JoeEvans Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 (edited) PRICE DROP - £450 posted I bought this thinking that a small headless bass might a nice thing to have around; I've since bought an ACG that does the same job so sadly I have to part with the Ibanez. The Ibanez Axstar is a fairly rare beast in the UK. In my opinion it's one of the best wooden small bodied, headless basses of the era, similar to the Yamaha BX-1 in quality. It's pure 1980s in looks, it could be a prop from Total Recall or some similar 80s sci-fi. But the body shape is extremely ergonomic - it hangs in just the right place when standing up with no neck dive, and it also sits comfortably on your lap, unlike many basses of this type. Access high up the fretboard is superb. From the original brochure, the bolt-on neck is 3-piece maple, fretboard is rosewood and body is basswood. 34" scale. Twin passive humbuckers and a fairly chunky and industrial bridge and tuning mechanism. With worn-in strings, you basically tune it about once a month, if that - it's incredibly stable. You can use standard 34" strings. The truss rod turns smoothly and does its job. The neck is pretty skinny, 17mm string spacing at the bridge tapering to 11mm at the nut. Weight is just 3kg, because it's got such a small body, but it feels very solid and well-built. It's evidently been played a lot since the 80s and the body has quite a few dings and scratches and one chip through to bare wood. I've tried to show this in the pictures. The sound is very fat and rich, with the humbuckers giving pretty high output. There's a volume control for each pickup and a passive tone control - in all honesty the tone control isn't dramatic in effect. It would be perfect for 80s funk, but with the treble rolled off it would also be superb for reggae / dub, it's got this huge, solid sustain to it. It would be an absolute beast played with a pick for metal, with some distortion. I'm selling it with a good quality, almost new gig bag from Thomann which makes for a very neat, small package. You could take it as hand luggage on a plane just by paying for a large cabin bag - in the case it measures 109 x 29 x 13cm, whereas Easyjet allows up to 117 x 38 x 30cm for a large cabin bag. Happy to post it for £20, or collect from Bristol. Here's someone playing one better than I would, and giving a good impression of the tone. Edited Sunday at 16:11 by JoeEvans 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itu Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Argh, my favourite bass from the 80's that's affordable. Wish I had the money now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 The yellow blob on the body of the bass is a sticker, since removed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard R Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 That's great. I'm only playing 5 string these days, but have a bump for a very cool bass. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Is that 3kg an exact? I'm on the hunt for something in that ballpark, weight-wise... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 On 21/03/2024 at 20:37, Muzz said: Is that 3kg an exact? I'm on the hunt for something in that ballpark, weight-wise... Hey Muzz, sorry for slow reply. It's 3kg on my kitchen scales so reasonably accurate. I'll check it this morning though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 Here we go: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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