The Yamaha TRBX Series bass guitars offer easy playability, comfortable body shapes and road-ready durability. The four-string TRBX304 and TRBX504, along with the five-string TRBX305 and TRBX505, include new equalizers and pickups. All four models use a five-piece maple/mahogany necks along with crafted solid mahogany bodies.
The 500-level basses come with new H5 dual-coil pickups and three-band active electronics/EQ that can be turned off to play the bass using the passive pickups. I like that Yamaha worked out switching from active to passive modes without losing any gain—good during mid-song changeovers.
The 300-level models have M5 hum-bucking pickups and a Performance EQ switch lets players toggle between Slap, Pick, Flat, Finger and Solo settings.
The TRBX304 sells for $550, TRBX305 at $620, the TRBX504 is $790, and the TRBX505 goes for $860.
Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs, and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. http://barryrudolph.com
