2014 Ibanez Destroyer with EMGs Review (sounds a little Spector-ish to me)

[Rib13Bass]

I wasnt going to post this but Im so tickled by how these EMGs I put in this bass made it sound very Spector-ish to me that I thought I should go ahead and share it anyway...or am I wrong about it being in the Spector ballpark? ( noticeable in the slap portion)
 

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Rib13Bass

[NancyJohnson]

I'm not looking to go down the route that all basses sound the same and that the different nuances get lost in the mix (that's been covered lots of times), but isn't there an inevitability that if you're emulating/copying a pickup configuration used elsewhere that there will be a degree of similarity with the source tone?

 

I've owned four Spector basses and they all had different guts; of the last two, the Euro LT had Barts and a Darkglass circuit, the current Euro X has EMGs and a Spector Tone Pump.  Tonally I'd take the Euro X over the LT every day of the week, but they didn't sound much different (the X just seems to have more attack).  They've made a lot of basses and switch around the electrics at will. 

 

I'm sure players will be able to say there's a distinct Spector tone (much as you have a distinct Precision/Jazz/Rickenbacker/Stingray/Thunderbird tone), but with Spector there's just too many levels of switcheroonie to be able to say, 'Yep, that's a Spector.'

[Rib13Bass]

46 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I'm not looking to go down the route that all basses sound the same and that the different nuances get lost in the mix (that's been covered lots of times), but isn't there an inevitability that if you're emulating/copying a pickup configuration used elsewhere that there will be a degree of similarity with the source tone?

 

I've owned four Spector basses and they all had different guts; of the last two, the Euro LT had Barts and a Darkglass circuit, the current Euro X has EMGs and a Spector Tone Pump.  Tonally I'd take the Euro X over the LT every day of the week, but they didn't sound much different (the X just seems to have more attack).  They've made a lot of basses and switch around the electrics at will. 

 

I'm sure players will be able to say there's a distinct Spector tone (much as you have a distinct Precision/Jazz/Rickenbacker/Stingray/Thunderbird tone), but with Spector there's just too many levels of switcheroonie to be able to say, 'Yep, that's a Spector.'

 

Yup, I agree.....on messageboards we only have text to convey our thoughts, we can't communicate actual body language or inflections to accurately perceive what someone is trying to communicate......so, yes. I'm just talking Spector as a generality of what is the ambiguous "gee that's kind of like a Spector" , the same way when we hear a Ric with that growly roundwound Geddy/Squire thing a lot of us often think "Gee that sounds like a Ric" even though 4001/4003s can get a multitude of tones( especially depending on string type), some which are far removed from that perceived "Gee that sounds like a Ric" sound

 

When I replaced the pickups, I was just looking to make this bass active.....the ambiguous Spector- ness was just a happy byproduct of the result 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Rib13Bass

[NancyJohnson]

4 minutes ago, Rib13Bass said:

 

Yup, I agree.....on messageboards we only have text to convey our thoughts, we can't communicate actual body language or inflections to accurately perceive what someone is trying to communicate......so, yes. I'm just talking Spector as a generality of what is the ambiguous "gee that's kind of like a Spector" , the same way when we hear a Ric with that growly roundwound Geddy/Squire thing a lot of us often think "Gee that sounds like a Ric" even though 4001/4003s can get a multitude of tones( especially depending on string type), some which are far removed from that perceived "Gee that sounds like a Ric" sound

 

With the Geddy/Rickenbacker thing, I'm sure that while the public persona of the guy was all 4001/4003 through an Ampeg some of the bass playing ilk were horrified when he was pictured with the Jazz bass onMoving Pictures (I think).

 

I've been doing the bass stuff for over 35 years, if nothing I think that - string numbers aside - I've just become a bit jaded at the lack of real innovation with how everything sounds more or less the same and that nothing really stands head and shoulders over anything else.  This prompted a blind sound test with 15 basses at one of the Bass Bashes a few years ago (video below).  I don't think anyone recognised more than two or three basses, lots of people didn't even recognise their own basses!

 

 

[Killerfridge]

I think the fact that you could hear people going "that's just the same bass again" when they switched between an Epiphone Thunderbird and a Rickenbacker 4001 is all you need to know!

14 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

With the Geddy/Rickenbacker thing, I'm sure that while the public persona of the guy was all 4001/4003 through an Ampeg some of the bass playing ilk were horrified when he was pictured with the Jazz bass onMoving Pictures (I think).

 

I've been doing the bass stuff for over 35 years, if nothing I think that - string numbers aside - I've just become a bit jaded at the lack of real innovation with how everything sounds more or less the same and that nothing really stands head and shoulders over anything else.  This prompted a blind sound test with 15 basses at one of the Bass Bashes a few years ago (video below).  I don't think anyone recognised more than two or three basses, lots of people didn't even recognise their own basses!

 

 

 

[Rib13Bass]

On 16/06/2023 at 05:33, NancyJohnson said:

 

I've been doing the bass stuff for over 35 years, if nothing I think that - string numbers aside - I've just become a bit jaded at the lack of real innovation with how everything sounds more or less the same and that nothing really stands head and shoulders over anything else.  

 

 

Ive been playing professionally for over 30 years. In my early 50s, I switched careers and became a RN but, like you, Ive first hand witnessed bass guitar evolution and trends (or de-evolution as far as the 2010s til now is concerned lol)

While there are many factors that affects tone, imo the voice of a bass comes from pickup placement (moving the plucking hand position affects tone of that voice similar to making vowel sounds with a persons mouth) and, of course, the newness and freshness of strings and their string type affects harmonic structure of that voice. Unfortunately, there are only x-finite places between a bridge and a neck to place a pickup. (See video below just going halfway - btw. I WANT this bass lol)........I think the next evolution will be doing what Line6 tried to do prematurely with the Variax twenty years ago. The technology wasnt ready then, but if they tried to do it now with modern tech modeling, including VST support and IR support, plus the ability to be MIDI controllers to control VSTi instruments like the Solemn Tones Kraken Bass VSTi (or control any VSTi, bass or otherwise) and also have the ability to just play as a standard bass guitar, I think they would be ahead of the curve ... Just in my Vonnegut Opinion(*) of course 
 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Rib13Bass

[crazycloud]

On 15/06/2023 at 23:30, Rib13Bass said:

I wasnt going to post this but Im so tickled by how these EMGs I put in this bass made it sound very Spector-ish to me that I thought I should go ahead and share it anyway...or am I wrong about it being in the Spector ballpark? ( noticeable in the slap portion)

That was a fun watch. I've had an Korina Explorer bass and played (briefly) an Alembic Spyder and i hated the ergonomics so much I moved the Explorer on pretty quicky. Lots of basses with PJ EMGs have a similar tonal character, so yeah, sort of Spector-ish.

 

1 hour ago, Rib13Bass said:

While there are many factors that affects tone, imo the voice of a bass comes from pickup placement (moving the plucking hand position affects tone of that voice similar to making vowel sounds with a persons mouth) and, of course, the newness and freshness of strings and their string type affects harmonic structure of that voice. Unfortunately, there are only x-finite places between a bridge and a neck to place a pickup.

Agreed, plus the type of pickup. Talking about the aperture width and the configuration of the coils and where they sense. An EMG DC in the P position isn't going to sound the same as a P, but live, close enough. No one in the audience will care. I played in a cover/party band for years with the one bass and I moved my hand, how I plucked the strings, PU blend and tone in off/half/full to get a huge variety of sounds.

 

I'll watch the blind comparo video later.