I waited a bit to post this review, so as to avoid the joyful blindness associated with a freshly opened bass. It was ordered in March 08 and arrived about 2 weeks ago.
Cut to the chase:
Basslab Soul V. Basslab uses auto paint and clearcoat over a "custom composite". The customer can choose virtually any available auto paint. Mine is Nissan "sunlit copper metallic". Her name is Clementine (finally, an orange bass worthy of the name I've had in mind for a long while).
Custom soundholes in the body, top requested to be as thin as possible (easily indented with a finger), 34", 19mm spacing. Strung with rounds.
Passive Rough Crystal stacked humbuckers in the same positions as my Roscoe Beck V. Passive electronics: stacked volume/tone and 4-way pup selector (neck pup, both in series, both in parallel, bridge pup) like a Dingwall. There is elegance in simplicity.
5.1 lbs (not a manufacturer-quoted weight, but rather weighed by me on the same hospital scale used for infants-accurate to within about 30g). This thing is a feather with perfect balance.
The headstock is purely cosmetic, with tuners at the bridge to ensure good balance.
The best way I can describe the sound is to reiterate that this is not only a true hollowbody, but also has a hollow neck, which does contain a truss rod. Since the top is very thin, she's essentially a thinline ABG. I can easily practice on my own, unplugged in a quiet room. It is MUCH louder than a solidbody or semihollow like my old Rob Allen. I love that! The lows are very fat and resonant, as are the low mids. The high end is sweet. No real honkiness here, even with the bridge pup soloed-more like a refined burp. There's no practical feedback issue whatsoever, but I CAN play hendrix by literally having the bass kiss my Orange AD200 with the gain and volumes up; it sounds like the Eiffel Tower crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge played through a Mutron
. It has the depth of an old Guild hollowbody but much more precision/clarity and no boom. The clarity is especially striking when playing chords and double-stops.
Action is the lowest I've played on a fretted bass. There are no dead spots. The board is glass flat. I wish I knew how to tap, as she's built for that. Sustain low down is very good, although sustain above the 9th fret starts to decrease and that above 12 very much so.
With the band it sits well in a rock context and all were delighted with the tone, if somewhat perplexed by the appearance. If it was a more conventional color, I doubt they'd notice.
Overall, so far, it's everything I'd hoped for, with the only wanting area being sustain of higher notes on the board. I think my wooden basses are gonna see some quiet time now. I may even decide to sell on of my Roscoe Becks.......did I actually just say that, LOL?
Cut to the chase:
Basslab Soul V. Basslab uses auto paint and clearcoat over a "custom composite". The customer can choose virtually any available auto paint. Mine is Nissan "sunlit copper metallic". Her name is Clementine (finally, an orange bass worthy of the name I've had in mind for a long while).
Custom soundholes in the body, top requested to be as thin as possible (easily indented with a finger), 34", 19mm spacing. Strung with rounds.
Passive Rough Crystal stacked humbuckers in the same positions as my Roscoe Beck V. Passive electronics: stacked volume/tone and 4-way pup selector (neck pup, both in series, both in parallel, bridge pup) like a Dingwall. There is elegance in simplicity.
5.1 lbs (not a manufacturer-quoted weight, but rather weighed by me on the same hospital scale used for infants-accurate to within about 30g). This thing is a feather with perfect balance.
The headstock is purely cosmetic, with tuners at the bridge to ensure good balance.
The best way I can describe the sound is to reiterate that this is not only a true hollowbody, but also has a hollow neck, which does contain a truss rod. Since the top is very thin, she's essentially a thinline ABG. I can easily practice on my own, unplugged in a quiet room. It is MUCH louder than a solidbody or semihollow like my old Rob Allen. I love that! The lows are very fat and resonant, as are the low mids. The high end is sweet. No real honkiness here, even with the bridge pup soloed-more like a refined burp. There's no practical feedback issue whatsoever, but I CAN play hendrix by literally having the bass kiss my Orange AD200 with the gain and volumes up; it sounds like the Eiffel Tower crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge played through a Mutron
. It has the depth of an old Guild hollowbody but much more precision/clarity and no boom. The clarity is especially striking when playing chords and double-stops.Action is the lowest I've played on a fretted bass. There are no dead spots. The board is glass flat. I wish I knew how to tap, as she's built for that. Sustain low down is very good, although sustain above the 9th fret starts to decrease and that above 12 very much so.
With the band it sits well in a rock context and all were delighted with the tone, if somewhat perplexed by the appearance. If it was a more conventional color, I doubt they'd notice.
Overall, so far, it's everything I'd hoped for, with the only wanting area being sustain of higher notes on the board. I think my wooden basses are gonna see some quiet time now. I may even decide to sell on of my Roscoe Becks.......did I actually just say that, LOL?
not sure how to edit the typo in the thread title....
Verrrry interesting. I look forward to hearing more about it.
