Obrienp

I recently bought one of these G2220 online, taking a bit of a punt, sight unseen but it came in at a tadge over £300 new, so worth the risk. I’ve since noticed the same box shifter has put the price up by £65! Having hit 65 I have started to struggle with my long scale basses on fast stuff: short fingers and arthritis slowing me down and I thought it was time for a shorty. I am generally pleased with the G2220: very good value for the money. Finish is pretty good and most of the hardware is fine. The bridge being the main exception: just too dinky. I was amazed at the power of the pickups. They are much hotter than, for instance, the Seymour Duncan quarter pounders I have in a P/J. I was expecting the sound pallet to be pretty limited to the sort of 60s humbucker mud and thump but there is a lot more available. With the standard strings it reminds me quite a lot of the sounds you get out of an Ibanez SR. I actually wanted something a bit more old school and I was finding the standard strings clanky and too slack, so decided to put some flat wounds on it. Try finding short scale flats in the UK for a decent price at the moment! Nobody seems to have La Bella 45-105 in stock. I have been warned against Rotosound short scale (intonation issues). In the end I took a punt on a set of Jim Dunlop flats. I’ve never tried them before but they seem OK. While changing the strings, I also put on a Fender high mass bridge that I had lying about from a previous project. The original bridge has a standard modern Fender 5 hole fitting, so there are plenty of replacement options out there. It has made a positive difference to the sound and I suspect it will hold the intonation better. While I was doing the string change, I discovered that a couple of the machine heads were very loose, which wasn’t helping tuning stability. Tightening the collet nuts and retaining screws has sorted it for now but I suspect the holes were drilled too large. At some point I may need to replace the tuners with Gotohs or similar. I would be interested to hear from other owners how the electrics have worked out long term. Is it worth replacing the cheap pots with CTS for instance?

My two Ibanez basses. I had an SR300 a few years ago as well. The SRH500 is lovely. It gets really close to an upright sound (especially if you put it through a piezo tone correction pedal; e.g. Zoom AC 3, or TCE BodyRez). It’s light, ergonomic and I love the neck. In fact it’s so good I have been thinking of putting a precision pickup in it and only having one bass at gigs. The Affirma is a bit more marmite. Also light and ergonomic but a bit on the bright side for my purposes. I am thinking of trying it with flats, or tape wound to see if that makes it rounder. The string spacing is a bit of a stretch for my short fingers but compensated by a shallow neck.

Just reviving this thread as I stumbled on it by accident. I have had a 4 string fretted version since they were first released in the UK and I love it. It's light, ergonomic and easy to play. However, the point of this post: the drawback of all piezo based pickup systems in my experience is that they can produce a tizzy, brittle tone at some frequencies: nasal is another way of describing it. I haven't particularly noticed it on the SRH500 to be honest (nothing like as bad as my Taylor 6 string acoustic) but you can make it sound really good by using an acoustic correction pedal like a TC Electronic Bodyrez, or even better a Zoom acoustic pedal like the AC-2, which has a dedicated upright bass voice. Using the AC-2 and some EQ tweaking, I can get a really convincing upright bass sound. Like they say on the BBC: other acoustic pre-amps are available. Obviously, it would sound even more authentic if it were fretless but I am happy with the sound I can get out of it. Incidentally this works pretty well on my Ibanez Affirma bass, which also has the aerosilk piezo pickup system in the bridge.

Hi All, I have been gassing after the New Ibanez Affirma but can’t afford one and I am not sure my stubby fingers could manage the wider string spacing. However, I love the idea of having both a piezo and magnetic pickup in one lightweight bass. It would be ideal for the 50-70s cover band I am playing in: no more bass changes; one bass all night. it happens I have an Ibanez SRH 500 aerium, which I love. It is light weight, comfortable to play and makes a passable upright bass tone through the AeroSilk piezo bridge. Could I turn it onto an Affirma substitute by a adding a magnetic pup? Has anybody tried this? What was your experience and did it sound OK afterwards? i was thinking of adding a split precision pickup, like a Bartolini and possibly a preamp, although I might just leave it passive. I imagine there would need to be quite a lot of routing out the centre block to accommodate the precision pickup. Would this compromise the stability of the bass and is the centre block wide enough to match the width of the pup? There seems to be plenty of space in the cavity for additional controls and preamp. I could either add a separate output socket or blend into the existing socket. The blended idea could add quite a few different tones, so worth a try but is this a wiring challenge? i guess the final question is: will this mod affect the resale value? Will I end up with a worthless bass? Thoughts and experiences would be very welcome.