for people who have owned a chinese bas for a number of years

shwashwa · #1 07-04-2011, 07:44 AM

just thought it would be interesting to have a thread where people who bought a new chinese bass can post their thoughts about the bass now that it has aged a few years. anyone can post, but im particularly interested in people's opinions who have owned for 5 or more years. alot of people are nervous to buy one because they dont know how they will hold up, so maybe this thread can serve as a place to collect that info.

i can start:

Ive owned a chinese "Snow" bass since 2002. it sounds better today than ever and its health has held up fine. there has been some minor settleing of the top, but i think that is a possibility with all new basses. it seems to have found a level and has not worsened in years. i had jeff bollbach replace the fingerboard and bridge. the stock ones were not the best and i wanted a complete setup from scratch done by Jeff. this made a drastic improvement in the playability. the bass plays as easy as any bass ive ever played. after all these years i have finally found strings that work on this bass. its a very bright bass and i had to mix string sets and find very dark strings to make it work. it sounds so good that it is now my main gig bass and i would even consider using it for recording, except that i have a really nice bass that i'd use for that.
this is a pizz only bass and i have never been able to get it to sound good arco, no matter what strings i try. too bright.

Eric Hochberg · #2 07-04-2011, 08:21 AM

CCB's - Owners Reviews

shwashwa · #3 07-04-2011, 08:57 AM

oops

although your thread specifies CCB's which i believe stands for cheap chinese basses. im actually more interested in the less cheap versions, like the shen's, wan bernadel's, Snow, etc. my snow was 4K. some of the carved shens are more than that and the wan's too. maybe we can limit this thread to carved basses only, in order to differentiate it from the other thread. maybe think of it as the slightly higher end chinese bass review thread rather than the ccb thread

drerio · #4 07-04-2011, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shwashwa

oops

although your thread specifies CCB's which i believe stands for cheap chinese basses. im actually more interested in the less cheap versions, like the shen's, wan bernadel's, Snow, etc. my snow was 4K. some of the carved shens are more than that and the wan's too. maybe we can limit this thread to carved basses only, in order to differentiate it from the other thread. maybe think of it as the slightly higher end chinese bass review thread rather than the ccb thread

My CB is not old enough... One-year anniversary next month. Nevertheless I would like to follow this thread. And, I would agree, not all CB are CCB and thus this thread does not necessarily duplicate other threads. My CB is a hybrid and would hope that these also be included in this thread.

jtlownds · #5 07-04-2011, 11:18 AM

I have one of Lemur's Sunrise basses. Mine is a fully carved Del Mar model, which has since been replaced with a newer model. I bought it new in 2003, and have had absolutely no problems with it since I bought it. This bass is approximately a $5,000 unit. The materials and workmanship are as good or better than any of the European made basses that I have played. And I have played more than my fair share over the last 55 years.

tcl · #6 07-04-2011, 11:26 AM

I have a no-name Chinese bass since 2005. It had a good sound to start but has gotten richer and more complex with playing. I'm very happy with the bass and have had no problems with it. I paid $3,500 for it and think it was a good price at the time. My only complaint is that the fingerboard is so thin that I can't get the action as low as a lot of jazzers set it. I'm considering replacing the fingerboard at some point so I can lower the action further.

Mike Carr · #7 07-04-2011, 03:14 PM

I had a Shen Willow 3/4 that I bought new in 2005. It was my main bass in Hong Kong. It really started to sound good after about a year of daily playing, about 4 hours a days worth on steady gigs I worked there, plus time spent practicing. 4 months ago I moved to Shanghai, so rather than fly here with that bass I sold it to a top recording enginerer who had fallen in love with it's sound. I knew he'd give it a good home in his very busy studio and his clients would love it. He plays too so I know he will take good care of it. I've got access to Shen Basses here in Shanghai, Sam Shen hooked me up with a new Willow 3/4 to replaced the one left behind in Hong Kong (I have a bit of a motive, it's easy to borrow it back for the odd gigs that may come up for me back in Hong Kong from time to time, since it's new owner doesn't gig out, most of his income comes from sessions he engineers!) My new Shen sounds pretty much the same as the original did when it was new and I'm expecting it to open up a lot in the coming months. It's getting about 30 hours a week of play time, so a lot of vibration is going into it! Sound be interesting to see how it sounds and feels a year or two from now. So I'd say based on my experiance that the good Chinese basses do get better in time like any other good bass!