Bensalem, PA (June 8, 2012) – When the bass designers at Ibanez put themselves to the task of building a solid, dependable fretless bass that would sell for less than $500, “We’re answering the many bass players we’ve heard say they’d love to add a fretless to their bass arsenal.” says Ibanez USA Bass Product Manager Kiyotaka Yamada.
The fretted versions of the bass, SR370 and SR375, are already well known to Ibanez bass fans. “The maple body, in terms of tonal character, made it the perfect candidate for a fretless version, ” said Kamada. Plus, the 370 and 375 had proven themselves to be perfect examples of what makes the SR bass line so popular: “Fast, thin, necks. Light in weight, yet heavy in terms of sound, and unbeatable quality in their price categories.” The SR 370F and 370F offer some surprisingly upscale features, like an arched-top body and a 5-piece maple and rosewood neck.
While the concept of the SR has long been embraced by bassists the world over , “5-string” and “fretless” is a rare combination—especially at the modest end of the market. The motivation? Yamada explains: “Building really comfortable, playable 5-string basses has earned us strong word-of-mouth. Every bassmaker seems to be building 5-strings now, but what players are finding is that some of them are a lot of work to play. We led the way with our 5-string basses and Ibanez players now expect any of our 4-string offerings to also have a 5-string counterpart.” For that reason, the choice to offer the fretless as a 5-string, Yamada says, was “a no-brainer.”
For more information, visit:
www.ibanez.com
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Peterson StroboStomp Mini Pedal Tuner
| The StroboStomp Mini delivers the unmatched 0.1 cent tuning accuracy of all authentic Peterson Strobe Tuners in a mini pedal tuner format. We designed StroboStomp Mini around the most requested features from our customers: a mini form factor, and top mounted jacks. |
But by gosh, if delay—and its sister effect, reverb—haven’t always been perfect for the music I like to write and play. Which brings us to the Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay. The EchoBack, along with the standard delay controls of level, time, and repeats—as well as a tap tempo—has a toggle to alternate between analog, tape, and digital-delay voices.
I hooked up my Washburn Bella Tono Elegante to my Blues Junior to give the EchoBack a test run. We love a medium delay—my usual preference for delay settings is to have both level and repeats at 1 o’clock, and time at 11 o’clock. With the analog voice switched on, I heard some pillowy warmth in the processed signal, as well as a familiar degradation with each repeat—until their wake gave way to a gentle, distant, crinkly ticking. Staying on analog and adjusting delay time down to 8 o’clock and repeats to about 11:30, some cozy slapback enveloped my rendition of Johnny Marr’s part to “Back to the Old House,” conjuring up thoughts of Elvis trapped in a small chamber, but in a good way. It sounded indubitably authentic. The one drawback of analog delay for me, generally, is that its roundness can feel a bit under water at times.
Switching over to tape, that pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top. With the settings at the medium-length mode listed above, I could see the empty, glass hall the pedal sent my sound bouncing down. I heard several pronounced pings of repeats before the signal fully faded out. On slapback settings (time at 8 o’clock, repeats at 11:30), rather than Elvis, I heard something more along the lines of a honky-tonk mic in a glass bottle. Still relatively crystalline, which actually was not my favorite. I like a bit more crinkle—so maybe analog is my bag....“That pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear, pristine replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top.”
Next up, digital. Here we have the brightest voice, and as expected, the most faithful repeats. They ping just a few times before shifting to a smooth, single undulating wave. When putting its slapback hat on, I found that the effect was a bit less alluring than I’d observed for the analog and tape voices. This is where the digital delay felt a little too sterile, with the cleanly preserved signal feeling a bit unnatural.
All in all, I dig the EchoBack for its replications of analog and tape voices, and ultimately, lean towards tape. While it’s nice having the digital delay there as an option, it feels a bit too clean when meddling with time of any given length. Nonetheless, this is surely a handy stomp for any acoustic player looking to venture into the land of live effects, or for those who are already there.
