Ibanez SRH500F-NNF

I haven't owned a fretless for 15 years. The genres I work with these days don't normally use fretless. I'm really more of a vintage P-bass guy.

This bass will be my "guilty pleasure" bass. I didn't want to spend too much for something that will propably only be used at home, maybe the occasional recording.

But I was very pleasantly surprised. The craftsmanship is much better than I had expected at this price. Ok, so the wood is a bit too much "dragged in by the tide" for me but that's just personal taste. Lots of people like this kind of exotic wood look. It certainly gives the bass a bit of a "boutique" coffee table vibe. The wood certainly looks to be excellent quality and the finish is flawless.

The neck is absolutely wonderful. Maybe a bit slim for my personal taste but it's very, very nice.

The hardware is typical Ibanez SR. Good quality.

The electronics are pretty basic but works great. Tone+volume knobs, no magnetic pickup, only piezo. I'm usually not a big fan of piezos but this one actually sounds great. Individual volume adjustment for each string is a nice touch.

The factory setup was amazing! Very low action, no buzzing or any kind of problems anywhere. Excellent string to string balance. Perfect! Really impressive! The setup makes anything I've seen from Fender lately seem like a bad joke. Fender could certainly learn a lot from Ibanez about setup, quality control and manufacturing quality instruments without serious flaws.

The only thing I'm not happy with are the strings. I believe they're D'Addario Chromes. They certainly have that cheap, metallic D'Addario sound. They will of course mellow out over time but unlike most other flatwounds Chromes doesn't get better with age in my experience. They just die. I love flatwound strings but the ONE exception is D'Addario Chromes. I will probably get some Thomastik Jazz Flats instead. Having said that, the Chromes don't sound quite as bad on this piezo equipped fretless as they do on a regular fretted bass with magnetic pickups. The nasty D'Addario upper mid clank is a bit subdued with this bass.

The bass is made in Indonesia so I wouldn't be surprised if it's manufactured at the Cort factory where companies like Fender, Gibson, etc. makes their cheaper series. But this Ibanez doesn't have the cheap mass manufactured feel of a Squier/Epiphone. It feels like a unique product of surprisingly good quality.

Highly recommended for anyone looking for a reasonably priced fretless. If you can live with the coffee table look it's a really good instrument for the price.

I bought this one blind..
This bass is totaly different than any other electric bass on the market.
*the piezo"aero silk" system.
Unlike magnetic pick-ups where the string disturbes the magnetic field thus creating an output voltage,this works with pressure sensitive dots placeded under a nylon cap on the individual string sadels.
This system gives you an almost acoustic dreamsound wich is rich and lucious. Also very direct responding to tecnique,intonation,left and right hand technical knowledge.
Any string on this bass will give you huge fundamentals. When you turn up your amp/system,take the "E" string between tumb and indexfinger and move it slightly left and right. Your woofers will move back and forth about 1 to1,5 cm.
Played thru a P.A. system you probably have to tell the engineer to use a subsonic filter for woofer protection(!!!)
You might think that just a volume control and a tone control are not enough..but..you also have the gain trimpots for the individual strings.
What you can do with low gain(on the saddles)/high out(full volume on the vol.pot) or the opposite,high gain (on the saddles)low out (volume on the vol.pot) is incredible.
Any soundengineer will know how you can make or break the sound with just this two controls.
Then you have the toneknob where you can tailor your sound to your needs.
Personaly i like the overall design from this bass,sort of "Jugendstill,Art Deco,Art Nouveau from the period around 1900. Shapewise..
I don't like the finish though, why don't they just show the natural wood. That would certainly give it a more distinctive look.
The neck feels good and fast. The position markers on the fingerboard might be aestethicaly nice,but they are only confusing in conjunction with the side dot markers on the neck. Takes some time getting used to.
Conclusion: this i a great instrument!!
It forces you to choose your notes wisely because of the upright character of the instrument.
Not easy to play staccato parts and 16th notes on this one(because of the sub wich is there on any(realy!) note.
Takes a bit more effort to intonate due to the almost "direct" respons.
Very recommended!!!
Thank you Thomann!!