It all started a long while ago with a nagging itch for a simple, passive, single-pickup bass. With a classic distinctive tone. Ok, fine, I straight up just wanted a Precision.
While my love for, and the absolute competency of my StingRay 5 made it difficult to justify any new purchase, I told myself that maybe a beater bass was in order - something inexpensive that I wouldn't worry about leaving unattended in the green room at venues quite so much. Maybe something that didn't have any CITES restricted materials that I could travel with on the off chance I was booked up in... Canada...
Once I caught wind of the updated MIM series and started reading some reviews, I knew in the back of my mind that it was probably just a matter of time - and with some of the free time I had over the holidays, I sought one out to test and was very impressed. Last week I pulled the trigger, and today I had delivered to me my first new bass in over ten years:
I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. It's night, and lighting isn't great for me. I'll try to attach a few shots from Sweetwater as well, where I specifically picked out this bass in particular because it seemed like it had decent tolerances, and the best wood grain style of any I've seen:
Allegedly these are all laminate bodies without a veneer, but hell if I can tell where the seam is on this one! Again, see the attachments for better pics from Sweetwater.
I'm really quite impressed with everything on this bass. Fit and finish seems top notch, and it sounds great acoustically. Playing it at-volume will have to wait with a few little ones sleeping in adjacent rooms, but if it sounds as good as the one from GC I'll be a happy camper.
The bass itself actually came nicely set up. While I can't tell if that's Fender's or Sweetwater's doing, it likely won't get any tweaks from me before I'm able to slap some Chromes on it.
Feel wise, one of my biggest concerns was the fretboard edges and the frets themselves - as the one I tried in GC had frets that were a little sharp. I don't know if it comes through in the pic (I tried), but the frets on this one actually appear to be dressed incredibly well!
The maple fretboard is gorgeous, and the fretboard edge is surprisingly plenty rounded for my taste!
One thing that I was a little surprised to see was just how far countersunk the pole-pieces of the pickup are, but in looking at other p-bass pickups, particular of the vintage variety, that doesn't seem all that unusual, right?
As you can tell, I'm extremely impressed with this bass so far. I'll be sure to report back once I've had a chance to do more intensive playing with it. Ironically I'm in the middle of some bass tracking for an upcoming release and I have a gig tomorrow that this bass won't be used for, but after that I'm sure there will be plenty of time for us to get loudly acquainted!
One last family shot for the night!
While my love for, and the absolute competency of my StingRay 5 made it difficult to justify any new purchase, I told myself that maybe a beater bass was in order - something inexpensive that I wouldn't worry about leaving unattended in the green room at venues quite so much. Maybe something that didn't have any CITES restricted materials that I could travel with on the off chance I was booked up in... Canada...
Once I caught wind of the updated MIM series and started reading some reviews, I knew in the back of my mind that it was probably just a matter of time - and with some of the free time I had over the holidays, I sought one out to test and was very impressed. Last week I pulled the trigger, and today I had delivered to me my first new bass in over ten years:
I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. It's night, and lighting isn't great for me. I'll try to attach a few shots from Sweetwater as well, where I specifically picked out this bass in particular because it seemed like it had decent tolerances, and the best wood grain style of any I've seen:
Allegedly these are all laminate bodies without a veneer, but hell if I can tell where the seam is on this one! Again, see the attachments for better pics from Sweetwater.
I'm really quite impressed with everything on this bass. Fit and finish seems top notch, and it sounds great acoustically. Playing it at-volume will have to wait with a few little ones sleeping in adjacent rooms, but if it sounds as good as the one from GC I'll be a happy camper.
The bass itself actually came nicely set up. While I can't tell if that's Fender's or Sweetwater's doing, it likely won't get any tweaks from me before I'm able to slap some Chromes on it.
Feel wise, one of my biggest concerns was the fretboard edges and the frets themselves - as the one I tried in GC had frets that were a little sharp. I don't know if it comes through in the pic (I tried), but the frets on this one actually appear to be dressed incredibly well!
The maple fretboard is gorgeous, and the fretboard edge is surprisingly plenty rounded for my taste!
One thing that I was a little surprised to see was just how far countersunk the pole-pieces of the pickup are, but in looking at other p-bass pickups, particular of the vintage variety, that doesn't seem all that unusual, right?
As you can tell, I'm extremely impressed with this bass so far. I'll be sure to report back once I've had a chance to do more intensive playing with it. Ironically I'm in the middle of some bass tracking for an upcoming release and I have a gig tomorrow that this bass won't be used for, but after that I'm sure there will be plenty of time for us to get loudly acquainted!
One last family shot for the night!
