Post by rtm on Jun 17, 2018 21:12:06 GMT
So the guitars just got their spotlight and injection of new models.
But what about bass? There's some pretty dated stuff in the lineup, (who even buys a copy of a B.C. Rich??) the progressive basses were ugly when they came out and they're ugly now. They're a pretty transparent attempt at taking market share from Ibanez and their SR300 series, but just on looks alone I'd happily pay the 3x price for the Ibanez and not even take the Harley Benton if I got paid for it.
And then all the nice basses they DO have go out of stock for months in the middle of summer. The PJs (despite unusable pickguards, which can easily be fixed) and the JBs all gone except the fretless one, lefties, the one without a pickguard and the cheapest ones.
What remains is the "I'm 67, wear suspenders, and only play gigs at Casinos" MM-84A, the HBZ with the built in jet engine noise in the electronics, the McCartney copy and the other Musicman copies. That's it. The BZ series is in and while it's great, it's not whimsical money for everyone.
So the only thing that's actually buyable for me now as an "emergency bass" (I need one STAT) for the kind of money I'm ready to spend in summer, is the PB-50, which I neither like nor dislike, but having heard demos it's pretty clear it absolutely 110% requires flatwound strings with its microphonic pickup picking up more finger noise than tones. And guess what it ships with. Roundwounds.
Dear santa, for christmas I wish HB would get their bass act together, re-do the Progressive series to not look like the SR300's stunted cousin, more adventurous finishes, (see: the real Ibanez SR300E series - especially the OFM) less dumb choices (see: strings shipping on PB-50) and finally and most importantly:
N O S A L A M I P I C K G U A R D S
Sorry for venting, super frustrated with HB