So I have had the Ibanez EHB1505MS for a while now and I have found time to play it. I even played it at a gig a couple of weeks ago. Here’s my rundown.
On the positive side
- It’s beautiful. I opted for the “ocean inlet” green finish and I love it.
- It’s so light! I haven’t weighed it, but I’m guessing it’s under 7.5 pounds. So good for my back.
- Ibanez’s tuning mechanisms at the bridge are very well built and work great.
- The frets are great.
- The multi-scale thing doesn’t bother me much. Just sometimes when I reach for a low C I can miss it and end up fretting out or playing a C#.
But there are some issues. First, the knobs feel wiggly and cheap. Worse than any bass I have owned in at least a decade and that’s at least half a dozen. All of which retailed for hundreds less than this one does. I think this is probably easily fixed with higher quality replacements, but I haven’t looked into it yet.
The second problem is also disappointing. The side markers don’t really work. They’re supposed to be glow-in-the dark after “charging” up in daylight. But if they do this, I haven’t observed it. To make matters worse, they’re so small I can barely see them. There’s no easy fix for this. As I said, disappointing. I may end up sticking some dots of glow tape on the neck. As ghetto as that sounds, I know it’ll do the job. (I have done it before on my Warwick when I was in the pit for James. When the stage blacked out it was dark.)
Finally, the most vexing problem of all. The first time I played it through my gig rig at rehearsal I could tell right away something was not right. I had the preamp knobs all set to their center detent (i.e. flat EQ). I had the pickup blend set to the middle, too. And it sounded really middy. Like WTF is happening levels of middy. I thought at first I was going to fix this by checking and adjusting the pickup heights, but no. That did not work. The only way to make it sound right (balanced, that is) was to nudge the blend knob toward the neck pickup. Then it sounded full and not so burpy.
So, what is happening? Why is it this way? I know very little about electronics. For now, though, I will continue to run the blend knob nudged. One day maybe I’ll have it looked at.
So, having said all of that, would I buy it again? I had originally considered basses by Spector, Dingwall and Cort. If I had not gone with the EHB1505 I might have either gotten the EHB1005 or the Cort A5 Beyond. I didn’t see myself ponying up for the Spector or the Dingwall, as both retail at over two grand and are enormous.
In any case, I will probably write about this bass again at some point. I think we’re still in the “getting to know each other” phase. So stay tuned. (Get it?)