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Basses with f-holes

#41
oldrookie said:
Thanks for the pix, Chad.
Was sitting here just randomly reading threads and now I have G. A. S. Was I looking for it? No.

What a beautiful instrument!
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:D TalkBass has caused me more GAS pain (and financial injury) than I care to recall. Thanks for the comment; I apologize for the pains.

conehc said:
Beautiful bass... How about the tone? Looking to your pics I see that the bridge seems to have no height or entonation adjustments. Is it a problem for this bass?
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I'm not very good at addressing questions about tone so please pardon the following lame response.
I'm happy with the tone; with a new set of Elixers it has a nice balanced, useable sound.
Not boomy but also not twangy.
I would consider gigging with it but I'd only pull it out for certain songs.
Eagles, Beatles, oldies, etc. It's not a rock bass.
It's passive with a single pick-up and a tone knob that doesn't do much. Some, but not much.
Most of your tone variety will come from right hand location and technique and of course, your amp.
Honestly, I bought it to play mostly unplugged.
I grab it when I've got five minutes to scratch an itch.
It's not very loud acoustically (unless I slap it :D) but that's not an issue for my needs.

As far as your question about the bridge adjustment; it does have height and intonation adjustments.
The intonation adjusts individually the height does not.
I haven't touched the bridge or truss rod but I'm sure you can get whatever setup you need.

Overall, I would confidently reccomend this bass to a friend if their criteria were the same as the original posters'.
This bass has lots of "bang for the buck", good useable tone and cool looks.
Mine's a keeper.

Bass Player Magazine did a review of the AGB140 some time around Jan. of 2006 (not sure).
It got a good review and I think they gave it an editors award (whatever that means.)

I hope this helps,

Chad
 
#45
Hey, The Ibanez Artcore ABG140 is a great instrument! I paid like $250 for mine at guitar center (a good friend works there and gets me the discount). It is so much fun to play and is made beautifully. I never thought I'd say that about an Ibanez bass; I'm very picky. I put an amazing AERO pickup on it (had to route to make it fit) and I changed the knobs to Q parts with wood tops. The original pickup sounds punchy and is quite usable, but NOTHING IN THIS WORLD COMPARES TO AN AERO PICKUP! Buy one of these SINGLE pickup models, I did not like the newer model (2 pickups) at all!
 
#50
One person. ONE person mentioned the Warwick Infinity LTD, and it was completely passed over by everybody. It's probably the best all around-er I've ever played (granted I own one, and I'm quite biased towards Warwick). It get's such a nice, round, airy quality. It still has bite, and growl, but it's fatter, and the wood breathes more. Plus, the pickup combo (though MEC's aren't that great...) is so versatile that you can get a Jazz tone that's better than a Fender Jazz tone, or you can get a compressed humbucker sound out of the bridge. And who can deny how damn pretty they are? Granted they cost a small fortune, but I've owned more expensive basses that didn't get half of the compliments on tone and look as the Infinity.
 
#51
Not f-holes per say, but...

A beautiful Bee with an s-hole:

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My Jerzy has some kind of abstract bird-in-flight hole:

JDL006sm.jpg
 
#55
pjmuck said:
and the infamous Ampeg AEB (Eastwood makes a knockoff of this that's much better than the original).
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With all due respect the Eastwood AEB is not a knockoff of the original Ampeg AEB1 Scrollhead but the body, sans Scroll is a knockoff of the much more rare Ampeg AMB-1 Scrollhead from '68-'70 which were much improved over the earlier and more common 'Mystery Pickup" AEB-1's which had a hidden pickup and a bridge that extended past the end of the body. The AMB-1's on the other hand had a very cool pickup in the sweet spot location designed by Dan Armstrong that had four separate pickups in one bar type housing, were amazing sounding and played very well, I know because I used one from '68 to '76 and I wish it hadn't gotten away from me.

If you want to know the history of these basses you might want to visit Bruce Johnson's site www.xstrange.com to find out who played these unique basses live and in the studio from the late '60's to the present. As far as the Eastwood knockoff, I saw one at last years NAMM and it was a far cry from the original and IMHO not necessarily in a good way. FWIW, Bass Player magazine reviewed the Eastwood last month and commented along the lines that it was pretty mediocre sounding and of good but average build.

Just my 2 cents,

George
 
#58
X Wolf said:
With all due respect the Eastwood AEB is not a knockoff of the original Ampeg AEB1 Scrollhead but the body, sans Scroll is a knockoff of the much more rare Ampeg AMB-1 Scrollhead from '68-'70 which were much improved over the earlier and more common 'Mystery Pickup" AEB-1's. The AMB-1's had a very cool pickup designed by Dan Armstrong that was four separate pickups in one bar type housing, were amazing sounding and played very well, I know because I used one from '68 to '76 and I wish it hadn't gotten away from me.

If you want to know the history of these basses you might want to visit Bruce Johnson's site www.xstrange.com to find out who played these unique basses live and in the studio from the late '60's to the present. As far as the Eastwood knockoff, I saw one at last years NAMM and it was a far cry from the the original and IMHO not in a good way. FWIW, Bass Player magazine reviewed the Eastwood last month and commented that it was pretty mediocre sounding and of average build.

Just my 2 cents,

George
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I played an Eastwood in a store last month and wasn't overly impressed - and I wanted to be. If I can ever scrape up the cash, I'm going to get one of Bruce Johnson's if he's still building.

WoodyG3 said:
I've just had this a couple of weeks, but it sounds great:

TurserBody.jpg


It's a Jay Turser JTB-134. I put some LaBella Tapewound strings on it and it really has a nice tone.
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Double sick!
 
#59
VerneAndru....

Bruce Johnson is I believe still restoring vintage Scrollheads and also manufacturing his upgraded versions of these basses in his one man shop located in Burbank, CA and I have had the pleasure of visiting Bruce there. I might add that Bruce is an engineer and a Bass Player as well as a builder and a really nice guy as well.

George
 
#60
X Wolf said:
Verne Andru....

Bruce Johnson is I believe still restoring vintage Scrollheads and also manufacturing his upgraded versions of these basses in his one man shop located in Burbank, CA and I have had the pleasure visiting Bruce there. I might add that Bruce is an engineer and a Bass Player as well as a builder and a really nice guy as well.

George
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Good to know, and thanks. I hesitate contacting him because I don't have the cash at the moment and don't want to waste his time. I love what he's doing and getting one of his customs is right at the top of my list.
 

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