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tjon901 « Super Comfy bass »
Published on 08/21/11 at 05:04The Ibanez Ergodyne is a very interesting and overlooked line of basses. This model has a slightly different body style than the other Ergodynes. The body is made out of a man made material. The finish on this one was a pretty crazy silver finish with some sort of flek in it. I am not sure what the neck is made out of but I think it is maple. The neck is solidly attached with 6 bolts. The fretboard is rosewood with 24 medium frets. The tuners are a set of closed tuning machines. The bass has active electronics. There is a wide array of controls on the bass. Starting at the knob nearest to the neck you have a volume knob. The next knob is a blend knob. There are no switches on this bass so with this blend knob you can blend between each pickup. Next are two stacked knobs. The base of the 3rd knob controls the bass eq and the top of the knob controls your high end. The last knob is pretty cool as it is a sweepable eq. You can set how wide it is and what frequency it is at.
UTILIZATION
Ergonomics is the name of the game with the Ergodyne. This bass has a super body making playing anywhere in any style very easy. The body has an arch to the entire thing. Kind of like a Vox Series 77. This gives you a comfortable feel. There are cutouts in the body for people who play slap and pop style as well. The jack position is pretty much perfect. It goes straight back and you can go directly into your strap for your wrap around or your wireless transmitter. I am not a big fan of stacked knobs but they keep with the clean design. One thing I dont like is that the battery compartment has a screw on design. I guess the bass is too thin for a real pop out compartment. With a screw on design they might as well just put it in the control compartment since you are going to need a screw driver no matter what.
SOUNDS
You can get a ton of tones with the active electronics on this bass. The stacked EQ knob is really cool. You can sweep and find an individual midrange frequency, and with the knob on top you can cut or boost that frequency, any frequency you want. You can get awesome funk tones with this bass. With the EQ sweep and cut you can cut out the low end and have a really twangy sound. The opposite is true as well. You can cut out a bunch of high end and have a super low and fat tone. The material this bass is made out of is very neutral so it is very good for this type of bass. The bass can pretty much do any type of sound you want with composure.
OVERALL OPINION
These basses are pretty rare and I think I know why. People who own them love them so they never want to sell them. Ibanez should reissue this bass with the same exact specs. People would be buying them nonstop. This is a great example on how good a reasonably priced modern bass can be. So many bassists think you gotta pay thousands of dollars for a Warwick or some custom job to have a good bass. With this you can get a super modern feel with active electronics for pretty much nothing if you can find one. If you see one of these basses for sale you should pick it up because its probably the best bass you can get without going to a custom shop.
UTILIZATION
Ergonomics is the name of the game with the Ergodyne. This bass has a super body making playing anywhere in any style very easy. The body has an arch to the entire thing. Kind of like a Vox Series 77. This gives you a comfortable feel. There are cutouts in the body for people who play slap and pop style as well. The jack position is pretty much perfect. It goes straight back and you can go directly into your strap for your wrap around or your wireless transmitter. I am not a big fan of stacked knobs but they keep with the clean design. One thing I dont like is that the battery compartment has a screw on design. I guess the bass is too thin for a real pop out compartment. With a screw on design they might as well just put it in the control compartment since you are going to need a screw driver no matter what.
SOUNDS
You can get a ton of tones with the active electronics on this bass. The stacked EQ knob is really cool. You can sweep and find an individual midrange frequency, and with the knob on top you can cut or boost that frequency, any frequency you want. You can get awesome funk tones with this bass. With the EQ sweep and cut you can cut out the low end and have a really twangy sound. The opposite is true as well. You can cut out a bunch of high end and have a super low and fat tone. The material this bass is made out of is very neutral so it is very good for this type of bass. The bass can pretty much do any type of sound you want with composure.
OVERALL OPINION
These basses are pretty rare and I think I know why. People who own them love them so they never want to sell them. Ibanez should reissue this bass with the same exact specs. People would be buying them nonstop. This is a great example on how good a reasonably priced modern bass can be. So many bassists think you gotta pay thousands of dollars for a Warwick or some custom job to have a good bass. With this you can get a super modern feel with active electronics for pretty much nothing if you can find one. If you see one of these basses for sale you should pick it up because its probably the best bass you can get without going to a custom shop.