Ibanez 1915 Hollowbody Bass

This is the first in a series of posts about my bass guitars. I have been playing the bass for close to 20 years. I am not a great bass player, but I do enjoy a good session.

My father bought my my first bass guitar back in the late 80's. I don't know how much did he pay for it, but I can guess that it was a cheap-ish one. It was an old (I didn't know how old then!) Ibanez 1915 bass guitar.

According to the blue book of electric guitars, it was a model based on the Yamaha SA-70 bass with a semi-hollow symmetrical double cut-away body, with two f holes, bolt-on neck, 22 fret rosewood fingerboard that was manufactured between 1971 and 1973. It came in 2 colours, mine is sunburst red.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, and the excellent work of some hard-core fans, I was able to find all of these details, including a picture of the original catalogue from 1971. (The picture was originally hosted n the new ibanezwiki - http://www.ibanezwiki.com). At some stage I am hoping to upload some pictures of my bass. It is still in good shape, the sound is incredibly deep and warm, and it is a joy to play. One neat feature, is that it has a fret 0!

Unfortunately it is not in perfect shape. The pickguard and bridge cover are missing, one of the pick-ups is busted (I'm trying to get a new one), the bridge is a bit rusty, and I am not sure if it is a "feature" or bad design, but the neck seems to be a bit sunk into the body, which makes it difficult to use the higher frets on the 1st string.

When I got the bass originally, it came with Nylon covered black strings, which made the sound really dull. I am using it with flatwound strings at the moment to get a nice warm sound out of it.

The bass is the second from left to right in the picture. I will try to post pictures of mine at some stage.