With a strong emphasis on natural woody visuals, it comes as no surprise that ibanez SR1200E has a very strong bright tone, coupled with a throaty mid delivery and it resonates very clearly.
No doubt the timbers contribute a great deal to this: you can hear the ‘woodiness’ of the bass itself. Plugging in and bringing the EQ into play, it is apparent from the start that the electronics package has considerable power at its disposal, and after some use, it is fair to say that the extremes of the EQ are overpowering.
The treble control definitely needs to be used with some caution, and even with the power available it is quite tricky to get a smooth tone from this bass without natural throatiness and ‘bark’. Having said that, the EQ offers a good selection of tonal light and shade with a variety of different tonal colours.
Sounds aside, the bass is incredibly easy to adapt to, offering playability and comfort in equal measure. Although the bright tonal edge remains consistent, using the EQ bypass softens the tone and allows the player to pan across the pickups.
Both units are top notch with the neck pickup being a good deal warmer than its bridge counterpart, but both convey equal volume across all strings: the D and G strings are by no means shrinking violets in the overall signal.
The mid-toggle switch is a useful control to have, especially when dealing with a problematic stage or room in a live context where the mid-frequencies can make such a large difference to your sound, although a mid-sweep might be a still better option.
One point worth raising is that although the bridge is certainly up to the task, when it comes to restringing, the units themselves look a little complicated: string changing might not be as quick and easy as you would like, mainly down to the fitting of the string ball.
