Well, I've lived with this bass for a little while now and with any such experiment, you then need to ask some hard questions about it's success as an instrument. I've decided, because of the sort of person I am, to be brutally honest and I hope you'll value that rather than saying, "told you so". Coz, some of things I've learnt, you can only learn by trying which is why I tried. Anyhow, enough preamble.
What I'm going to do, is list positives and negatives and then an overall finding based on the
Positives;
Low weight
Balances well on the strap and on your knee
Trapezoidal neck fits hand surprisingly well
Long sustain on notes even into the upper register
Overall tone covers all frequencies well and cut nicely while still being warm
34" E string has plenty of punch and tension
31" G has noticably lower tension easing playing
Neck extremely stable
Chambered body has a decent acoustic sound for such a small body
3.5deg back angle in neck adds to playability and
Negatives;
Neck is too thick really
Lack of radius on fingerboard detracts from comfort
Nature of fanned fret markers makes it almost impossible to be certain of position/intonation
Strap hanger on neck obstructs left thumb
Strap hanger on neck takes some of the advantage away from the back angle
Headless bridge is rubbish
D extension is too hard to reach between the nut and the headstock
D extension needs a clip to lock the string down to low E
Overall finding;
This is gonna sound harsh, but I think it's a fail. Don't get me wrong, the sound is great, the bass works etc. However, the thing that really lets it down is the fanned frets. Let me give you an example...
http://soundcloud.com/simpleinnovation/all-the-things-you-are
I played the bass at Jazz Society last night (as did David1234). The clip really speaks for itself. Now sure, "All the things you are" is my arch nemesis jazz standard. However, I can confidently say that's the worst solo I've played in a long time. Really it, and the bad intonation came down to one thing. Fanned frets. I played better later in the night, but when under the pump I found myself fighting the bass rather than it helping me. I've played it at church and been fine. However, doing the hard yards showed it's weakness. I just couldn't find where I was spose to be. So as you can hear I spent the whole song sliding in and out of tune. Just remember I've been playing fretless and upright for 21 years now, so it shouldn't be that hard, but it was. And, I've spent a hour an day or so most days this week playing scales and working on some stuff. So it should have been better, but it wasn't. The expression on Dave's face at various points told me all the same things.
Am I sad? No, not really. We all knew it was a crazy experiment. The whole thing cost under $200 to build and I've learn heaps in the process. But no, I won't do it again.
