IBANEZ ROADSTAR 11 SERIES BASS

The RB 820 is one of the relatively recently introduced Roadstar bass models, selling for a price which puts it alongside some of the best current Japanese products. Visually it's an unusual instrument. The body is long and thin, heavily contoured on the back, with extensive chamfering on the edges. Our review sample came in a shade called 'metallic black', a very dark brownish tone with minute gold flecks in it. Complementing the elongated body is one of the smallest headstocks we've seen. In the catalogue it doesn't seem so tiny, but in the flesh — well, it measures under 6" from the tip to the nut, making it distinctly odd-looking.

On the construction side, the Ibanez features a body laminated from alder and birch. The neck is maple, with a rosewood fingerboard, and is bolted to the body in four places. The machines are small, sealed types of the Ibanez 'Velve Tune BII' kind — ultra smooth in operation. The bridge is a new type from Ibanez — the 'Accu Cast BII'. String fastening is through the back, with each string travelling over a slightly rounded contact point on the saddles, each of which is adjustable, individually, for height via one small screw per saddle. Intonation (string length) is governed by a spring loaded front-to-back adjustment screw.

The bridge appears to be cast from a lightweight alloy — Ibanez proclaiming in their brochure that it has been deliberately made light so as to improve sustain transmission. This is odd as the conventional wisdom suggests that the heavier a bridge, the better it will transmit string vibrations. Before getting on to the feel and sound of the bass, a quick look at what is a very interesting pickup is definitely in order. This is a simple-looking design (they call it the 'Super J6', by the way). It uses steel alloy magnets and is connected to a small metal flick switch, which taps it to deliver series twin coil, parallel twin coil and single coil settings. The volume and tone pots are plastic types, with well ribbed rubber surrounds — ideal for a good grip.

The first things to hit you when you pick the bass up and strap it on are Ibanez's very sensible strap buttons. These aren't a locking type, in fact they're just pointed, rotatable spikes, but will prevent even a loose fitting strap fastening from allowing your bass to go crashing to the stage floor in a moment of terror!

"WE DOUBT THAT YOU'D FAIL TO APPRECIATE THE SOUND OF IT... WHATEVER YOU THOUGHT OF ITS LOOKS AND FEEL."

Having said that the strap buttons claim your attention quickly, a more lasting impression is created by the amazingly low weight of the bass — that and the unusual position it adopts. One of the MUSIC U.K. team (a Precision user) tried it and swore that it had a short scale — but no, in fact it has 21 frets on a full 34". Why it feels so short is that the headstock naturally comes far closer to your left hand when the bass is strapped-up than is normal on most basses. This is something you'll either like or not — depending on your tastes, but it does have the advantage of making the bass easy and very comfortable to handle, once you get used to it. In fact that feature, coupled with the Ibanez's lightness makes it altogether an unfamiliar-seeming instrument. But the neck is very comfortable, the fretting perfect (on our sample) and the whole instrument suggests an ease of use which would make it perfect for any player used to tackling lengthy sets — or anyone with a back or shoulder problem, come to that!

The neck too is very comfortable. The rosewood fingerboard has a fairly rounded profile and, although it's by no means narrow, it's fast and easy to handle. Sound from the Ibanez is not what you'd expect. You'd be justified in anticipating a distinct lack of sustain from such a light instrument but sustain is very good indeed and the sound from the Super J6 pickup is tremendously impressive. If you're a snapper and puller then the single coil setting is rasping and sharp — ideal for the funky, cutting sound much in vogue today, but the series/parallel configurations are equally usable. Set to its deepest tone, the Ibanez turns towards a fat, warm sound which would suit either a traditional bass tone or a riff-machine in a heavy band — it's a particularly versatile sounding instrument with a wide range of easily controllable tones and a very full sound — despite its rather insubstantial mass.

The Ibanez RB 820 is certainly an original instrument. It's one of those basses which you could either love or hate. We doubt that you'd fail to appreciate the sound of it though, whatever you thought of its looks and feel.

At the price we think that it's maybe a bit expensive but, for all that, it's a great sounding and very comfortable instrument. Check this one out — it might well be your perfect bass — especially if you're a bit on the small side or play very long gigs!

IBANEZ ROADSTAR RS 315 GUITAR

Another relative newcomer from the Ibanez stable, the Roadstar RS 315 is a sort of halfway house guitar. It's got a shade of a Telecaster in its looks, mingled with a soupcon of Strat — looking overall like some of the nicer American custom makers' guitars — especially in the fabulous 'Marine Sunburst' colour which our sample came in. The mallard green/blue of the Marine Sunburst shade is so good, and so unusual that we'd opt for it any day — it looks like a custom finishing job worth a good few quid extra, rather than a standard finish.

The RS 315 comprises a laminate of superb looking flame maple on the top, fitted onto a body base of something Ibanez call 'Basswood' — a wood which (according to their catalogue) they're using on quite a few models these days. Anyone out there able to enlighten us as to what this may be? Either way the guitar is very heavy (nicely heavy, mind you) so it's something fairly dense.

The bolt-on neck on the Ibanez is maple with an integral (as opposed to applied) maple fingerboard. Fretting used is somewhere near a Fender gauge wire, with each fret accurate in height and the guitar having a very fast, comfortable neck — ideal for speedy soloing.

The machines on this Ibanez are their luxurious-feeling 'Velve Tune' types — probably the silkiest around. We didn't actually strip one down, but suspect that nylon gearing may be used to achieve that feel. How it stands up to long-term use if that is the case we couldn't say (probably not as well as metal gearing if it really is nylon) but it certainly endows these machines with a superb feel.

The bridge is a new type, tremolo equipped, with Ibanez's new 'Hard Rocker' tremolo system. This wraps the strings ends round and beneath the saddles and then runs them up across the fully individually adjustable, tracked saddles up to the nut. They pass over a plastic nut and then travel across very smooth, rounded string guides and thus into the machines.

Meanwhile, back at the bridge, not only are the saddles adjustable individually, but the bridge height can be altered too, via large allen screws at each end of it. Using this facility enables you to lower the bridge (raising the action with the saddles) and thus increase the sensitivity of the tremolo arm, or set the bridge high — lowering the strings via the saddles, so that the arm has less sensitivity. It's a sophisticated tremolo system (perhaps harder to explain in words than it would be to actually use) and a distinct advance, in several respects, on the old Strat type.

There's just one pickup on this model — a twin coil exposed humbucker, connected to rubber-ribbed volume-and tone controls. The volume pot, thoughtfully, has been perfectly placed for 'violining'.

The pickup is Ibanez's 'V2' model — seem to have heard that name somewhere before, ah yes, the infamous World War II Flying Bomb — how appropriate! Yes, this certainly is a wild animal of a pickup. The overload potential seems to be so high that even a relatively low-gain amp can be easily overdriven with it — producing a really snorting attack with bags of distortion potential — ideal for Eddie Van Halen solos and great meaty, steaming and dinosaur chords. Regrettably there's no single coil facility on this pickup, which does seem to be a bit of unnecessary meanness on the maker's part. The guitar has a tremendous amount of natural treble, due to the placement of the pickup right down by the bridge, but, even so, a single coil facility would have been a nice find.

It has to be said that this Ibanez is really a one-sound guitar. You can (with an amp offering variable input gain) get it clean, but it's obviously been designed to be an instrument for heavy chords, riffs and solo work — and not much else. For that type of playing it's very impressive and the new Ibanez tremolo system works like a dream — the strings returning to pitch even after the whang bar's been leant on with all the subtlety of a gorilla on speed!

Overall this certainly isn't a guitar for the player who earns their living playing Heavy Rock one day and 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' in waltz time the following night! If metal is your scene and you're looking for a fire-eating, ultra-high output guitar, then this is one to try. Subtle, it isn't — heavy it is! Pretty good value too, at around the £261 mark.