Ibanez at Bass Expo 2013

If you wanted a total history of Ibanez you´d have go back to 1908 when a company named Hoshino began as a sheet music store and later music products distributor in Nagoya Japan.

But for most of us, Ibanez pretty much begins almost 30 years ago, when Hoshino opened an office near Philadelphia, PA for more efficiently distributing Ibanez guitars to the United States. Most of those guitars were Ibanez´ famous high quality (but very inexpensive) copies of just about everything-you name it, Ibanez probably made a version of it.

But the people with Ibanez weren´t content with just copying and Ibanez began making their own designs. Ibanez went on to create iconic rock and jazz quitars, working alongside the likes of Steve Vai, George Benson and Joe Satriani. Today, present day versions such as these models still considered the standard in hard rock and instrumental rock guitars.

Alongside its fame as a guitar manufacturer, Ibanez is now one of the top selling bass companies in the world (in many places the top selling bass). Ibanez first drew attention in the 70´s and 80´s with its neck-thru Musician basses with active electronics. Today, Ibanez offers the huge number of 4, 5, and 6 basses in the Soundgear as well as the basses of the future, the luthite-bodied Ergodynes.

Ibanez 4000E & SRX530 basses

We take a look at the features of Ibanez's versatile 4000E bass and the stylishly retro SRX530 bass, and hear both in action.

Ibanez Artcore bass

We run through the features of the Ibanez Artcore semi-acoustic bass and hear it in action.

Ibanez BTB1405 bass demo

We check out the features and sounds of Ibanez's maple-topped BTB1405 and 1406 basses.