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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!

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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.

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Beethowen RedCrow Gregory, Virginia Beach, VirginiaI have had my Ibanez AFB200 Artcore Bass for about a year. First I just want to thank zZounds for introducting me to the best bass guitar that I could possibly have. I wanted the upright bass sound, the true bass sound. Two of the greatest Bassist of our time told me that the only way to get the sound that I was looking for was with a hollowbody bass, flat wound strings and a wooden bridge. It has to be a hollowbody. An upright bass has a hollowbody an it by no means can be duplicated. zZounds had exactly what I was looking for and shipped it to me within a few days. I have been hollowbassin ever since. I will play no other bass. This is it. I play Country, Blues, Jazz, Native American, Latin and Classical Music. Bach on this bass sounds GREAT. I recently put some Rotosound RS77LD Jazz Bass Monel flat wound strings on and it sounds even better. I performed this past weekend and my AFB200 was the talk of the show. I am 60 years old and it took me this long to find the perfect electric bass, I will be with Ibanez AFB200 Artcore for a lifetime. Thank You zZounds.

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I think it’s an odd choice to ship this bass strung with roundwounds. Just look at it: The body is fully hollow, about twice as deep as a Hofner or Guild Starfire, and it’s a short scale bass, for all practical purposes. You will have to use medium scale strings, though, because of the additional length between the (wooden) bridge and the tailpiece. Keep in mind that the bridge is held in place solely by the pressure of the strings, so once you find your intonation sweet spot, it’s a good idea to mark the position with tape before tackling that all important string change. And when do, I would highly, highly recommend flat wounds! This is clearly the kind of instrument used to emulate an upright bass, as closely as possible. I’m not claiming that it fully achieves that goal, but flat wound strings will get you a huge portion of the way closer. I am using LaBella “Deep Talkin’ Bass” nylon tape wounds, which sound and feel amazing, and they also look great with their black covering. Don’t worry too much about losing sustain. The Artcore sings. Maybe due to its hollow body, it delightfully holds certain frequencies for much longer than you’d expect. But it also gives you the characteristic snap and zing of a double bass. An additional trick to get you into the doghouse, so to speak, would be the use of a piezo PU or contact mic in addition to the mini humbuckers. But those do a fine job by themselves already. Deep, satisfying growl and long, humming notes are easy to achieve. Sliding feels almost fretless at times. Don’t slap it, don’t play it at crazy volumes (at some point, there might be a danger of feedback), don’t try any acrobatics. I’m experimenting with foam that I’m shoving under the string portion behind the bridge, trying to deaden those vibrations. I would say this thing is most at home with people like me who are looking to add to mostly acoustic music with deep but woody bass tones. A few words about craftsmanship and design: It’s very well made, but there’s always room for improvement. I used the milky white plastic-knobbed tuners exactly once, before replacing them with a set of Gotoh “Compact Bass” tuners. 65 bucks well spent. They dropped right in, after minimally widening the drill holes with rolled up sandpaper, no additional drilling required on the front or back of the headstock. The black sunburst looks nice, but in my opinion, it’s not the perfect compliment for the vintage look of the instrument. I’m also not crazy about some other design choices, such as the odd floral headstock “inlay”, or the weirdly wide open f holes. The finish is super glossy and very modern looking. A nice semi matte vintage finish would be more appropriate. Back to the sandpaper? Also, why does a bass like this have a pick guard? Is someone going to shred on it with such force that the top, over an inch down from your picking position, is in danger? Off it comes. It looks cheap, anyway.All in all, the price is astonishing. You get a lot of old timey goodness in a very affordable package. A case for this substantial instrument will cost you about a third of its price, unfortunately. But for me, this is going to be a stay-at-home daddy anyway.