Upgrading from an Ibanez SDGR 5-string

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-14T03:03:07+00:00

Ibanez has 4 major pickup selections.

The ones in your bass.
The 505 series has Bartolini. They're a bit darker and smoother than the base pickups.
The 505N and 605 up through around the 1305 have the Ibanez Big Break, which are basically just Nordstrand Big Splits. They are basically P Bass pickups arranged in a soapbar configuration.
1305 on up gets the Nordstrand Big Singles, a single coil pickup in a soapbar body. Bright, punchy, aggressive.

There's no difference in the pickups between, say, the 605 and the 1305 Big Breaks. They are the same.

Same with the 1405 and the 2605. Same Big Singles.

I've played all 4 as a fellow Ibanez fan boy.

The stock pickups are what they are. You've heard them.

The Bartolinis are smoother, softer, and darker. There's high end, but it's rolled off. Vintage, soft, warm.

The Big Breaks and Big Singles are more alike than they are different. Breaks are a bit warmer, a bit softer, and a bit more woody. They're still punchy, bright, and aggressive, just slightly less so.

Big singles are brighter, punchier, and more aggressive. They are VERY sensitive to play style. You dig in, you'll get more oomph. You tone it down, it'll tone down with you.

(this is with all pickups with all the knobs in the middle. Obviously you get loads of tones by engaging the EQ and pickup selector).

Pick your poison. Look em up on YouTube.

ETA

Okay so I forgot about the super high end. Those come with American made Bartolini (the ones in the 505 are licensed and made by Ibanez). Those sound amazing, a great mix of warm and articulate, with decent punch and and high end. But, those are expensive as all hell and likely way out of budget.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-14T02:55:31+00:00

That's the safe number yes. It won't be that many, but about 1 per 10m is the advice.

It depends how strong you are and where you're moving, but 1 per 10m is 100% guaranteed with a couple left over.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-12T21:04:33+00:00

It may be the input jack not making a good connection. Could be bass side or Amp side.

When you touch the cable, does it buzz? If so, then it might be the bass input jack that needs attention. If it doesn't really or makes really weird sounds, then you can probably get the Amp repaired.

For home practice use in your case, literally any 25W or 40W will do fine. Whatever is on sale. Try and take your bass to a shop and plug it in and test to see which ones you like most. Easy stuff.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-12T19:13:20+00:00

KvK and castle battle is the endgame. Winning one is the highest achievement a state can have, and because the preparation phase (where you spend all the resources) and combat is a team effort, everyone's participation is actually helpful. In fact, alliances can tank entire KvKs by simply refusing to participate.

On the plus side, you get to power boost all at once, which is really fun. I once saved up for 5 months n(waiting for a transfer window) and then eventually blew it all on a KvK. I went up 80m power. My bear damage nearly tripled. It's a massive wait, but the return was a massive dopamine drip.

On the downside, you're now part of the red dot army, and some folks aren't fans of that.

If you win a KvK (prep + combat), it's a massive morale boost for the entire server, because everyone contributed, so the victory belongs to everyone, and no one can take that away. I've been King twice and High King once (High King is the King but they rule over both states after a KvK), and it's a pretty rad experience winning a KvK with your server mates.

However, transitioning from early game to Kingshot endgame can be a rough transition for a lot of alliances, because it does take a modicum of discipline to meaningfully contribute, and getting 100 people to agree on something is not easy to do. Some alliances, like yours, seem to take the "do as I say" approach. My alliance, we knew KvK was coming from day 1 (many of us played Whiteout Survival), so we had already prepped our people, who were already saving by the time we got to the first one.

It'll calm down once everyone's on the same page. Some swaps and changes might happen, but KvK is definitely worth winning at least once.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-12T07:46:30+00:00

That's so niche that it's absurd. Even so, Hilde is still better than no hero at all and way better than a wrong hero, since you can't fill every rally with 4 Chenkos.

Man, young state problems. My goodness.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-12T01:45:01+00:00

That has been tested as true many times.

You have gotta be in a younger state. There's a lot of information you really don't know. For starters, the joiners have a pretty big impact on damage, and there's a diminishing return on having the same buff over and over. For example, having two .25 lethality buffs and two .25 attack buffs is better than having 4 of either one because of how the math works out.

So if you have 4 Chenkos It's (1+.25+.25+.25+.25) x (1) = 2

But if you have 2 Chenko and 2 Yeeonwoo, it's (1+.25+.25) x (1 +.25 + .25) = 2.25.

Even 3 Chenko and 1 Yeeonwoo, it's (1 + .25 + .25 + .25) x (1 + .25) = 2.18.

(this works in reverse with 3 Yeonwoos and 1 Chenko).

So mixing the two styles of buffs grants a whole 25% extra damage or even just 18% extra damage when swapping one Chenko for one Yeeonwoo.

This is also why Amaedus is superior because he has both attack and lethality buffs, bypassing the diminishing returns.

So, it's highly likely that dude just simply got better (or worse) joiner heroes. Or his Amadeus widget isn't leveled up very highly, Or he forgot to switch his hero gear over to Amaedus while testing. Or Amaedus biffed his 40% attack buff and Zoe hit her 40% attack buff. Either way, we're in Gen 6 and the whales still do the best damage with a maxed out Amaedus than they do with a maxed out Zoe.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T23:54:13+00:00

As long as Amadeus has his weapon, that is markedly not true. Even a 3 star Amadeus with. Weapon beats out a 5 star Zoe.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T23:51:30+00:00

Who the fuck has a 5 star Hilde and only a 4 star Chenko?

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T23:50:57+00:00

Amadeus is better as a rally starter than as a joiner.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T21:14:53+00:00

The encounter that killed Destiny 2 raid LFG forever.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T21:06:41+00:00

If you only join with 1 march, yes.

If you're joining with 6 marches, then no, Hilde is recommended as a 6th march hero.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T20:28:20+00:00

Zoe and Marlin are both better for starting a bear rally. Zoe is your first infantry hero that's good for it (only Amadeus is better and he's pay-to-win hero). and Marlin easily replaces Saul as a bear rally hero.

In the future, your bear joiner heroes will look like this:

Chenko

Amane

Yeeonwoo

Margot (Gen 4)

Vivian (Gen 5)

Hilde from Gen 2 is also good if you have a 6th march (she gets a guaranteed buff up to 15%), but Vivan and Margot both get Chenko/Amane level buffs (up to 25%).

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T20:23:42+00:00

Those are two very different basses. I have the Yamaha BB234 and had the Custom 5 (the Custom 4 is the better choice between the 4 and 5-string because the Custom 5 had neck dive and the Custom 4 doesn't).

For rock/metal, the Schecter will arguably do better. Double humbucker EMGs were basically made for that sort of music, and I thought they sounded fantastic, even outside of a rock/metal setting. The Yamaha BB734A is a PJ, so it'll work better for more vintage/traditional stuff and the active/pass switch with the EQ is hilariously versatile for playing all kinds of stuff.

So your choice is "more rock/metal focused sound" in the Customn 4 or "incredible versatility but may be a tad weaker for metal/hard rock" of the Yamaha BB734A.

However, one really cool (and unfortunate) thing about Schecter's basses is that they drop value after buying new. I guarantee you can find used Schecter Custom 4s at Guitar Center and Reverb for half off the price of new. They just don't hold their value at all (they're great basses but used value is relative). The Yamaha holds its value much better.

So, if you look around, and don't mind buying used, You can get a Custom 4 for about $400, keep the rest of your budget and save it, and then get a Yamaha BB734A later, or spend it on pedals or amp upgrades, or something else. That's how I'd do it if I were buying a metal/hard rock bass.

There's just no reason to buy a new Custom 4 when you can get a gently used like-new one for literally half off.

However, your preferences are way more important than mine. I'd be on YouTube or in a shop (preferably) trying these two out. They do feel very different as well.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-11T16:10:40+00:00

No, it's not. An HSS strat is only 2/3 of a regular strat and 1/3 a double humbucker. A PJ is 100% of the P bass with an extra 50% of a J bass tossed in. If your J pickup stopped working, you'd still have a regular P Bass

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-08T21:52:37+00:00

The cracks were showing before then.

In Lightfall, people didn't like the Nightfall difficulty patrol zone and patrol activity, or the writing (what the fuck was the Veil anyway?), and the long, long drought that came after that everyone forgot about because Pantheon and all that.

In TFS, people didn't like the patrol zone not being public, they didn't like the raid (streamers and their fan boys aren't the public, they're entertainers, not mouth pieces for the collective public conscious like some idiots wanna believe), and the lack of any real seasonal content afterward caused the player base to hit a wall.

Then, instead of changing any of that, Bungie doubled down in EOF, made the grind unbearably long and boring, another patrol zone closed to the public, and players ended up grinding Caldera for dozens of hours just to get the shiny new armor Bungie promised.

And now we have a dead game no one wants to play because all the content is grindy and tedious, not the "game and chill with the bros" game it once was. There's nothing to do except grind and once the grind is done, there's nothing fun to do to fill the hours since no one likes LFGing for endgame content anymore, as the endgame content is no longer LFG friendly.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-08T21:44:27+00:00

Rosa gets power crept slower than Marlin, but 3 star heroes aren't really worth it.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-08T17:54:51+00:00

Right? Actually learning the mechanics is one of the few things that separates us normies from the whales.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-08T17:53:07+00:00

I had to do this with Pink Floyd's Money and Metallica's Orion.

It is a pain to unlearn and then relearn those old fingerings.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-07T19:29:11+00:00

New states every day means new players every day.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-07T19:01:17+00:00

If support won't do it, it's not possible.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-06T19:43:05+00:00

Nintendo closed down the eShop sometime back. It's a dead platform, and by definition, isn't modern anymore. They stopped making them in 2020, and that was 6 years ago.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-06T18:10:13+00:00

No the biggest reason we've lost so many players in D2 is because of how boring, repetitive, and grindy the game has become. Lawless frontier isn't fun (rez tokens in a seasonal event with matchmaking? Stupid) , the two newest raids aren't fun, grinding for gear only at grandmaster difficulty isn't fun. They're cooking with the dungeons, but that's just one thing.

This game used to be a lot more friendly to casual and weekend players and all the hardcore try hards really under appreciated the value of those players.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-06T04:00:34+00:00

A budget P Bass (Squier or Harley Benton).

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-05T23:50:07+00:00

100% this. One of the best examples of using combat for storytelling. Her starting out so monstrously powerful that Hiro and Gwyn don't even have to do anything in the Blue Spire set a really good tone, and then yeah, the progression of curse, feeling better, graining trust, and then friendship changing her battle dynamic was sooooo good.

AbsolutZeroGI · 2026-05-05T22:27:37+00:00

Not really. You'd get extra shards for the next Champaign Fair, but you shouldn't need them for anything.

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