NBD: Randy Edition

[Iron1]

Seems like it's been too long since Randy Google-fu'ed his way to a correct guess with just a micron of imagery to go off of...

[Markus]

Ibanez SR305 in Sparkle Blue.

[Iron1]

Ibanez SR305 in Sparkle Blue.

Not a bad guess at all. But, no.

[Chris]

Yamaha RBX 350.

[Iron1]

Yamaha RBX 350.

Swing and a miss... but an almost equally good guess as Markus.

[Chris]

Fuck, I thought I had it.

[Iron1]

Fuck, I thought I had it.

I didn't, but will tell you I did if that makes you feel better.

[Mike]

Mystic Blue Charvel P Bass IV?

[Iron1]

Mystic Blue Charvel P Bass IV?

Nope. That was never on my radar, although now it is... GASing again... Thanks!

[Mike]

Nope. That was never on my radar, although now it is... GASing again... Thanks!

How could it NOT be?

[Iron1]

How could it NOT be?

Honestly, I had no idea they existed.

[Leah]

Mystic Blue Charvel P Bass IV?

I want one of these.

[Iron1]

Where's Randy?

[Mike]

Where's Randy?

Not playing our silly games, apparently.

[Iron1]

Not playing our silly games, apparently.

I blame Chris…

[playstopause]

Where's Randy?

In the Neural Quad Cortex thread, duh.

[Mike]

I blame Chris…

Isn't that what we always do?

[Iron1]

Isn't that what we always do?

Good point. Maybe we can get a Solar "I Blame Chris" edition guitar for the next NGD Randy game.

[schreckmusic]

Chris=djent

[Randy]

Nobody tagged me, I assumed this was a Randy Ellefson joke.

Is it a Jackson Spectra?

[Iron1]

Nobody tagged me, I assumed this was a Randy Ellefson joke.

Tagged, shmagged...

Is it a Jackson Spectra?

Nope, although I did buy this cause the guy at GC I was going to buy a Spectra from was a tool.

[Iron1]

Hint El Duece:

[Markus]

Hmm, that truss rod adjustment does look sort of like a Yamaha. RBX170?

[Iron1]

Yamaha RBX 350.

Hmm, that truss rod adjustment does look sort of like a Yamaha. RBX170?

Ok, close enough.

It's a Yamaha TRBX174.

After going down the entry-level bass rabbit hole, I kept finding people raving about this thing. Bass players better than I could ever hope to be thinking it was as good, if not better than a lot of basses that cost 3, 4, 5x as much. I'd narrowed my search down to another GSR200, a Jackson Spectra or one of these. Went down to one of the local GCs and played a GSR and a Spectra and since I couldn't find a TRBX anywhere, I settled on the Spectra.

Well, GC had them on sale for Memorial Day weekend, but I was a day late on that deal. So, I called, figuring they would honor that price anyway cause they need to sell stuff. The guy who answered the phone was a giant customer service fail and made it out like I was lying about the thing being on sale... like, seriously, you work there and don't know what your sale that just ended was? And, instead of trying to find out you question a customer's honesty? Piss off. I bit my tongue instead of giving him the old man "I've been buying stuff from guitar center since you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye" speech...

Then I googled Guitar Stores Near Me and found a cool mom & pop shop about 20 minutes away. And, they had like 6 TRBXs in stock. I hoped in the car on my lunch break, drove over, played all 6 of them and thankfully the blue one, which is what I wanted, was the nicest of the bunch. But, it wasn't like the Jackson entry-level stuff where there's a huge variation in quality control. If I'd bought any of them, I'd have been happy.



The body is heavy enough to feel good, but not so heavy as to wear you out playing it. Surprised me that it's definitely heavier than my 5-string Ibanez. It feels really solid. The Spectra felt very lightweight in comparison.



Neck is fast, straight and smooth. The action was a bit high, so I lowered it ever so slightly.

Not really loving the pickups, so I'm going to replace those pretty quickly. Most likely with a set of Entwistle neodymium P/Js.



The bridge is just sad. Literally looks like someone bent a piece of chrome dipped sheet metal and slapped some saddles on it. But, I can get a Hipshot replacement for $50-60 so no big deal.

Tuners are nice, but apparently Yamaha has adjustable tension ones on the TRBX304, so I might look at getting a set of those down the road when these ones start to wear.



Did my latest SAW with this one. Not sure I love the tone, and probably need to knob fiddle a bit more with it, but the bass is so much fun to play I lost interest in tone chasing and just jammed.

[Leah]

I'd throw a set of EMG Geezer Butler pickups in there.