My first bass was a Yamaha RBX200F…fretless bass with a single split-coil pickup, J-bass inspired body and neck…got it from a local music shop in college…came with an ill-fitting Charvel case missing some latches…I replaced the factory pickup with an EMG Select pickup and removed the volume and tone controls…pickup goes straight to the jack. I still have it…I did all sorts of experiments with it…piezo pickup trials using Radio Shack parts…that sort of thing…I sanded off the paint from the neck and polished the maple with tung oil and steel wool…to this day it remains an instrument that baffles me why it sounds as good as it does, and the setup is super-stable, low-action, it just works and feels and sounds good.
In the same season of life I picked up my next bass…my first Ibanez, a mid-80s RG850. It was beat to shizzat…black…all black. But completely roached, pickup pole pieces rusty, scraped and dented up, chunks of finish missing, and mind you at this point in time it wasn't that old. And the frets had been carelessly ripped out; an abused instrument. But I thought it was so cool with the all passive setup with push pots for per-pickup single-coil/humbucking switching, and a balance control vs individual volume pots…and I just thought the shape looked cool…I got it for cheap along with a budget analog mixing console. There was no saving the finish, so I took it all apart and sanded 100% of the black finish off of the body and neck…deep-cleaned everything, sold the console and used the proceeds to take the guitar to a luthier and have it re-fretted and setup. They did an amazing job. It had a sound and it was my main bass for many years…super lame I can't find a picture of the whole thing, just a pic of part of the body:
The problem with it was, for some reason, the neck was super unstable…action was all over the place…I could never figure it out but, even if it was in a stable environment, the action and therefore intonation could vary day-to-day. I still used it for a couple decades…eventually giving it to a family member with full-disclosure about the neck issues. It I think it spiked me with the fast neck and comfortable body shape.
In the intervening years I bought a second-hand 5-string Peavey Grind, which I re-sold after not being happy with the sound…I thought a neck-through was the ticket, but it was an early version and the build quality was not that great, and it surprisingly lacked the sustain I expected from the neck-through design. I also picked up a very rare Kramer Pioneer "Double J" bass, with the even more rare interchangeable fingerboard option, as well as a Peavey T-40…both USA-made basses…both needed work. I also picked up, out of the desire to have a bass that just worked, a beautiful Ibanez SRX3EXQM1 in cherry burst…quilted maple top, body binding…it's just a beautiful guitar, and I love the feel of the neck. I refurbished the Kramer, but there are elements that just don't check the boxes for me, so that's going on the chopping block. I've refurbished the T-40 as well and I have to say it is one of the most comprehensively high-quality bass guitars I've ever had my hands on, and it sounds amazing whether plugged in or not…my only issue is I have small hands and the neck is a little chunkier and the nut width wide enough it just doesn't work as well for me. I really do better with a faster J-bass inspired neck, and the SRX3EXQM1 is *so* nice this way…my problem with the SRX is, and I'm probably passing unfair judgement here, but every bass I've encountered that's come out of the Indonesian Cort factory is just relatively dead-sounding compared to something like my Kramer or the T-40…the SRX is a very well-crafted and beautiful instrument, but the sound is just…damped. So I've been kind of longing for a quality instrument with the neck specs that work for my hands, but also has some versatility to the sound and some level of quality pedigree. So I came across the bass below available locally and am picking it up in a week or so…getting back to my Ibanez roots I guess:
It's an unmolested 2001 SR690…no perceptible wear on the frets, excellent condition throughout, comes with the OHSC and includes the original Ibanez strap…$350. I'm not expecting the sustain and tone and versatility of the T-40, but hoping for a less damped experience compared to the SRX, but still with the fast comfortable neck, and the quality associated with an instrument from the Japan factory…and some versatility from the Vari-Mid electronics. We'll see. But I figured for $350 in that condition in the OHSC it wasn't a bad decision.
That's my SR journey so far.
