NBD 2nd day in a row - Ibanez EHB1005F

[nightsprinter]

Sold my fretless 6 string bass last week and had a bit of an empty nest feeling for extended range fretless afterwards. Got a little trigger happy on Reverb and took a shot on my first headless deal.

This one is easier to play than my other atm due to the side fret marker lines.

It's light but not so light that it feels like something from Toys R Us. Lightest instrument I have I think. Neck feels great, fingerboard is nice and smooth.

The arctic ocean matte finish looks good. It's not as smooth as my other matte finished guitars. But that's fine by me, I don't care. It will get shined up and scratched up soon enough.

Stock B string feels good for a 34" scale. I prefer 35" typically but tons of great records were recorded with 34" 5-string basses, so my bias might just hail from some type of Periphery Syndrome where bigger and longer MUST be better, or whatever the hivemind is leading miserable consumers like me to believe. I have a 37-34" ms btb 6 string bass for the djunga bunga stuff anyway.

So far, so good, so what. I'll put it through its paces over the next couple days, find some stuff to bitch about, and report back.

 

[Crungy]

Congrats on the new bass! I didn't realize they offered those as fret less.

Do you normally do standard tuning on it or is it much hassle to drop down to A on the headless hardware?

 

[nightsprinter]

These tuners are easy it turns out. I haven't done a string change yet, but I switched between A standard and B standard with ease when I was testing them out. They aren't hard to turn and what's more is they have a certain level of resistance to them that seems to imply to me that they're gonna keep tune well. It isn't the kind of resistance once associates with a worm gear that's about to shear or round off.

 

[Grindspine]

I have three EHB basses now, 2x EHB1505ms and one six string 1506ms. The fact that a 35" scale can fit into a guitar gig bag still astounds me. The EHBs are so nice and light compared to my BTB845v and easier / more comfortable to play than my SoundGear SR1825 or my Squire Mustang bass

Ibanez did something right with these.

I will note, though, that I still have the 1506ms because every 1505ms in Black Ice Flat was a dud. One had lifting frets and another had a split in the fretboard. Panga Panga and Wenge are awesome when properly handled, but those two did slip past QC. The three EHBs I still have are amazing though.

 

[nightsprinter]

I have three EHB basses now, 2x EHB1505ms and one six string 1506ms. The fact that a 35" scale can fit into a guitar gig bag still astounds me. The EHBs are so nice and light compared to my BTB845v and easier / more comfortable to play than my SoundGear SR1825 or my Squire Mustang bass

Ibanez did something right with these.

I will note, though, that I still have the 1506ms because every 1505ms in Black Ice Flat was a dud. One had lifting frets and another had a split in the fretboard. Panga Panga and Wenge are awesome when properly handled, but those two did slip past QC. The three EHBs I still have are amazing though.

Hear hear dude. I have bones to pick with the ibanez Indonesia fret department, I'll put it that way. Glad you found a keeper. I really like the feel of this thing.

I like panga panga and wenge when they're done well but the lumber needs to be selected very carefully. I sometimes find boards where the pores are borderline cracking down the whole thing.

And whoever decided the srf705 fretless should have a soft and porous panga panga fingerboard is insane.

 

[Grindspine]

Hear hear dude. I have bones to pick with the ibanez Indonesia fret department, I'll put it that way.

Buying a fretless was a great way to get past that! I have handled a few instruments with Richlight and am undecided on it. It should make for a decent board on a fretless though. Are you keeping the stock roundwounds or switching over to half-rounds, flats, or tape?

 

[nightsprinter]

Rounds for now. I want to test out how succeptible richlite is to witness marks. I used to run halfs on the mtd kingston w ebony board I had and will probably wind up going that route eventually.

 

[Grindspine]

I have never been able to commit to flats. I have liked the half-rounds I tried, but that was back when I only had two basses and wanted some more brightness so stuck back to rounds. Let me know how the fretboard holds up to rounds!

 

[Dayn]

Nice, I want to get one at some point. I have an EHB1006MS, which had a slightly raised fret, so fretless will pretty much solve that immediately.

I was going to get tapewounds, but since I don't have a fretless it's only hypothetical at the moment.

 

[Shawn]

Very sleek. Congrats!