Tom, let me just point out that you have impeccable taste in basses
Thanks all! I spent a good deal of time playing it last night. It's quite a different beast compared to my Ibanez 8er.
The string courses on the Ibanez are such that the octaves are on top, and the string pairings are spaced wide at 4mm. The tops of both strings in a given pair align on the same plane. Takes a little more effort to fret this one, and it's better suited to pick playing.
On the Ric, the bass string is on top, and each pair is spaced at a narrow 2mm. The octave strings sit on their own plane - positioned somewhere halfway between the top and bottom (vertically) of the bass strings. With such narrow spacing, this one plays effortlessly (almost feels like a 4-string) with both pick and fingerstyle (the latter being my comfort zone), but it taks some adjustment in left hand technique to be able to fully and consistently fret the octave strings. As a result, the octave sound is less pronounced. I'm thinking that this might provide a good way to sneak an 8 into the cover band setting. Always wanted to do that! (...baby steps to a B12S! Mwahahahaaaa)
I might experiment with some different alignments on the octave strings, but otherwise I'm lovin' it so far!
