Ibanez - AFB200 TKS Electric Bass Guitar - Transparent Black Sunburst

The bass is a beautiful shape and design, while the body has detailed curvature points. Why slap the bass when you can feel it up? Seriously, and it looks much better in person to my delight! It sounds amazing, the only thing that doesn't get this 5 stars is the bridge pickup resonance. You have to be extra careful with muting. But, there's many ways to fix that with light mods! Besides, they have semi-hollowson this site if that's your niche!

This bass has really good build quality and a great feeling neck. The sound is pure vintage, even unplugged, and especially with flat wounds as I have it strung. Like most hollow bodies it will feed back at high volumes. The only thing I’m not so wild about is the finish, which looks a bit dark and flat for my taste, but otherwise this is a solid bass and a great value.

A regretable buy.

Further update on my last review post. Ibanez sent me a replacement Artcore vintage bass. Although better than the first one they had to replace, the action was still high and buzzing all over the place. I took it to an experienced professional guitar tech/luthier I'd used before. Some of the frets were bumpy and unlevel and as they were bedded in ok, they had to be stoned down. He did neck and bridge adjustment and his best to get the action as low as he could. It's now playable for gigs, but will never have a great action as the E string and to some point the A string still rattles and buzzes if I play just a little hard on them. Sound wise it gives me exactly what I want with flatwounds strings and the pre aged finish looks amazing. As I stated in my previous ... MoreFurther update on my last review post. Ibanez sent me a replacement Artcore vintage bass. Although better than the first one they had to replace, the action was still high and buzzing all over the place. I took it to an experienced professional guitar tech/luthier I'd used before. Some of the frets were bumpy and unlevel and as they were bedded in ok, they had to be stoned down. He did neck and bridge adjustment and his best to get the action as low as he could. It's now playable for gigs, but will never have a great action as the E string and to some point the A string still rattles and buzzes if I play just a little hard on them. Sound wise it gives me exactly what I want with flatwounds strings and the pre aged finish looks amazing. As I stated in my previous review, I really want this bass to work because of it's sound and looks. I still think the neck is unsubstantial and the action/fret buzz problem has cost me more money to try a better set up. I'll use it and learn to enjoy it probably, but wouldn't have bought it if I'd known the hassle it was going to be.

AFB200 Artcore Bass - Real Old School TONE

Overall:I went on a serious bass quest for the classic early 1960s almost stand-up tonal quality; a kind of thunky plucked melodic punch that is very different from the bottom heavy electric sound coming off of most modern basses. The sound I wanted was semi-acoustic, where you can actually hear the strings drive the energy down through the bridge into the wooden top, but also has the ability to exceed the doghouse bass. To establish my potential ability to hear what I was after, I’ve been a professional musician, guitarist keyboardist and audio engineer for four decades.The recorded bass of that early Beatles era is tight, punchy and melodic, a low voice adding another distinct melody; as rock progressed, much of this great balance in bass was lost in the volume ... MoreOverall:I went on a serious bass quest for the classic early 1960s almost stand-up tonal quality; a kind of thunky plucked melodic punch that is very different from the bottom heavy electric sound coming off of most modern basses. The sound I wanted was semi-acoustic, where you can actually hear the strings drive the energy down through the bridge into the wooden top, but also has the ability to exceed the doghouse bass. To establish my potential ability to hear what I was after, I’ve been a professional musician, guitarist keyboardist and audio engineer for four decades.The recorded bass of that early Beatles era is tight, punchy and melodic, a low voice adding another distinct melody; as rock progressed, much of this great balance in bass was lost in the volume wars.I went through a number of the classic basses, including a Gibson hollow body from the early 70s (pure mud!) and a fine American Fender 5 string Jazz (amazing bass, but not the tone I was hearing in my mind) and then every hollow body bass I could find on the web (other than antiques with insane prices).I tried and then entirely discarded the flat top, round sound hole acoustic guitar type bass; they don’t have the percussive thump that Archtops do. Archtops became my focus.Studying the legendary Motown bassist James Jamerson, I learned that he preferred flat wound strings, and that was a crucial part of developing the sound I was after; typical bass strings are round wound, and a slide results in a zipper sound; flat wound strings are smooth, warm and fat, and a slide is pure melodic tone, no zipper.At one point I owned eight Archtop basses that I was able to compare, (after changing all the string sets to flat-wound/tape-wound strings) playing the same parts with the same amp settings. Obsessive? Oh yeah.Bottom line: this Ibanez AFB200 with the floating wooden bridge was one of two keepers (the other being a somewhat rare Yamaha BEX bass). The wooden bridge is actually the key as much as anything; that wooden “thunk” when the string energy transmits down into the top is part of the tone I was after; other Archtop basses, as beautiful as they were, mostly had modern metal bridges ( like the Jack Cassidy Epi and even the other styles of Ibanez hollow bass) and while they were cool and sounded good, they just didn’t have that true bass sound like the AFB200. Look closely and you’ll notice that the floating wooden bridge is much longer than many others, making more contact and sound transfer from string to wood bridge to wood top; I think much of the tone happens here. Some will immediately want to mod the bass and upgrade the pickups; I just added some great flat wound strings and a Fender 12” bass amp.If you want the wooden early 60s sounding bass like I did, here’s a few tips:1. Buy the AFB2002. Buy an expensive set of fine flat tape-wound strings like RotoSound ; I generally like the black ones best, although Thomastec Infeld makes a set of silver flats that sound amazing and almost feel alive under your fingers. Bass strings last for years and James Jamerson never changed his, so buy the best once and be done with it. ( There is a flat sound set of strings with his name on them that are quite good too!)3. The bass tuners on this bass are crap; pretty looking but crap. The pretty ivoroid knobs eventually crack off, so just dump them early and save the grief. Plan on dropping 50 bucks on a set of all metal Japanese style tuners with a higher gear ratio in; a moment of light work with a large rattail file evenly around the inside of the tuner holes will remove the overspray and allow the new tuners to drop right in , and that problem will be solved forever.4. Understand the tone you’re after. The problem with modern basses is that somewhere during the later rock era, bass tone and equipment got totally blown out of proportion, and amps started offering the full range of the audio spectrum to bass players, which makes no more sense than limiting a keyboard or guitar to only low frequencies. ( There’s a good reason why most bass potentiometers on mixers are set at 80 Htz... to cut the mud out and clean up the mix.Real bass tone happens mostly between about 80 Htz and 150 Htz, with the sweet spot for semi-acoustic and stand up basses being generally between 110 and 135; there are exceptions to everything, but this I’ve found to be most often the case across hundreds of critical mixes. 40 Htz and below is pure mud, and often as high as 80 Htz; if you don’t cut it, you’re adding mud to your mix. Conversely, any bass tone above around 150 is crowding other instruments and muddying the low mids. But this is what’s cool about the early 60s bass sound; by being a touch higher, you can hear it as a distinct low voice and melody, while later music styles took bass lower and lower until melody and nuance are almost totally lost in the boom. So look for the sweet spot up around 120 to 135, and cut the mud out below 70, even 80 htz; the vocals will shine and the guitars will ring out in a mix.Finally, while I’m talking bass, here’s the one truth about bass that most bass players don’t want to hear or believe. Bass freqs are always the biggest problem in most live performances. I’ve both performed and mixed sound at hundreds of events, so I speak from long professional experience. Bass players set up their rig, stand a few feet in front and set their amp so it sounds good to them. The problem is that a bass sound wave takes much longer to develop than other freqs, usually around 25 feet, so a bass tone that sounds fat to a bass player becomes muddled and booming by the time it hits the audience and gets progressively worse as it gets towards the back of the room, and then bounces around the room, obscuring all the other musicians, vocalists etc. Outside gigs are more forgiving, unless you have buildings nearby to reflect and bounce the sound; indoors, Bass is always the potential threat to a good sounding gig. Bass freqs are more powerful than all the others, so a wise bass player will intentionally adjust his/her tone to be as mud free and clear as they can stand it on stage, knowing that the bass tone will continue to expand and grow deeper and warmer as it travels towards the audience, so that the overall band mix will sound far better as a result.Believe it or not, it’s true.Peace!

An excellent hollow body acoustic electric bass!

I bought this bass back in 2015. It is all black and has the gold colored pick-ups. It has a nice, warm, mellow sound unplugged, plug it into an amp and get some good thump in the sound. This is a short scale bass, sounds really good with blues, folk and 60s rock songs. I recommend using the Honeytone 10W portable electric guitar amp and/or the Blackstar Fly 3W portable bass amp and changing the strings to a phosphor bronze type of strings. The sound can be varied using the 3 way switch. I love the vintage style, shape and colors!

Great hollow body sound and excellent workmanship

Overall:I'm a guitar player, so bass players might find some descriptions a little different terminology wise. So please keep that in mindIf you buy this bass make one additional purchase at checkout...flatwounds. Flatwounds make this bass come alive. You get a better low end thump with the neck pickup and but still retain punch that will cut thru a mix with the bridge pickup. This bass is short-scale...but DO NOT buy short strings. They'll come up a little "short"...no pun intended. Since it's hollow body, the string length needs to be a little longer since the tali piece and bridge are further apart than a Mustang, Talman, or other solid body short scales...I think it's also a little longer from tailpiece to nut and tuners than a Hofner "Beatle" style. I use ... MoreOverall:I'm a guitar player, so bass players might find some descriptions a little different terminology wise. So please keep that in mindIf you buy this bass make one additional purchase at checkout...flatwounds. Flatwounds make this bass come alive. You get a better low end thump with the neck pickup and but still retain punch that will cut thru a mix with the bridge pickup. This bass is short-scale...but DO NOT buy short strings. They'll come up a little "short"...no pun intended. Since it's hollow body, the string length needs to be a little longer since the tali piece and bridge are further apart than a Mustang, Talman, or other solid body short scales...I think it's also a little longer from tailpiece to nut and tuners than a Hofner "Beatle" style. I use standard 34" scale strings and they work just fine. The bass is very close to a Hofner President/Senator bass in size, feel and sound. When playing standing with a strap, use a strap that doesn't have a smooth back. Being hollow body, it has neck dive. A strap with a suede back helps combat that.Sound wise, this bass has a great upright sound. Unplugged, it's got enough volume for couch playing and it's just loud enough unplugged to be heard if you're accompanying an acoustic guitar. Build wise, it's a quality build. The fit, the finish, materials on mine are higher quality than you'd expect for the price-point. One item to consider replacing, the tuners. They work, but they lack a few things. First the plastic keys feel cheap and I doubt would stand up to any abuse. They hold pitch, but if I had to guess at a ratio, 10:1 at best. I put Gotoh 18:1 on mine...big improvement but I did have to ream the holes a very small amount. If I were a bass player and not guitar player, I'd probably replace the pots..in fact I'd probably replace them with stacked pots so each pickup could have it's own volume and tone control. The stock pots work just fine, they DO taper fairly well. They're not so cheap that the taper has no gradual increase/decrease, but if bass were my main instrument I'd want something just a little better. The pickups are great, I really like them. Set them to your preferred height and you will be very happy with their sound. The mini-humbuckers have a great balance of lows and highs. If you want a very well made hollow-body bass that won't break the bank and is also worth upgrading parts on...this one's a winner.

Ibanez AFB200 Bass Guitar

The Bass is made to mimic the sound to that of a Double Bass (Upright Bass) frequesntly used in Jazz, Blues, and early Rock 'n' Roll (meaning you can obtain the sound of the bass of a musician's like Paul McCartney's Hofner 500/1 Violin Bass)The Bass comes in a Sunburst finish as you obviously know which is shiny as well giving it some glare. It features a Volume Knob and Tone Knob, though I agree with another comment posted on this instrument, the Tone Knob does not differ the tone on the instrument itself much. Also as you can tell from the photos it features two pickups, which are great for using to "anchor" your thumb on if you like to play the Bass strings with your first (and second finger) for they offer enough space tp "anchor" your thumb on. Finally, the ... MoreThe Bass is made to mimic the sound to that of a Double Bass (Upright Bass) frequesntly used in Jazz, Blues, and early Rock 'n' Roll (meaning you can obtain the sound of the bass of a musician's like Paul McCartney's Hofner 500/1 Violin Bass)The Bass comes in a Sunburst finish as you obviously know which is shiny as well giving it some glare. It features a Volume Knob and Tone Knob, though I agree with another comment posted on this instrument, the Tone Knob does not differ the tone on the instrument itself much. Also as you can tell from the photos it features two pickups, which are great for using to "anchor" your thumb on if you like to play the Bass strings with your first (and second finger) for they offer enough space tp "anchor" your thumb on. Finally, the frets as well are short-scaled which makes it great for a person with short fingers to play (I myself have long fingers) and can suit well for long fingered players as well.The Bass can buzz if you are not precisely near the right end of the fret when pressing down on the strings to play, but other than that I have nothing else to report that also buzzes the strings. The sound when played acoustically is good and can keep well with the tone of an acoustic bass.

Mostly Good News!

A great buy for the money, as well built as a Hofner or Framus.The good news is this is a phenominal hollow body base and that's the sound you will get: a Hofner or Framus hollow body bass sound, especially a Hofner President, Kay or Framus Star bass sound. The bad news is Ibanez has NO customer support when you have questions about the bass. This was my experience when I tried to hunt down FLATWOUND strings which this bass really should have. This bass comes with roundwound strings and it doesn't perform as it should with roundwounds. If you want roundwound sound then buy a solid body bass. I spoke with the head team people at Labella :Hofner Beatle Bass set will NOT fit, nor will any Labella flatwounds fit this bass! I eventually found flatwounds from D'Addario ... MoreA great buy for the money, as well built as a Hofner or Framus.The good news is this is a phenominal hollow body base and that's the sound you will get: a Hofner or Framus hollow body bass sound, especially a Hofner President, Kay or Framus Star bass sound. The bad news is Ibanez has NO customer support when you have questions about the bass. This was my experience when I tried to hunt down FLATWOUND strings which this bass really should have. This bass comes with roundwound strings and it doesn't perform as it should with roundwounds. If you want roundwound sound then buy a solid body bass. I spoke with the head team people at Labella :Hofner Beatle Bass set will NOT fit, nor will any Labella flatwounds fit this bass! I eventually found flatwounds from D'Addario ECB81 Long Scale (even though this bass is technically a short scale bass). GHS has a 'groundwound' set #3065 but GHS are not "true" flatwounds. Buy the D'Addario ECB81. Back to the bass: It's GREAT~! But remember, I bought it because it was a hollowbody and that's the sound I want. Don't buy a hollowbody and expect to sound otherwise. Last advice: Don't believe a word you read on the bass forums about what flatwound strings will fit this bass. It's a wounderful hollowbody with a great retro sound.This is a well made bass, as good as anything that came out of Kalamazoo factories in the 1950's or 1960's.

Nice Bass. Plays and Looks Great

I'd been looking for an affordable but quality 4 string for a long time. I originally bought a Hofner but it was not up to par so my advisor suggested this Ibanez AFB200. I love the size and weight. The hollow body is great because you can jam unplugged if you want and it still projects. Plugged in sounds great too. Not for Metal or Heavy Rock but perfect for acoustic, funk, blues, country and just jamming. Pretty enough to have it sitting in the living room. Perfect purchase for me.

Wouldn't buy again

Update on my last post. It seems my Ibanez Art core had a manufacturing fault which made it hard to play despite a full set up still with rattles and buzz and high action, even with flat wounds. On careful inspection, I noticed that the neck was out of alignment with the body, the A & D string side being lower than the D & G side, which of course threw the whole balance out. I took it back to the Dealers who were really helpful and confirmed I was right and it's now on it's way back to Ibanez for as they say "repair or replacement" Being only 6 weeks old and never gigged because of the fault it's going to be replacement and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, to remove, reset and glue the neck back on would cosmetically ruin it and cost more than the bass! I like the look ... MoreUpdate on my last post. It seems my Ibanez Art core had a manufacturing fault which made it hard to play despite a full set up still with rattles and buzz and high action, even with flat wounds. On careful inspection, I noticed that the neck was out of alignment with the body, the A & D string side being lower than the D & G side, which of course threw the whole balance out. I took it back to the Dealers who were really helpful and confirmed I was right and it's now on it's way back to Ibanez for as they say "repair or replacement" Being only 6 weeks old and never gigged because of the fault it's going to be replacement and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, to remove, reset and glue the neck back on would cosmetically ruin it and cost more than the bass! I like the look and tone of this bass and really want it to work, though lost confidence in a product is never a good experience.