Hello Friends,
So I landed a good deal on this one, as I can't afford my current bass (a Roscoe SKB Custom 5) anymore. I know, it's blasphemous to a lot of you, but this new bass really slams, and it's much friendlier on my cc account. I wanted a well-made, pro-level bass, for a sensible price, and this seems to fit the bill. I know that Indonesia, China, and Korea can build good stuff, but after enough crap, I either want US or Japan-made at this point. There's really not much at all on TB about these basses, if at all, so here goes!
First off, this is a big bass, both in size and weight. I mean, 10.2-10.5 lbs isn't that bad, but not a lightweight either. I don't mind, though, because I like the solid feel. It actually doesn't feel much heavier than my Roscoe, which is 9.2 lbs. Good thing that the body is chambered! It's a two-piece (I think) ash body (swamp), with a pretty 3A quilt maple top. The top pops a lot more in person, btw. The pickups are passive Seymour Duncans...not Basslines, but a warmer-sounding J-pickup, not as in-your-face and not sterile, and they're US-made, not Duncan Designed. The preamp is also Seymour Duncan, being their active KH1 model (Kirk Hammett?
), which is a 2-band...volume, blend, treble, and bass. There's a flip-around battery compartment on the back, and trussrod access via an adjustment wheel at the heel of the neck (EBMM style). The bridge is a model from Gotoh, string-thru, and very heavy-duty. The neck is a flatsawn, graphite-reinforced (per an email reply from ESP) piece of maple, and it has a satin finish, with a 35" scale. There's a rosewood board with abalone front dots, and 21 frets (not sure of size). The nut looks to be bone or plastic (corian?), and the headstock has a quilted maple overlay, with a 4+1 configuration for the vintage-style Gotoh tuners, which are also pretty heavy-duty. There's a string tree for the A and D strings, too.
Okay, so being another bolt-on, but this having an ash body (my Roscoe is mahogany), I wasn't surprised with the brighter and more scooped tone in the center detent on all knobs. The controls are VERY powerful, so a little really goes a long way. I experimented for a while, and realized that I only need to boost the treble and bass a tad for slapping, otherwise they're kept flat. The blend pot makes all of the difference for me. I'd say that I go about a 1/4 to 1/3 of the way between center-detent and the bridge pickup, to enhance the bark/growl. I go centered for slap, like I usually do. My little Peavey Max 108 practice amp only has the mid boosted, and i put that to almost 3:00 (I like midrange power). I usually don't like not having a mid knob on my bass, but that was remedied by my amp, or most importantly, my phenomenal little Zoom MS60-B pedal. I also use a Yamaha NE-1 that's solely made for the midrange (long discontinued, btw). The harmonics jump off this bass, and the thing sounds huge overall. It's not as big as a Spector, but actually is more than my Roscoe, believe it or not. And get ready for this, the low-B also beats my Roscoe, and I am a huuuuuuge stickler for playability. The bass is already 35", and it has to be from the string-thru design that aids this. I certainly feel like the strings are tighter, and that's not to say that my Roscoe is floppy...not at all. My ESP seems more taut, as the B-string is enormous sounding like the SKB. What's amazing, is that I checked what the factory-default B-string size is, and it's a .125! Not bad, eh? My Roscoe runs the strings top-loaded, with a .130 B. I can go from a Rex Brown tone (aggressive Pantera tone) to a slammin' P-Bass sound, to a Jaco J-Bass tone, to a sick slap tone. The tone I created on my Zoom, for slap, is downright wicked. What's surprising, is that I prefer a really polished, modern-sounding slap sound, and this has a more retro P-sounding slap tone. I really dig it. The center detent on the blend is certainly P favored, and it sounds GREAT for slapping. Did I mention it's massive-sounding? I was pretty impressed. What knocked me out after this, was how even the string volume is. Unlike my Roscoe's Bart pickups with their interior-radiused magnets (Gard told me himself), these SD J's have the flat exposed poles...also completely even sound across the board. The bridge is really solid, perhaps only matched by the Hipshot A-style. There's lots of adjustment, so there's no way you can't get really low action here. Yeah, I have buzzing here and there, and I don't necessarily play with a light touch, either...more like a medium touch, and I also don't like to fight my bass' action. I made a few adjustments to the truss, and the neck is pretty darn flat at this point...bonus points. I'm hoping that the graphite helps the neck withstand all of the temperature changes. The neck is super-solid, and the satin finish is perhaps the smoothest and nicest I've ever experienced. The frets shine like jewels, were put in nice and straight, and the ends were rolled, so they feel like butter. The builders in Japan seem to know their stuff, possibly even more than the Ibanez Prestige guys, as I had a 2015 SR5005 before, and one of the notes fretted out. The tone was also not my cup of tea there...too tame. I love the practicality of the ESP's quick access to the trussrod and the battery. They literally can be done during a decent drum solo...that fast...perhaps I should time myself! What really impressed me, more than most of the other features, was the attention to detail with the intonation, as it was spot-on. I've never seen this out of the box, period. This bass came from halfway around the world in Japan, then to Hollywood, then to here in Pittsburgh. The teamwork from JP and CA are evident, as Hollywood does the final setup and qc. The factory hardshell case, which was included in the price, isn't as nice as my Roscoe case, only in the sense that it has a plastic handle, and not a padded leather one. That's no big deal to me, because the rest of the case is super-solid, and the molded interior fits the bass like a glove with the soft black fur lining. The big "ESP" logo on the outside looks nice, too, along with the decent-sized accessory compartment.
I'll be adding straplocks and Elixir strings soon, and this bass will see it's first shows this weekend. Because this was probably the first sizable post and review on this bass, some of you may have additional interest about it, so feel free to comment and/or message me!
Cheers!
So I landed a good deal on this one, as I can't afford my current bass (a Roscoe SKB Custom 5) anymore. I know, it's blasphemous to a lot of you, but this new bass really slams, and it's much friendlier on my cc account. I wanted a well-made, pro-level bass, for a sensible price, and this seems to fit the bill. I know that Indonesia, China, and Korea can build good stuff, but after enough crap, I either want US or Japan-made at this point. There's really not much at all on TB about these basses, if at all, so here goes!
First off, this is a big bass, both in size and weight. I mean, 10.2-10.5 lbs isn't that bad, but not a lightweight either. I don't mind, though, because I like the solid feel. It actually doesn't feel much heavier than my Roscoe, which is 9.2 lbs. Good thing that the body is chambered! It's a two-piece (I think) ash body (swamp), with a pretty 3A quilt maple top. The top pops a lot more in person, btw. The pickups are passive Seymour Duncans...not Basslines, but a warmer-sounding J-pickup, not as in-your-face and not sterile, and they're US-made, not Duncan Designed. The preamp is also Seymour Duncan, being their active KH1 model (Kirk Hammett?
), which is a 2-band...volume, blend, treble, and bass. There's a flip-around battery compartment on the back, and trussrod access via an adjustment wheel at the heel of the neck (EBMM style). The bridge is a model from Gotoh, string-thru, and very heavy-duty. The neck is a flatsawn, graphite-reinforced (per an email reply from ESP) piece of maple, and it has a satin finish, with a 35" scale. There's a rosewood board with abalone front dots, and 21 frets (not sure of size). The nut looks to be bone or plastic (corian?), and the headstock has a quilted maple overlay, with a 4+1 configuration for the vintage-style Gotoh tuners, which are also pretty heavy-duty. There's a string tree for the A and D strings, too.Okay, so being another bolt-on, but this having an ash body (my Roscoe is mahogany), I wasn't surprised with the brighter and more scooped tone in the center detent on all knobs. The controls are VERY powerful, so a little really goes a long way. I experimented for a while, and realized that I only need to boost the treble and bass a tad for slapping, otherwise they're kept flat. The blend pot makes all of the difference for me. I'd say that I go about a 1/4 to 1/3 of the way between center-detent and the bridge pickup, to enhance the bark/growl. I go centered for slap, like I usually do. My little Peavey Max 108 practice amp only has the mid boosted, and i put that to almost 3:00 (I like midrange power). I usually don't like not having a mid knob on my bass, but that was remedied by my amp, or most importantly, my phenomenal little Zoom MS60-B pedal. I also use a Yamaha NE-1 that's solely made for the midrange (long discontinued, btw). The harmonics jump off this bass, and the thing sounds huge overall. It's not as big as a Spector, but actually is more than my Roscoe, believe it or not. And get ready for this, the low-B also beats my Roscoe, and I am a huuuuuuge stickler for playability. The bass is already 35", and it has to be from the string-thru design that aids this. I certainly feel like the strings are tighter, and that's not to say that my Roscoe is floppy...not at all. My ESP seems more taut, as the B-string is enormous sounding like the SKB. What's amazing, is that I checked what the factory-default B-string size is, and it's a .125! Not bad, eh? My Roscoe runs the strings top-loaded, with a .130 B. I can go from a Rex Brown tone (aggressive Pantera tone) to a slammin' P-Bass sound, to a Jaco J-Bass tone, to a sick slap tone. The tone I created on my Zoom, for slap, is downright wicked. What's surprising, is that I prefer a really polished, modern-sounding slap sound, and this has a more retro P-sounding slap tone. I really dig it. The center detent on the blend is certainly P favored, and it sounds GREAT for slapping. Did I mention it's massive-sounding? I was pretty impressed. What knocked me out after this, was how even the string volume is. Unlike my Roscoe's Bart pickups with their interior-radiused magnets (Gard told me himself), these SD J's have the flat exposed poles...also completely even sound across the board. The bridge is really solid, perhaps only matched by the Hipshot A-style. There's lots of adjustment, so there's no way you can't get really low action here. Yeah, I have buzzing here and there, and I don't necessarily play with a light touch, either...more like a medium touch, and I also don't like to fight my bass' action. I made a few adjustments to the truss, and the neck is pretty darn flat at this point...bonus points. I'm hoping that the graphite helps the neck withstand all of the temperature changes. The neck is super-solid, and the satin finish is perhaps the smoothest and nicest I've ever experienced. The frets shine like jewels, were put in nice and straight, and the ends were rolled, so they feel like butter. The builders in Japan seem to know their stuff, possibly even more than the Ibanez Prestige guys, as I had a 2015 SR5005 before, and one of the notes fretted out. The tone was also not my cup of tea there...too tame. I love the practicality of the ESP's quick access to the trussrod and the battery. They literally can be done during a decent drum solo...that fast...perhaps I should time myself! What really impressed me, more than most of the other features, was the attention to detail with the intonation, as it was spot-on. I've never seen this out of the box, period. This bass came from halfway around the world in Japan, then to Hollywood, then to here in Pittsburgh. The teamwork from JP and CA are evident, as Hollywood does the final setup and qc. The factory hardshell case, which was included in the price, isn't as nice as my Roscoe case, only in the sense that it has a plastic handle, and not a padded leather one. That's no big deal to me, because the rest of the case is super-solid, and the molded interior fits the bass like a glove with the soft black fur lining. The big "ESP" logo on the outside looks nice, too, along with the decent-sized accessory compartment.
I'll be adding straplocks and Elixir strings soon, and this bass will see it's first shows this weekend. Because this was probably the first sizable post and review on this bass, some of you may have additional interest about it, so feel free to comment and/or message me!
Cheers!
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