I just recieved mine. Unboxed it, tuned it up, plugged it in. Electronics garbage (as to be expected). The bridge pup had no output and the neck pup had very low output and only amplified the top three strings.
I was completely expecting it from this bass, I just gutted the electronics and will be starting from scratch. The wood bridge does a decent job at allowing the bass to get tuned and somewhat intonated, but without being able to adjust the intonation can not be tweaked into perfection.
The finish on the body is really nice. The string through in the face of the body looks cool, but on the backside is ugly but it works. The ground is literally tied onto a ball of the string instead of mounted to the metal plate all of the strings are fed through on the backside.
The neck feels awesome, actually. The frets we're dressed somewhat. They do not overhang the edge of the fretboard (on my specific bass). And with tension on the strings and a slight bridge adjustment it has pretty smooth & low action. The machineheads are OK, they hold tune and don't feel bad as the gears mesh.
I give the bass a F if someone were hoping to have a functional bass out of the box without any extra work or electronics swapping. But for someone like me, who was interested in stripping it down and building it up. It's actually a pretty cool bass and gets a C for for fit & finish.
There are better intro/intermediate basses out there for the money. I was attracted to the Les Paul body, F-hole and even the 6 string.
I am going to install a hipshot bridge, high end pups and active EQ, as well as some other custom touches in hopes of making it a decent player for me and not for resale value.
EDIT: After tearing into the bass some more. The extended fretboard past the end of the next was making contact with the body and preventing the neck from seating fully into the pocket. Clearanced the fretboard, drilled the holes out in the body some so the screws just thread into the neck only.
My plan was to change out the bridge, but the string spacing is making it tough to find a screw down bridge. As shipped it has a string spacing of .575" and actually feels natural that way. The bridges I can find online have .649-.669 spacing and although it's doable and the strings are still on the fretboard (barely) it doesn't feel as natural to play as the tighter spacing.
The paint around the F-hole is very thin, I've already chipped mine while filing the edges smooth. I will need to route the pickup slots out for the pups I want, I hope my dremel won't chip the paint at the edge of the pup slot as easily.
The string through body is different, and will need extra long scale length strings. Standard 34" scale strings (despite the bass being 33" scale) will fall short of reaching the nut before they tapper down or hit the silk wrap.
