I havent seen much on this bass here on TB, so I thought Id offer some info after I bought one for $799 from Musician's Friend last week.
You can read all about the origin of this reissue here (Invalid Link Removed). In a nutshell, luthier/musician Roger Fritz has been making high-end ($3,600) recreations of the old Kay and then Kay partnered with him to make Chinese versions. Fritz also offers a version thats priced ($2,500) in between the two.
When I talked to Fritz's wife (who was very nice and informative), they only had the sunburst model in stock. It would've cost me $50 for them to ship it (as opposed to MF's free shipping), but Roger also does a setup (which probably would've been worth it as you read further). But I was set on a blonde.
I ordered mine from MF on Saturday; it arrived Wednesday (free shipping) with a cool looking two-tone case, but I think regular gigging will take its toll on this case fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the bass is too thick to fit in my Fender gig bag.
When I first took the bass out of the case, I noticed a rattle inside the bodys hollow chambers. I took off the control panel and found a couple of small pieces of wood chips and a screw. Weird thing is, there are no screws like it on the bass, so who knows where it came from.
Im a little picky about details, and I wasnt impressed that the pickup/surround are off-center and a bit cockeyed. You can see in one of the photos what I mean. Its not a lot, but its noticeable.
Next, the D string tuner needs to be rotated counter-clockwise a bit, which I havent done yet.
The pickup surround and the control plate come covered in clear plastic that you have to peel off, and its a total pain in the ass. I never did get it all off around the knobs and pickup height adjustment screws. I even used tweezers to try and pull it out, but couldnt.
The bridge needed to be raised slightly because there was fret buzzing initially. No big deal to twist the adjusters a few turns. The bridge is not the highest quality; there are small metal pieces under each string that you can move forward or backward into different slots, but I wouldnt call it fine tuning by any means. It is what it is, and probably a recreation of the original (?).
The neck is pretty thin with small frets, but I really didnt find it hard to adjust to on my first gig (trio) Friday night. Having come from an upright and a Fender CS 55 P, it was different but not difficult.
I had a little problem with the nut that holds the cord jack coming loose, so Ill have to see if just tightening it will suffice.
The dot markers, both on the side of the neck and on the fretboard, are very small, dark and hard to see. On stage, they are tough to see.
You can really get a lot of different tones out of this Kay, depending on whether you use a pick, thumb or fingers, and especially on where you hit the strings. I can get a nice fat upright tone if I rest my thumb on the edge of the fingerboard and use the side of my index (like on an upright). You can rest your thumb on the lipstick pickup and get a nice tone, and muting the strings near the bridge and using a pick yields a totally different tone. (I realize you can do this with most EBs, but the variances in tone seemed really wide with the Kay.)
Theres a volume and tone knob ( I play with both wide open) and a fat toggle switch that produces a very trebly or very bassy tone. At home, I thought the bassy tone was overkill and would be useless live, but I found just the opposite on gigs. We did some blues, jump, surf, jazzy instrumentals there was a great tone available for all of them. I was using an Ampeg BA115T, which I just purchased Thursday, and the combination was pretty damn sweet (and cheap, in my opinion - $1285).
Saturdays gig (quartet) was much louder, and I was worried about the amp having enough oomph and the bass being able to cut through. The rig worked great, especially in the third set when the guitarist asked me to crank the amps bass knob a bit. This Kay is just flat out perfect for blues (and I think the tube preamp in the Ampeg helps a lot).
For me, this bass is a good value when I weigh the pros (plays easy; looks great; light; lots of different tones; inexpensive; old school vibe; cool case) against the cons (Chinese mass production loose jack; pickup off-center; tuner crooked; not the highest quality parts).
With an upgrade or two (jack; bridge), this might just be the last EB I buy for quite awhile unless I get the sunburst model, too....
You can read all about the origin of this reissue here (Invalid Link Removed). In a nutshell, luthier/musician Roger Fritz has been making high-end ($3,600) recreations of the old Kay and then Kay partnered with him to make Chinese versions. Fritz also offers a version thats priced ($2,500) in between the two.
When I talked to Fritz's wife (who was very nice and informative), they only had the sunburst model in stock. It would've cost me $50 for them to ship it (as opposed to MF's free shipping), but Roger also does a setup (which probably would've been worth it as you read further). But I was set on a blonde.
I ordered mine from MF on Saturday; it arrived Wednesday (free shipping) with a cool looking two-tone case, but I think regular gigging will take its toll on this case fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the bass is too thick to fit in my Fender gig bag.
When I first took the bass out of the case, I noticed a rattle inside the bodys hollow chambers. I took off the control panel and found a couple of small pieces of wood chips and a screw. Weird thing is, there are no screws like it on the bass, so who knows where it came from.
Im a little picky about details, and I wasnt impressed that the pickup/surround are off-center and a bit cockeyed. You can see in one of the photos what I mean. Its not a lot, but its noticeable.
Next, the D string tuner needs to be rotated counter-clockwise a bit, which I havent done yet.
The pickup surround and the control plate come covered in clear plastic that you have to peel off, and its a total pain in the ass. I never did get it all off around the knobs and pickup height adjustment screws. I even used tweezers to try and pull it out, but couldnt.
The bridge needed to be raised slightly because there was fret buzzing initially. No big deal to twist the adjusters a few turns. The bridge is not the highest quality; there are small metal pieces under each string that you can move forward or backward into different slots, but I wouldnt call it fine tuning by any means. It is what it is, and probably a recreation of the original (?).
The neck is pretty thin with small frets, but I really didnt find it hard to adjust to on my first gig (trio) Friday night. Having come from an upright and a Fender CS 55 P, it was different but not difficult.
I had a little problem with the nut that holds the cord jack coming loose, so Ill have to see if just tightening it will suffice.
The dot markers, both on the side of the neck and on the fretboard, are very small, dark and hard to see. On stage, they are tough to see.
You can really get a lot of different tones out of this Kay, depending on whether you use a pick, thumb or fingers, and especially on where you hit the strings. I can get a nice fat upright tone if I rest my thumb on the edge of the fingerboard and use the side of my index (like on an upright). You can rest your thumb on the lipstick pickup and get a nice tone, and muting the strings near the bridge and using a pick yields a totally different tone. (I realize you can do this with most EBs, but the variances in tone seemed really wide with the Kay.)
Theres a volume and tone knob ( I play with both wide open) and a fat toggle switch that produces a very trebly or very bassy tone. At home, I thought the bassy tone was overkill and would be useless live, but I found just the opposite on gigs. We did some blues, jump, surf, jazzy instrumentals there was a great tone available for all of them. I was using an Ampeg BA115T, which I just purchased Thursday, and the combination was pretty damn sweet (and cheap, in my opinion - $1285).
Saturdays gig (quartet) was much louder, and I was worried about the amp having enough oomph and the bass being able to cut through. The rig worked great, especially in the third set when the guitarist asked me to crank the amps bass knob a bit. This Kay is just flat out perfect for blues (and I think the tube preamp in the Ampeg helps a lot).
For me, this bass is a good value when I weigh the pros (plays easy; looks great; light; lots of different tones; inexpensive; old school vibe; cool case) against the cons (Chinese mass production loose jack; pickup off-center; tuner crooked; not the highest quality parts).
With an upgrade or two (jack; bridge), this might just be the last EB I buy for quite awhile unless I get the sunburst model, too....
