sx basses

[BassPlayer95]

I'm really on the fence about buying one. I know a lot of you buy them to mod but are they fine not modded? I'm looking at the Ursa j bass 3ts lefty model. Anyone have any experience with SX basses or that specific brand?

[Jo6Pak]

start here and work your way back thru the thousands of posts/comments/reviews/etc:

Essex Bass Club - Part 12

[audiomitch]

If you can do your own setups, they are a great value. Don't expect to buy one and just start playing it, though. There may be some fine out of the box, but every one I owned needed a basic setup. Add the cost of someone else doing it, and it's not the greatest deal in the world.

[ghostdog93]

In addition to reading the above-linked club thread, you can also type "Essex" into the search box, and you'll come up with a ton of other threads.

You can use the Advanced options to limit your search to certain forums.

[dabbler]

Originally Posted by audiomitch

If you can do your own setups, they are a great value.

^This.

It all depends on what you expect, and if you like chunky necks or not. They do what basses do... for not much coin.

[bassbenj]

Originally Posted by BassPlayer95

I'm really on the fence about buying one. I know a lot of you buy them to mod but are they fine not modded? I'm looking at the Ursa j bass 3ts lefty model. Anyone have any experience with SX basses or that specific brand?

Whether or not an SX is a great buy depends upon YOUR skills at bass operations. I've got 5 SX basses and I was pretty lucky in that none had defects great enough to send them back. BUT.

ALL of them needed copper foil shielding. The strings that came with them were nasty and needed something better. They needed a setup and even more extreme they needed threaded inserts installed in the neck joint to really bring out the potential of the instruments.

Now note that I DID NOT change the pickups (they kill) nor tuning machines (stiff but hey they do the job), nor the bridge (yeah, sometimes you have to pry on it a bit, but it works fine) nor the pots (I did rewire with a series/parallel switch which I love...I figured so long as the pots are working I'll wait till they die (get scratchy) and then replace them with good ones)

And of course for the "ultimate" I paid to have custom pickguards cut off the old black/white ones to make those basses look/play like a million! (SX pickguards tend to be "hand fitted" so often you can't switch them even between two identical SX basses)

So What do I get? Well, for one thing I get a three piece body with some decent wood in it. No "forced maple" or particle board. Hey even my MIM Fender that cost a hell of a lot more has something like a 12 piece alder body on it covered with veneer so you can't see the splices. With SX I get a great sounding and playing bass for very little cash. And that lets me try things that I otherwise couldn't afford: Fretless, Jazz clones, 6 strings, short scale, etc.

Oh, But WAIT! That is ME! That is NOT you! For me all the setups and mods and alterations were simple no-brainers taking a few hours to do...or maybe a few days if you count waiting on glue and other people. For a person who has to PAY a tech to do setups, change pickguards, or <shudder> install threaded inserts, you are REALLY going to rack up a huge bill! In that case you'd be a LOT better off just taking the money and moving upscale to a bass with all that already done!

Of course I don't know your skill level. Only you can answer that.

And let me mention one other item people may not have noticed. Namely Obama has been getting on the Chinese case trying to get them to stop under-valuing the Yuan. They've already upped it once under pressure and if they cave on this, you can expect the next containers to Rondo to have MUCH higher prices than at present! Just saying.

[dougjwray]

Originally Posted by bassbenj

Whether or not an SX is a great buy depends upon YOUR skills at bass operations. I've got 5 SX basses and I was pretty lucky in that none had defects great enough to send them back. BUT.

ALL of them needed copper foil shielding. The strings that came with them were nasty and needed something better. They needed a setup and even more extreme they needed threaded inserts installed in the neck joint to really bring out the potential of the instruments.

Now note that I DID NOT change the pickups (they kill) nor tuning machines (stiff but hey they do the job), nor the bridge (yeah, sometimes you have to pry on it a bit, but it works fine) nor the pots (I did rewire with a series/parallel switch which I love...I figured so long as the pots are working I'll wait till they die (get scratchy) and then replace them with good ones)

And of course for the "ultimate" I paid to have custom pickguards cut off the old black/white ones to make those basses look/play like a million! (SX pickguards tend to be "hand fitted" so often you can't switch them even between two identical SX basses)

So What do I get? Well, for one thing I get a three piece body with some decent wood in it. No "forced maple" or particle board. Hey even my MIM Fender that cost a hell of a lot more has something like a 12 piece alder body on it covered with veneer so you can't see the splices. With SX I get a great sounding and playing bass for very little cash. And that lets me try things that I otherwise couldn't afford: Fretless, Jazz clones, 6 strings, short scale, etc.

Oh, But WAIT! That is ME! That is NOT you! For me all the setups and mods and alterations were simple no-brainers taking a few hours to do...or maybe a few days if you count waiting on glue and other people. For a person who has to PAY a tech to do setups, change pickguards, or <shudder> install threaded inserts, you are REALLY going to rack up a huge bill! In that case you'd be a LOT better off just taking the money and moving upscale to a bass with all that already done!

Of course I don't know your skill level. Only you can answer that.

And let me mention one other item people may not have noticed. Namely Obama has been getting on the Chinese case trying to get them to stop under-valuing the Yuan. They've already upped it once under pressure and if they cave on this, you can expect the next containers to Rondo to have MUCH higher prices than at present! Just saying.

That about sums it up.
You get what you pay for: a functional instrument that will probably need a good setup, a nut refiling, shielding, and a new string tree (the stock one has slots that can wear away at the strings).
HOWEVER: The pickups do sound GREAT, and I find that the slightly larger (than a Fender) body and chunky neck make for a beefy sound, even unplugged.
Mine needed NO fret leveling, just a turn on the truss rod.
I would say: Take a chance, and if there's something really wrong, Rondo has a notoriously good return policy. People love to be snobs about these, but there are lots of happy customers, including me.

[badboyb]

I have a couple of SX P's.
Love them.

I filed the string tree, turned the truss to get neck straight, put on some Chromes.

Beautiful... sounds, looks and plays like a classic P.

[Valiant Bandit]

Originally Posted by BassPlayer95

I'm really on the fence about buying one. I know a lot of you buy them to mod but are they fine not modded? I'm looking at the Ursa j bass 3ts lefty model. Anyone have any experience with SX basses or that specific brand?

Attachment 236194

I know this is kind of a dead thread, but I have to weigh in.

Being a lefty like yourself, I've noticed something about lefty SX guitars - I haven't gotten one bad one yet. Go for it dude, us lefties have better built basses than the righties. I speak from experience!

[Labi]

Originally Posted by badboyb

I have a couple of SX P's.
Love them.

I filed the string tree, turned the truss to get neck straight, put on some Chromes.

Beautiful... sounds, looks and plays like a classic P.

Is that headstock modified?

[Tupac]

You certainly get what you pay for, but not always more.

[sammyp]

Originally Posted by bassbenj

Whether or not an SX is a great buy depends upon YOUR skills at bass operations. I've got 5 SX basses and I was pretty lucky in that none had defects great enough to send them back. BUT.

ALL of them needed copper foil shielding. The strings that came with them were nasty and needed something better. They needed a setup and even more extreme they needed threaded inserts installed in the neck joint to really bring out the potential of the instruments.

Now note that I DID NOT change the pickups (they kill) nor tuning machines (stiff but hey they do the job), nor the bridge (yeah, sometimes you have to pry on it a bit, but it works fine) nor the pots (I did rewire with a series/parallel switch which I love...I figured so long as the pots are working I'll wait till they die (get scratchy) and then replace them with good ones)

And of course for the "ultimate" I paid to have custom pickguards cut off the old black/white ones to make those basses look/play like a million! (SX pickguards tend to be "hand fitted" so often you can't switch them even between two identical SX basses)

So What do I get? Well, for one thing I get a three piece body with some decent wood in it. No "forced maple" or particle board. Hey even my MIM Fender that cost a hell of a lot more has something like a 12 piece alder body on it covered with veneer so you can't see the splices. With SX I get a great sounding and playing bass for very little cash. And that lets me try things that I otherwise couldn't afford: Fretless, Jazz clones, 6 strings, short scale, etc.

Oh, But WAIT! That is ME! That is NOT you! For me all the setups and mods and alterations were simple no-brainers taking a few hours to do...or maybe a few days if you count waiting on glue and other people. For a person who has to PAY a tech to do setups, change pickguards, or <shudder> install threaded inserts, you are REALLY going to rack up a huge bill! In that case you'd be a LOT better off just taking the money and moving upscale to a bass with all that already done!

Of course I don't know your skill level. Only you can answer that.

And let me mention one other item people may not have noticed. Namely Obama has been getting on the Chinese case trying to get them to stop under-valuing the Yuan. They've already upped it once under pressure and if they cave on this, you can expect the next containers to Rondo to have MUCH higher prices than at present! Just saying.

yup! great summary ....i did change the pups but i didn''t even give the SX pups a listen ....maybe i didn't need to but that's part of the fun of hotrodding.

i don't think you mentioned nut change ....my p bas SX had funky spacing on the G string nut slot ...it was too far over to the end .....ii used a tusq graph tech and things were far more normal ....other than that the nut was good....i wouldn't have changed it if the spacing wasn't driving me nuts.

as you said tuners are a bit stiff but fine ....pots ...don't care either!

and as far as general setup goes (truss rod/action) .....i have NEVER EVER bought one single guitar or bass that played to my spec out of the box ....fender MIA teles, strat, gibson les pauls, epis, mims .....they all need a set up to get me happy!

[badboyb]

Originally Posted by Labi

Is that headstock modified?

No, I bought it in Europe, where they have that fender headstock on the SX's.

[jamesclark]

I am wondering about it to man. I am looking at SX Ursa 3 RN BK but not sure about the pickups. like where there located. there stacked. unlike a guitar where you can get a bridge and neck pickup. does anyone know about how the SX Ursa 3 RN BK works? sorry I cant figure out how to rite on the thred without replying to stuff.

Originally Posted by BassPlayer95

I'm really on the fence about buying one. I know a lot of you buy them to mod but are they fine not modded? I'm looking at the Ursa j bass 3ts lefty model. Anyone have any experience with SX basses or that specific brand?

Attachment 236194