Ibanez GSRM20B-WNF Reviews

Great little bass!

Firstly, let's get this out the way, short scale basses and guitars are real instruments, not toys or just for children. Paul McCartney - short scale Hofner "violin" bass and John Lennon - short scale Rickenbacker 325. Get my point? OK.

With that out of the way, this little bass is great for a wide variety of people. Beginners of all ages, the young with smaller hands, older beginners who may not have paticularly supple hands any more, but all beginners can benefit from a short bass. My first bass was a Hofner and I went on to play many 34" scale basses, once you have some proficiency the step up is easier than diving in the deep end.

The other group of musicians who really do well with short scale basses is guitarists, who may want a bass around for a bit of practice or home recording. It is almost seemless jumping between a 25"(ish) scale guitar neck and the Ibanez 28.5" scale neck. This is exactly why I have tried this bass. I still have 2 full scale basses, but have been playing a lot more guitar recently and was finding the 9 inch scale difference a little bit troublesome. This bass has cured that.

This bass also has a factor that is hard to put into words, it's unusual and you just can't put it down, it's fun, unobtrusive, light and easy to pick up and noodle on. All excellent reasons to consider it. Anything that makes you want to pick an instrument up is a major plus.

The setup out the box was exact to the published Ibanez specs, action a little high for my personal tastes but still easy to play - the shorter scale seems to result in a lot less string tension. The only issue was intonation was out, all strings were sharp. This only became apparent at 12th fret and above, and probably not noticeable to a new or low experience ear. With saddles adjusted fully back, G was sorted but E, A, and D remained a little sharp on the tuner but close enough. Fret work is surprisingly good for a lower price point bass, tuners are decent and about what you would expect. Volume and tone pots aren't great, but work and I expect the volumes will be more pickup selectors than blenders. While I've not had it long, it's seems at its best with everything on full, tonally it's quite responsive to where you play the string, which is good for beginners and it makes it easy to markedly adjust tone by adjusting playing position. It's not hard to get great tones out of it.

Over all, this is a great, fun little bass for the money, probably not for the experienced gigging bassist unless you've some medical need (but it is very giggable) , but great for everyone else.

Fantastic short-scale bass

I have short fingers so I have had a friend of mine convert this to a fretless, and it is absolutely amazing. Sounds great, easy to play. There aren't many low-budget short-scale options for bass players, and in this price range I doubt you can find anything better.

The little bass that could

I have this bass for a year now, and it has dethroned my MIM Deluxe Jazz as my goto instrument for everyday use.

Portability

Lugging a full sized Bass around in a sensible car is no easy task. I wanted a smaller bass that I can always have with me.

This bass is as long as a strat is, and a lot lighter.

Short scale

Imagine your bass being capo'ed at the third fret. That's almost exactly what the fret spacing feels on this one.

Sound and Pickups

Shortscales are known to have a deeper sound. This is no exception.

Acoustically its body resonates well, to the point that I routinely not plug it in to do exercises if the room is silent.

The pickups do their job better than you'd expect.

The P sounds great with the boominess of shorter scale.

The J complements the P well, but on its own it's a bit luckluster.

The pickups are pretty much standard sized if you wish to swap them out. Notice like the P has the treble side higher up, in contrast to a Fender.

Quality

Fretwork was good. Couple of bit higher frets near the 12th, but not even to the point that I had to have them fixed.

Neck feels great with its satin finish. Skinny, but it fits the instrument well.

Keys and Bridge, strap buttons are basic but work.

The colour is nothing to marvel at, nor is it gloss finished, but looks good enough from a distance. Standard GIO Ibanez walnut.

Fretboard wood happened to have a light colour streak. I love it now, but didn't at first.

All in all, this little bass has become my goto instrument and I've even gigged with it with passing grades.

Haven't met one guitar or bass player that didn't immediately wanted to get their hands on it when they saw it.

Excellent bass for a guitarist

I play guitar and this is my first bass. I bought this bass to experiment and learn bass. I can say that I was impressed by this bass.

I have not played many basses, but the few times I noodled around on a friend's bass I always found the 34 inch scale uncomfortable. This scale length is very comfortable and felt familiar to me being used to the guitar scale (unsurprising as there is only around 4 inches of difference vs around 9 inches from a standard bass).

The sound is excellent. both the P and J pickups have a great full sound and they offer a good variation in tone when blending between them with the volume controls. The controls are quite simplistic with 2 volumes and a tone. There are no eq knobs so you need to use your amp settings for those.

The setup was also impressively good. The action was comfortable low and the intonation was spot on.

Aesthetically, the bass is also a beauty, and looks more expensive than it is.

Overall recommended for a guitar player wanting to cross over to bass.

Great little bass guitar

I'll start with some context for this guitar. I'm primarily a guitarist and singer, and recently I have started to get into recording music. For this I initially borrowed a friend's full scale Fender Squire J-bass but I have found it impractical adapting to the larger fret size and neck length. This bass guitar beautifully solves this problem with a significantly more manageable size and means I have to change my style only very slightly when going from guitar to this bass (just for reference, I'm 6'2" so it's not necessarily for short people).

In terms of the sound, I switched the strings out for some D'addario flat wounds which make the sound even more mellow. The pickups seem alright, although I've not had much experience with bass pickups so I'm not really qualified to comment.

In terms of playing, it's got a typical smooth matte Ibanez neck which are always nice to play. The finish is a lovely matte dark brown and fits beautifully with my other guitars.

My one con, which isn't major, was that on arrival I plugged it in to my amp and the electronics didn't seem to work. Took the plate off the back and one of the wires was shorting on one of the pots so I fixed it with electrical tape and it now works fine.

Overall I love it! For the price it's incredible. Get one, it's good for the collection and in my opinion, is an excellent choice for the guitarist who occasionally wants a bit more bass in their life.

excellent for younger bassists!

bought this for my nephew, who loves it

Ibanez GSRM20-WNF

Firstly, let me state that I am a guitar player, that wants to have a bass for occasional use. I have tried full scale length basses, and find them uncomfortable for my hands, so was prepared to give a shorter scale instrument a chance - and I am so glad that this was my choice. I cannot fault anything about this instrument from my perspective, action and intonation good straight out of the box, finish of frets good, neck and body finish all fine. Played through a friends 80 watt bass combo, this guitar bumps and growls as I hoped for, the range of sounds from the two pickups and controls, most satisfactory. It is, in the overall scale of things, an inexpensive instrument, but there is nothing at all about this guitar that says 'cheap'. It is comfortable to hold and play, and is about the same overall length as most electric guitars, (38.5"end to end). Are there any negatives? For me, no, because my choice was always going to be a short scale, and within the limited range of available product, and at this price point, I would doubt that you could find better. For players with smaller hands, or like myself just more used to a conventional guitar, well worth considering.