ElBajista said:
How's the tone and playability?
What about the feel/finish/dimensions of the neck?
How is the quality of the other hardware?
Are the stock strings any good?
How's the feel of the 34" B string?
Weight?
Could you possibly record some soundclips?
Congrats!
Tone/Playability-I was really astounded by this bass. It reminds me of the DeArmond Pilot Plus 5 [my first 5]. Tone-it has true single coil pickups, if you favor the bridge it gets the nasally honk, if you favor the mid pickup-it gets more round. I really missed having that active Jazz bass tone. I now have it in spades. The main thing electronics wise that i'm tempted to do is drop in a 3 band preamp instead of the 2 band, except the only preamp that i have laying around is for a single H Ray5 setup instead of a 2 SCs [it's the SD MM5 tone circuit]. The pickups seem pretty nice-i was expecting just above garbage in that department to be honest. I'm not wild about the idea of dropping more into parts than i did on the bass-so i believe they'll remain stock.
Playability specifically-it feels good. The frets are all filed correctly, no high ones, i like the string spacing. The string spacing doesn't feel ungodly wide like some basses do to me. For reference-my main electric bass is a Ray5.
I took the bass straight to Scott Pazera to get his opinion of it...and to buy some stuff from him. I told him "my goal was to get a cheap 6 that would let me know if i like playing 6 strings or not instead of spending $2k on a bass and think 'oh crap, i don't like this' " and he told me that the bass would definately fit the bill.
I like the finish on the neck-it's not that god awful [IMO] glossy poly that they put on the Jazz style basses, the neck is satin finished.
Other Hardware-it feels OK, i haven't really checked it out too much. I did put Schaller straplocks on it immediately-i have them on all of my basses so this was just something that i do [even did it to my Ray5 as soon as it came in].
Stock Strings-ok i was expecting rusted, dirty, rough crap strings like what came on the fretted 5 string J i bought from them. Nope-they sound and feel pretty good. I think they're Nickels, but-i'm not sure. The strings are good enough to where i'm not going to worry about buying a replacement set for a bit.
The 34'' B string-feels fine to me, was quite surprisingly tight for the price point.
Weight-i can't tell as i haven't ABed it against my Ray5.......this bass is definately more headstock/neck heavy than any other bass that i own. The body is relatively tiny compared to the headstock so there's a bit of neckdive, not much, but some.
Sound Clips-sure, if i remember, i'll record them once i get home from work and then all i need to do is figure out how to host/post them. I'll try to do a variety of clips. E.g. at least 1 chordal clip. If there's any specifics for tone-let me know.
