Brice And Douglass 6 string pros and cons?

I would recommend buying one used. There's a Brice on my local CL selling for $250 obo. Resale value seems very low.

 

Hi.

There's been several threads about these Chinese basses and I can speak only about the ones they sell in Thomann.com where they go by the name of Harley Benton.

IME exxellent value for the money, but need quite a bit of work.

New strings.
Fret levelling + crowning.
Full setup.
Sometimes the screws are too short and must be replaced.
Etc.

Pickups are OK, but the pre sucks (eats batteries).

So pros are that they're cheap.
Cons are that they need quite a bit ow work to be reasonably playable and the resale value is next to none.

If You can, buy used, chances are that the setup is better, all the small quirks have been remedied etc. etc.

Regards
Sam

 

I have had an HXB-406 and I still have a WOB-826.


I guess the fact that I only still have one tells you which I preferred. The reason is simply though that I liked the tone on the WOB better, and even though the HXB could be played passive or active, it just didn't ring my bell.

The hardware on both is good, and even though the pres are nothing special, they do allow you to dial in a variety of tones.

I like the smaller body on my WOB also. Be aware that these are not wide-spaced wrt strings. Some people care, for me it's better that it's not.

If you get either of these you will get more than your money's worth.

 

We already had a discussion about this. Brice's are great, but if you want to get one, do a bundle of some Bart's from TBP.

I just ordered a fretless HXB-6 (natural finish), and when it gets here, I'm going to have to:

1) Adjust action and intonation.
2) Install Bartolini 4.6 P/A preamp.
3) Fine tune everything.

Overall, I'm pretty excited.

 

I have a Brice Defiant 6 that I don't really play. It is a nice bass; I don't have any other experience with six string basses to compare it to, though.

Definitely get a new preamp if you get the Brice. They are notorious for being noisy. Luckily you can switch between active and passive. The passive mode is a lot more usable. I think you'd be fine with the stock pickups as long as you get a new preamp.

If you can buy used then you may be better off. I'm probably going to sell my Defiant 6 (once I get a box to ship it in) so you may see that pop up in the classifieds. The extended range isn't something that I take full advantage of. I'm also experience some pressure to unload a lot of my unused gear. It's all for the best, though!

Good luck choosing a bass! The Brice 6 string basses are great deals!

 

Another TB'er has one for sale. K-Frog has a beautiful blue 6 string. You might want to contact him.

See this link:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=537917&highlight=

 

That was three months ago. I doubt it's still for sale...

 

I had both of these, but in fretless versions:





To me, the Brice is a Much better bass, and it should be, it costs twice as much. The Douglas has apretty bad neck dive issue, where the Brice sat perfectly level. The Brice is 35" scale, the Douglas is 34" scale. For some reason, when I playd the Douglas, my fretting hand & forearm would cramp up. If I picked up the Brice, no pains at all, I could play it for hours.

The Brice has a very comfortable, round neck profile. Not baseball bat-like, just beefy enough and yet comfortable. The Douglas neck is wide and flat.

I'd suggest swapping the preamps in both basses, but the Brice does come with a better preamp. What I did with these, I installed a Bart 4.6 A/P into the Brice and then installed the Brice preamp into the Douglas. Made a great improvement in BOTH basses.

The Brice does come with better hardware, too. The bridge on the Douglas had some rattling issues with it, but the rattles did not come through the amp, though.

 

That Dougie is pretty; but I'm sad to hear that it's not as good compared to Brice. I'm just pumped to get my first Brice; it's so ridiculous that I'm already looking for my second Brice, yet I haven't even got my first one yet.

Gah!

 

The nice thing about the Douglas is that the body is made of Ash. The Brice is Alder. The ash body has a bit more punch and tightness to it.

 

Heres mine, great tone, great player, Awesome

 

I just spoke to K-Frog and it is still available.

 

I got a Douglas 5-string neck-through fretless last year and now use it quite regularly

PRO'S: Very solidly built, comfortable neck for me, good choice of woods (Ash, Maple, Rosewood), hardware good and solid. Plays well, nice grrroowwwlll.

CON'S: Pickups needed replacement (came with a cheap set of J-bass PU's and a really bad preamp that picked up radio stations ), needs a good setup once you unpack it, fingerboard needs cleaned.

I had my regular tech completely gut the electronics altogether and replaced the PU's with EMG's, passive with NO onboard preamp. They're quiet, reliable, growl like a panther, and NO radio interference! It's not Percy Jones' 1978 Wal but with judicious EQ-ing, Radial Bassbone and a little slapback delay, it gets close.