Franklin Fretless vs. Big Al SSS

I love my Big Al sss. I actually run it passive with just the neck pickup. The tonal variety is killer with the preamp though. The neck is not too thin and not too chunky. My Ric 4003 tends to sit a lot.

 

I own about 24 basses. Have owned about 100? 4 of my basses are Musicmans (Stingray, Sterling, Bongo, Big Al). The Big Al is my #1 bass. I truly believe it's capable of anything.

 

I'm not personally a fretless guy. But the Big Al is a tone monster, it can seriously cop any tone out there. Beware the middle single coil alone is passive though. You may find you won't pick up your P again.

 

I would say that in general the Big Al is an excellent bass but, like a Ric 4003 (my favorite), there are lemons out there. I played two of them at the GC here in Denver... it was pretty disheartening as I really wanted to like them. I guess the neck is oil-finished, because it was getting really dry and was almost painful to play (I like finished necks though). Also, the electronics on one were in awful shape. Fret sprout in both cases that GC failed to address. I alerted EBMM but don't know if the looked into it.

As to its versatility I say it truly is a pretty broad-spectrum beast but don't expect it to sound exactly like any one thing so much as a slightly different shade of it.

Maybe you guys can give each other a 7-day grace period... if one of you has to go back on the deal, the other has to honor it, at the shipping expense of the guy who flakes. I dunno.

 

GC doesn't take care of any of their instruments.

 

??? Either im misunderstanding, or you have a broken big al.

 

There other EBMMs were immaculate, probably got them in more recently. The SRay Classic played and sounded so much better. This doesn't mean the Big Al is bad (I like it), just that the condition of those instruments made it really hard for me to evaluate them and that there can indeed be bad ones. These were some of the worst playing instruments I've ever played in a music store, and that's a pretty big sample.

I played a Big Al at the same GC many months prior to that and it was a lot better but I got to spend much less time with it, plus it had fussy electronics so it was hard to evaluate the pickups against each other.

 

Go for it. I want to live vicariously though you, as I won't be able to afford one for a long time. The SSS seems like such a beastly instrument!

 

I bought my first Warwick in 1998. They weren't easy to come by at that time, but I was lucky as Rudy's in NY had a handful of them. They were all very well taken care of. I was blown away. Every one of them that I picked up played, felt, and sounded like a dream. I took home an active corvette, and was in love.

Around 2000, Warwicks started showing up in Guitar Centers and Sam Ashes. I was astounded by how the basses on their walls differed from the one I owned, and the ones I played at Rudy's. The actual quality of the basses themselves I'm sure were the same, but the abuse they took, the lack of setup, the dead strings and batteries, the neglect - made Warwicks feel and sound absolutely horrible. Like a Telestar bass I owned in the early 70s. I thought it was really sad because I felt that anyone who ever picked one of these up would hate Warwicks forever. Not in a million years would I have wanted to touch another warwick, if that's what I thought they were all about.

This was so much the case with Guitar Center, that I even wound up picking up a Streamer pro M one lucky day that my wife saw a $499 pricetage hanging on. It felt, looked, and played like crap. Knobs were falling off, needed a setup, strings, and a battery... I took it home, gave it an hours worth of TLC, and it played like the dream basses at Rudy's. I sold it for $1000 the following week. To a very happy customer.

Moral of the story is hopefully clear. And if you played my Big Al, I guarantee you'd feel different than you presently do. Especially if you played it at a gig.

Last note: Big Als are a novelty. EVERYONE HAS TO PLAY THEM when they're hanging on a GC wall. Was the same with the Warwicks when they first showed up. They get abused a whole lot more than other basses that people have already got their grubby hands on countless times.

 

How do I presently feel? I get the idea you think I have a bad impression of Big Als when I don't. My message is simple: "Caveat emptor", and it applies any time you don't get to play a bass before claiming ownership. It's just too dicey without some kind of protection. Notice from the outset I mentioned this is as equally true of my favorite bass model, the 4003, which I own four of.

 

I'm sure you must have seen this:

Music Man Big Al Bass - YouTube

 

Ahhhh..... But have you seen this? Tony Franklin - YouTube

 

Anybody with a Tony Franklin fretless ought to be able to play like that!