I've posted about this in the "future Caprice Megathread" as I call it (https://www.talkbass.com/threads/music-man-caprice-true-boutique-quality.1238859), but thought I'd do the obligatory New Bass Day post as well.
I am primarily a fretless player, but I do love playing some stuff that works better with frets. I had a wonderful early 70's Precision with a slimmer B neck that I loved as far as tone and playability, but it weighed about 12 pounds. I have back issues, and it got to where I couldn't play even one full set with it, so I regretfully sold it a while back. So I went for about 18 months without a fretted bass, but then decided to get one again, as I'd like to find a fun funky bluesy sort of project to play in. As I was starting to look around, the Caprice kept coming up as a lighter weight and stellar quality instrument.
I found the thread I linked above, and @Dr. Cheese 's posts and clips, which were extremely helpful. What tipped the scales and made my decision, was the Premier Guitar review () ... the tone of the P pickup in that review was nicely reminiscent of my old P, and this bass is much lighter and has a nice fast, narrow-nut neck like I like.
It just arrived today, and I'm blown away at the tone, quality, and playability. I've never gelled with bridge pickups, except for a Stingray ... anything closer to the bridge than that was never that usable for my hands and technique, except to just dial in a bit to add some bite to the neck pickup. This one is wonderful, for me. I finally have a two-pickup bass where I can actually see using both of the pickups soloed in different settings, and the range of tones available by blending is just awesome as well. And I can actually effectively dig in and play over the bridge pickup on this one, which I've never been able to do on a jazz ... my "effective range" for right hand position was always from the end of the neck down to about two-thirds between the neck pickup and the bridge pickup, and the sound got too thin any closer to the bridge than that. I know that's mostly a statement about my hands, but the cool thing is that this bass just suits my playing pretty much perfectly.
Construction, fretwork, etc, are top notch. Action was too high for me out of the box, but five minutes adjusting the bridge (didn't touch the truss rod) and it's very nicely low, like I like it. Many would have loved it where it was set when I received it, but I like a pretty low action.
It weighs 8 pounds 6 ounces. It has a tiny bit of neck dive, nothing major. Playing standing, with my hands on the bass and forearm resting on the body, it's fine, but if I lift my hands and forearm, the neck slips down some. I'll be putting some Hipshot Ultralights or the Gotoh Resosonic tuners that someone recommended in the other thread on it. I'm pretty sure that just saving a very few ounces will make it just about perfect.
Anyway, here she is! I'm in love, lol.
I am primarily a fretless player, but I do love playing some stuff that works better with frets. I had a wonderful early 70's Precision with a slimmer B neck that I loved as far as tone and playability, but it weighed about 12 pounds. I have back issues, and it got to where I couldn't play even one full set with it, so I regretfully sold it a while back. So I went for about 18 months without a fretted bass, but then decided to get one again, as I'd like to find a fun funky bluesy sort of project to play in. As I was starting to look around, the Caprice kept coming up as a lighter weight and stellar quality instrument.
I found the thread I linked above, and @Dr. Cheese 's posts and clips, which were extremely helpful. What tipped the scales and made my decision, was the Premier Guitar review () ... the tone of the P pickup in that review was nicely reminiscent of my old P, and this bass is much lighter and has a nice fast, narrow-nut neck like I like.
It just arrived today, and I'm blown away at the tone, quality, and playability. I've never gelled with bridge pickups, except for a Stingray ... anything closer to the bridge than that was never that usable for my hands and technique, except to just dial in a bit to add some bite to the neck pickup. This one is wonderful, for me. I finally have a two-pickup bass where I can actually see using both of the pickups soloed in different settings, and the range of tones available by blending is just awesome as well. And I can actually effectively dig in and play over the bridge pickup on this one, which I've never been able to do on a jazz ... my "effective range" for right hand position was always from the end of the neck down to about two-thirds between the neck pickup and the bridge pickup, and the sound got too thin any closer to the bridge than that. I know that's mostly a statement about my hands, but the cool thing is that this bass just suits my playing pretty much perfectly.
Construction, fretwork, etc, are top notch. Action was too high for me out of the box, but five minutes adjusting the bridge (didn't touch the truss rod) and it's very nicely low, like I like it. Many would have loved it where it was set when I received it, but I like a pretty low action.
It weighs 8 pounds 6 ounces. It has a tiny bit of neck dive, nothing major. Playing standing, with my hands on the bass and forearm resting on the body, it's fine, but if I lift my hands and forearm, the neck slips down some. I'll be putting some Hipshot Ultralights or the Gotoh Resosonic tuners that someone recommended in the other thread on it. I'm pretty sure that just saving a very few ounces will make it just about perfect.
Anyway, here she is! I'm in love, lol.
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