I bought my Ibanez 4 string black GSR 200 bass guitar from Saptaswara Musicals in Mylapore, Chennai during Sep 2006. I do not play frequently. I play only at my church and sometimes for occasional small musical events.
May be due to less usage, the guitar appears as new as when it was bought. I haven't changed any of the strings yet and they haven't rusted till now. I usually wipe the strings as well as the whole guitar clean with a soft cloth after playing for the day. This has help sustain the life of the strings and the guitar as a whole. The string seems to be round-wound top quality strings.
The tuning keys are self lubricated and the best you can find on a guitar. The neck is so smooth and we can move our left hand so swiftly when doing fast rounds or slide ups/downs. The bridge is also length-as-well-as-height adjustable.
Speaking about the pick ups-the one (split) on the neck end is punchy and has a bassy tone to it, the one on the bridge side (jazz-type) is more cleaner and bright, sounding much like the tone of a jazz bass. There are 4 knobs on the GSR 200-2 for the individual volumes for the 2 pickups, one for the tone (bass or treble control) and one for the active phat boost which is a good feature on this bass compared to Yamaha starter basses like RBX 170/270. The active phat boost works with the help of a 9-volt battery kept in a battery compartment at the back of the bass. This knob makes the bass sound more stronger and punchy.
I went for the Ibanez because it was sounding more value for money. I had considered the Yamaha RBX 170 also in my search but I didnt choose it since it was more expensive and didnt have active electronics on it. I had also tried gba and Peavey basses in the music showroom. The gba was a bit too heavy. The peavey sounded good and was cheaper but it had only a single split style pickup, so I thought I would go for a bass with more control and sound capabilites.
We can mix the sound on the GSR200 using combining the jazz as well as split pickups and also playing around with the tone control. Leave the phat boost to max all the time unless the bass sounds too loud on the amp.
The problem is that, now the pick ups have become old and a bit of rust has formed on them and the wiring from the jazz pickup to the output jack has some problem and creates some jerky sounds and noise at times. I had to resolder the joint of the wire connecting the pickups to the jack as it had come away since the output jack was not screwed tightly and used to rotate when the cable was plugged in or removed. I dont hear any disturbance or noise while using the split (P-type) neck pick up though.
This bass is good for almost all styles of music. Slapping and popping sounds nice n clean. We can get nice low bassy sounds using the P-type pickup and some jazzy sounds on the other one. The string spacing between the 4 strings is adequate. Overall I'm satisfied with this guitar and I need to take it to the music store for the maintenance. Would recommend this guitar for serious beginners/intermediates. If you are a professional bassist or serious into music production, then I would suggest going for the SRX/BTB/ATK Ibanez guitars or Yamaha TRB/BB series or RBX 374/375. Fender and Warwick basses cost more but will be great on quality. Beginners should try with a 4 string and later on move to 5/6 stringed if getting more into serious music.
