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NBD: Ernie Ball Music Man Caprice

#43
Booty Shaman said:
Congrats on your new bass. And thank you for that great review. Like you, I play fretless and have been looking for a fretted bass. I've been jonesing for a Stingray (honey burst) but I will now check out the Caprice as well - weight is definitely an issue for me too.
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I love Stingrays and always will!! Very different than the Caprice of course, which is passive and in the Fender tradition-ish. I will say that it's a lot lighter than any Stingray I've ever played or owned. And I found out today from someone posting that the "a bit over 8 pounds" in all of the ones I've seen isn't even the lightest ... This guy found several that were in the 7.5 pounds range, and settled on one that weighed about 7 pounds 6 ounces. Ultralight tuners will even drop a bit more.

Worth a look unless you really demand the active Stingray tone!
 
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#47
Inara said:
I have no idea if you're serious or kidding, but I love tort, lol. If my bass were white or cream, I just might do it Not with the blue, though .. I don't think, lol ;)
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Seriously, I'm kidding... :D

But just as seriously I have to admit I can't stand pickguards in the first place (for reasons I won't go into) and most specifically white pickguards for the negative space. To my eyes it's just a whole lotta blah. As for the color: I think blue and the right tort is a killer combo.

I have admit that the GREAT failure for pretty much all EBMM basses is their pickguards but that's just me... ;)
 
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#48
Inara said:
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.

View attachment 1166675 View attachment 1166676 View attachment 1166677
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what's the neck like on these?
If it were standard Stingray dimensions/profile... I'm just going to have to have one and I see three other basses in my collection trembling in the corner as their days will likely be over ;)


edit: oh, narrow nut... so more like Jazz/Sterling? My wallet is safe then. But... I so wanted it not to be.
 
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#49
That is an amazing looking bass! Congrats. Love the overall shape of the body and the weight sounds just right. Those p-ups are the deal breaker, just gorgeous! I am sure this will bring you many years (or decades) of enjoyment and inspiration
 
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#50
Inara said:
I've owned many "from the factory" fretless basses, including boutique instruments. But two of the best sounding and playing fretless basses I've owned, a Stingray 5 and a G&L L1000, were ones that I did exactly what I am talking about doing to a Caprice.
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First off, congrats on a beautiful Caprice! I did a "snooze & lose" on one a few weeks back that my local shop had just gotten in. Gone the next day, or maybe even the same afternoon, I forget which.

I have an unlined fretless Stingray that I noodle around with but don't play enough to really become accomplished on. After playing a bunch, both lined & unlined, it was the one that had that "tone in my head". This same local shop has a Stingray SLO with 2 band EQ that I've contemplated picking up & converting to a lined fretless.

Currently, either my fretless, my EBMM Reflex, or my Sadowsky Metro would have to be sacrificed to fund a Caprice, so I'm just sitting on the sidelines at the moment.
 
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#54
mcnach said:
what's the neck like on these?
If it were standard Stingray dimensions/profile... I'm just going to have to have one and I see three other basses in my collection trembling in the corner as their days will likely be over ;)


edit: oh, narrow nut... so more like Jazz/Sterling? My wallet is safe then. But... I so wanted it not to be.
Click to expand...

It feels like a Jazz neck to me ... but I haven't played a Fender Jazz in a while, so my memory is hazy. It's thicker front-to-back than my SBMM Ray34 fretless, but I don't know how that neck compares to a standard 4-string Stingray, as I've only owned Stingray 5's.
 
#58
This is likely only of interest to very weight-conscious players, or players who are experiencing neck dive with this bass, but I thought I'd share ...

I took a tuner off of my Caprice this morning and weighed it on my digital kitchen food scale. I didn't include the bushing, as it's a very tight fit and I didn't feel like trying to dislodge it. Anyway, without bushing or screws, it weighs 86 grams. The bushing and washer together from one of my Hipshot ultralights weigh 10 grams, so I would think that a MM Caprice tuner with bushing has to weigh at least 96 grams or so.

The Hipshot Ultralights weigh 56-57 grams including bushing. I believe the Gotoh Resolites are similar. So switching from stock to all Ultralights will save about 5.5 ounces at the end of that long lever we call a neck, lol. I have an ultralight Detuner as well, and with bushing it weighs 100 grams. So switching to 3 regular Ultralights plus one Ultralight Detuner (which is what I plan to do) will still save about 4 ounces on the headstock.

If you don't mind the look, going with Hipshot's Y-key version saves another 8 grams per tuner. So if you installed a set of four of those, you'd save 6.6 ounces.

Ok, as I said, probably of limited interest. For me, as I've gotten older (and I'm sadly older than my profile pic might look, even though it's a very recent photo, lol), I've gotten much more weight conscious due to the same back issues that forced me to stop playing and eventually sell my beloved early 70's Precision, so every little bit helps.
 
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#59
Inara said:
This is likely only of interest to very weight-conscious players, or players who are experiencing neck dive with this bass, but I thought I'd share ...

I took a tuner off of my Caprice this morning and weighed it on my digital kitchen food scale. I didn't include the bushing, as it's a very tight fit and I didn't feel like trying to dislodge it. Anyway, without bushing or screws, it weighs 86 grams. The bushing and washer together from one of my Hipshot ultralights weigh 10 grams, so I would think that a MM Caprice tuner with bushing has to weigh at least 96 grams or so.

The Hipshot Ultralights weigh 56-57 grams including bushing. I believe the Gotoh Resolites are similar. So switching from stock to all Ultralights will save about 5.5 ounces at the end of that long lever we call a neck, lol. I have an ultralight Detuner as well, and with bushing it weighs 100 grams. So switching to 3 regular Ultralights plus one Ultralight Detuner (which is what I plan to do) will still save about 4 ounces on the headstock.

If you don't mind the look, going with Hipshot's Y-key version saves another 8 grams per tuner. So if you installed a set of four of those, you'd save 6.6 ounces.

Ok, as I said, probably of limited interest. For me, as I've gotten older (and I'm sadly older than my profile pic might look, even though it's a very recent photo, lol), I've gotten much more weight conscious due to the same back issues that forced me to stop playing and eventually sell my beloved early 70's Precision, so every little bit helps.
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Back problems is exactly what made me ultra aware and the necessity of the weight of my basses. Had to sell quite a few off as much as I loved them. That what first caught my attention with the Caprice. I had seen a few of them on display and thought another heavy Music Man active bass. Eventually in another visit to the music store I did pick it up and the die was cast.
 
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#60
howlin said:
Seriously, I'm kidding... :D

But just as seriously I have to admit I can't stand pickguards in the first place (for reasons I won't go into) and most specifically white pickguards for the negative space. To my eyes it's just a whole lotta blah. As for the color: I think blue and the right tort is a killer combo.

I have admit that the GREAT failure for pretty much all EBMM basses is their pickguards but that's just me... ;)
Click to expand...
Hmmm, you got me curious, so I had to mock it up. I have a super-cheap tort guard left over from a P-bass parts project from a while back, and I slid it under the strings to see what it might look like. This is not a nice tort guard at all, but it gives a general idea. Looks pretty decent, to me at least! I will have to think about this ...
caprice_with_tort.jpg
 
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