I currently play a Yamaha RBX260 and want to get a new bass for access to more tones as well as a 5th string for those extra notes. I found the SR305E online and it seems to fit my criteria. It is within my available price range, and I went to the store and tried it out and it seemed good. Is this bass going to give me a good slap tone (similar to tetsuo sakurai)? If I do get it, what bass strings should I buy for it? I want to use the Low B and I want some decent tension to be able to slap it.
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Tetsuo has very clean tone utilizing highs/lows Ibanez is known for mid forward. You may benefit from jazz style bass. Also I know that he was playing E A D G C tuning on his five string, dunno if he’s still doing now.
I never really like Ibanez slap tone.
@howard what do you think?
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The other part of your question, strings. The tension on the B string will be derived largely from 2 factors. The scale length, and the gauge of the strings.
The basses we’re discussing have 34" scale which are good.
D’Addario EXL165 has a .135 gauge B string which will give a better tension; the EXL170 has a .130 gauge B which will also give a slightly less but still good tension. I have EXL170s on my Ibanez, which has a 32" scale, and the tension is good enough that I have not been motivated to change to the EXL165s yet. I have a set of these on my bass shelf for when I do feel motivated. I don’t slap.
There are many fine brands of strings, but looking for a .135 gauge B narrows the choices considerably. Fortunately D’Addario are nice strings.
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Sakurai plays a Warwick Streamer with various pickup combos. While I love the Ibanez tone, it’s not going to sound like that, especially the lows.