the few basses I'd like to own myself. I already have a few SR 6s so I can't justify it.

Welcome to TB, and enjoy that sweet axe.

Thank you! Yes, I really like how the Wenge grain looks on this top. I recently looked at a custom bass from a Canadian builder that had Wenge for the top that looked great. It's a bit underrated IMO.

 

[wintremute]

Before buying anything, I would rewire the pickups to bypass the preamp. That way you can really get a feel if you just dislike the preamps or really the pickups.

Anyway once you have done it, the Aguilar Humbuckers are a good replacement.

Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[VillageIdiott]

Hi. I tried posting this elsewhere to no avail.

Anyone know much about the SSR600 series? They were made specifically at the request of Shimamura Music in Japan for the domestic market. Made in Indonesia. This is my actual bass (see below).

Ash bodies, Bart MK1 pups, active electronics. Nice grainy finishes on some of them.

Anyone know of them or have any experience with the series?

There is a SSR620, 630, and 640 that I know of. There may be others. They look gorgeous. All produced in the last decade.

I just bought one from Japan but won't have it for a few weeks. It is flat black. I have another SR (a 5er) and like the necks and weight.

Thanks in advance!

 

[VillageIdiott]

This is my other SR. It is a SR5PBLTD. What a terrible name! Amazing bass and wonderful build quality.

 

[iTzPrime]

Hi. I tried posting this elsewhere to no avail.

Anyone know much about the SSR600 series? They were made specifically at the request of Shimamura Music in Japan for the domestic market. Made in Indonesia. This is my actual bass (see below).

Ash bodies, Bart MK1 pups, active electronics. Nice grainy finishes on some of them.

Anyone know of them or have any experience with the series?

There is a SSR620, 630, and 640 that I know of. There may be others. They look gorgeous. All produced in the last decade.

I just bought one from Japan but won't have it for a few weeks. It is flat black. I have another SR (a 5er) and like the necks and weight.

Thanks in advance!

As far as I know, they are a modified SR 500 for the 620/630 one and a modified SR1300 for the 640 as far as I could find. . As you said made in the indonesia factory and an Ashe body instead of mostly mahogany.

They are excellent basses

 

[Bartrinsic]

I am the proud owner of an Ibanez SR 1350B bass and I love it. It is made with many exotic woods, including Panga Panga, African Mahogany, and Walnut. My question is: what is the importance of the type, quality and finish of the wood of the body of an electric solid body guitar or bass? Beyond aesthetics, what is the impact on the tone, resonance and sound created? Which woods have what affect on the sound?

I'll bite. Panga panga is like wenge. I like the combination of wenge or panga panga with mahogany. Walnut is an excellent wood, especially as layers with maple in a neck laminate. It's a punchy hardwood, but I like the mahogany body/wenge fretboard/maple neck sound better--just my preference. Other factors like pickup winds and pickup location may have a more defining impact on the tone, but if you play two similar models with different woods, you might prefer one over the other.

Lot's to consider, but start with density (heaviness) and hardness (Janka). Wood is a bigger factor for acoustic or semi-hollow instruments, so I use this reference: Tonewood Data Source
For solid bodies, much of material about resonant tops like Sitka Spruce is not important (I don't have any Spruce in my basses, but its not unheard of). For all the other parts however, I've found this guide to help me guess how a bass with a different wood might sound. Even then, different stock of the same or similar species can sound different, such as a brighter sound for wenge with lots of light colored rings vs a darker sound for uniformly dark-brown wenge.

Amps and processing can make basses made of different woods sound similar, but when you process them to sound as close as possible with clean settings, the difference will be the sound of the wood filtering the vibrating strings. I think only your ears can be a guide here. No one can tell you that bass A will be better than B because it has better wood. Likely few ears if any can A/B distinguish the two with high confidence. Nevertheless, bass A will sound at least slightly different than Bass B, because the wood isn't exactly the same, even if its the same species. It's more personality than optimality-whatever fits you best is best. Personally I've become a believer in maple necks, with laminates of other woods OK. But I won't buy a solid ash, rosewood or walnut neck, for example (exception: wenge and wenge laminates, but I'd still go for some maple mixed in if I had the choice). Dampening woods like ebony, ziricote, bocote and rosewood are best for fretboards, where the dampening helps with string and fret noise, but too much in the body or neck may dampen the tone you want too much. The same is true for even harder species like purple heart, which I would only use for stabilizing layers in the neck or as electronics cavity covers. Too much high density wood can make the bass duller or darker sounding. Super-light woods can also be a problem as the strings vibrate the bass with too little balance from the wood mass. There are sweet spots between a leaden solid ebony bass and a hot mess of a 5lb solid basswood bass. Those two will not sound similar--I'd be happy to A/B test those two if you've got them.

 

[Bartrinsic]

Using a CNC machines and swapping necks/fretboards and bodies. I and a few friends made bodies out of alder, maple, mahogony and cardboard. We made necks out of maple, mahogony and ash and fretboards from ebony, rosewood (when it was available) and maple.
Strings were always new.
CNC machines were used to get the same shapes
Then we recorded the bass with a DI and compared them and try to decide which one was which. We then used a blind test tool and flag which one was which. We did 3 test runs of blind tests with 2 days in between them to adjust for daily fluctuations.

In terms of body, nobody could reliably say which wood was which (there were small differences, but i.e there were no clear indication which was sounded better and the cardboard one wasn't clearly in last place.

Same was with the neck. The only thing that really made a big difference if the shapes are thee same, was the fretboard, which all of the testers (several hobby musicians, a few professional musicians and 2 mixing engineers), got nearly everything correct.

Btw we also test bodyshape and that made a bigger difference than the different materials in one shape. So a P body sounded much different from a Telebody.

Was a bit of a boring summer during the pandemic.

Awesome, thanks for this.

 

[iTzPrime]

Awesome, thanks for this.

Hope it helped a bit. Anyway I found out that it doesn't matter at all what bass I play. I still sound like me (with more bass, treble or mids depending on the bass ).
So I just play what is the most comfortable and most fun.
And for 4 strings there is nothing close to my Ibanez