MTD Kingston

Wecome to TB. The kingston, to me, fits and feels nice. It has a fast neck and its easy to play. You can get some great thump out of it but I think it sounds a little more modern than a fender. To me its a great bass at a great price. Sorry, not a lot of help, but I hope a little.

 

do a search, kingstons have been talked about a lot... the overall conclusion, AFAIR, is - they`re great.

welcome on tb

 

Knightfall, having owned a 5 string version for a time, I think the Kingston is a great bass for the money. I found it to be a very light bass, do not recall any neck dive - remember it balancing nicely. I though the pickup was great, nice output with a pleasing midrange and smooth top. Fantastic B string and nice playability, although the 35" scale and wider fingerboard were a bit different for me. I imagine the 4 string version would be comfortable. Many will attest to the playability of the Mike Tobias designed neck. I ran the bass flat out or sometimes with an Aguilar outboar preamp depending on the room. I never found the need the upgrade the pickup, just a little active EQ at times. As far as comparisons to Fenders, kind of a different animal but take the fat passive tone of a precision and blend that with the focus of a jazz and you kind of get the idea. There are some comparisons to the Stingray but without the extreme active EQ of the Stingray preamp. This sounds like what you may be looking for based on your descriptions, however, if you can please try one out. Or you can check out www.accessbass.com, Adrian Garcia has some soundclips of Kingstons on his website (this will at least give you an idea if you don't get the opportunity to try one out). I bought mine from Adrian a while back and he was great to deal with, very helpful and informative.

 

I can reccomend it through spending a hour or so with it in a store and enjoying it very much, but if you were to get one new, I'd say hold out until the active ones are out. Not sure when exactly they're coming out but should be sometime soon.

 

Yeah... what he said. Wait for the actives.

 

To me that's an understatement! Adrian is great to deal with.

 

I have one... it's a really, really good bass. The neck is both long (35" scale, so longer than the Fender necks you are used to) and wide (same string spacing as a P-bass), but there aren't really any neckdive issues. The neck actually feels nothing like any fender, with its assymetrical profile. I've got the action so low on this bass that I am able to get a little bit of fretless like "mwah" sound on the D and G string... it sounds so good. I highly recommend this bass.

 

+2

 

I love mine, 5 string fretted w/maple board. Very punchy grindy tone, I run Stainless steel roundwounds on it. Sounds great with rock/metal music. I get decent slap tone, probably would be better with some new Nickel strings. GREAT B string, full tone and tight. Also has a very fast neck and fairly low action. In short, pick one up!

 

Welcome. I have the Heir and love it (almost the same with an extra J pick up). Just wanted to point out that Ebanol is only standard on the Fretless. They are either Rosewood or Maple in the standard fretted config.

Good Luck!

 

I have a k4 from 2001 (before the BFTS was added). The bass is wonderful and has a really good tone. I'm selling mine though, because I've decided to go with active pre's in my live setups (already have a 4 and 5er).

I would say that a Kingston is more comfortable than any Fender I've played. I have a P-bass and have owned a jazz as well and my Kingston is much better.

The Kingston's neck is thin and fast, much closer to the jazz style neck rather than a P.

$325 gets my bass shipped w/HSC

 

Bass Central has some of the new Kingstons and Heirs now. That red Heir looks sweet!!! Glad they dropped the pickguards.

 

Have had 3 - MTD's - 2 Kingstons and a Grendel.

There is a lot of good advice above but the poster who says "ait for the actives", has, I think, go it right.

I put an Aguilar OBP 1 in my K5 and it transformed the bass. However it is now active only and that for me is a real shame and I hope that the new Kingstons have the capacity to be played in active and passive modes. If so, you will have a killer bass.

Build quality on mine was great, very fast and comfortable necks and light, light, light!

Just to confuse things - try and get to play a Grendel or Saratoga - these are excellent, massively underappreciated and therefore, well-priced on the used market.

Any way you go, MTD's are great.

 

i had a passive fretless K5 for a while.

great buy!

f

 

hi:

i am in "shopping mode" for a mtd kingston/heir fretless.
(talkbass forum is really a bad place to hang
out for those wanting to cure themselves of GAS).

presently, the active kingston and active heirs are available in the market. and they are about a 100 bucks more than the passive model (similar to what it cost to pay for an onboard preamp).

i heard that the active fretless are coming out in 2005.

can you guys give me some opinions:
- should i wait for the active model or just pick up a passive one now and rely on my external preamp (i got a bbe bmax ss)?
- what is the tonal difference between the active and passive kingston/heir? (fretted)


-cheng

 

I have a Kingston 5. Like others said, it balances well, and I feel that the neck is super-comfy (I'm mainly a Fender player).

You have to get used to the fret dots on the side only, and also the additional frets up top.

The thing I don't like about it is the pickguard, FUGLY. I haven't taken the guard off, since then it would just be a plain ol' black bass. I just wish there were some different guards available.

Lync

 

I have a KH4 --added a BadAss II,Bart pup's and tri-coil switch.
I love it!

whatever it lacks in the active voice is made up with the aid of my Sans DI and Digitech BassSqueeze Compressor pedal...