New Bass Day: My First Roscoe

Here it is, Roscoe #5370!




Specs:

Roscoe LG3005
Top: Boxelder Burl
Body: 2 piece Spanish Cedar
Neck: 5 piece wenge/yellowheart/maple/yellowheart/wenge
Fingerboard: African Tulipwood
Electronics: Aguilar OBP-3 w/ Nordstrand DC5 pickups

I would've had this review up yesterday or earlier today but it's a good friend's birthday weekend and we've been hangin out and stuff so I've just now gotten the time to play it or type this up.

Firstly, let me say that this bass is awesome but it took me a bit to get it there. When I first unboxed it and started plucking around unplugged, it sounded GREAT. I'm not one to judge a bass by it's unplugged tone but this one just sounded sweet. I plugged it up and I was so excited to play it that I forgot to tune up and it just so happened that every string was still tuned relative to each other so I couldn't tell. For about 5 minutes I was playing around and there was a bunch of buzz and clacking and just generally unpleasant stuff going. I finally figured out that it was tuned down about one whole step, corrected it and every string besides the B sounded loud and clear. I raised the action on the B a bit and it floored me ! The only other basses that I had played with such a strong clear B were a Squier (seriously, lol), a Ken Smith and another Roscoe. Needless to say, I was very happy at that point.

The fit, finish, and feel of this bass were all top notch. It really felt like it was made for me but besides the B string, I was actually pretty unhappy with the sound I was getting and even after playing for about 2 hours I still couldn't find a sound I liked. The mids seemed to completely overwhelm the bass's tone and it had this crazy punch to it. No matter how lightly I played it would be super punchy. I put it down and pretty much decided that I was going to put this back up for sale. I went and watched tv for maybe 30 minutes or so and when I picked the bass back up, fiddled a bit with my amps EQ and started playing, I heard probably the best tone I've heard from any bass that I had played besides my Spector Euro 4LX.

I have no idea what happened in those 30 minutes but I really can't say enough about it now. That super punchiness just seemed to dial down and the mids are still strong but they work for the tone not against it. The slap tone is thick and crisp and the fingerstyle is tight and growly. One of the coolest things so far is that even when I dial the blend all the way back to the bridge pup, the slap tone doesn't really lose anything! I want to avoid using the word perfect but I don't think I've ever been so happy with a bass before . It does everything I want and then some! I have yet to find a tone that I dislike. I plan on hanging on to this for a long time to come .

The only other bass that I've dug as much as this is my Spector Euro 4LX and I've never honestly been able to say that about any other bass. The only thing I could imagine that I would want to add would be a pair of switches for coil splitting. How much would Roscoe charge for this? That would put this bass over the top!!!

For those of you on the fence about getting a Roscoe, do it! You won't regret it.

I do have one (hopefully minor) gripe, though. I'm a bridge player and dig in when I play and it seems that when I do so on the A and D strings I actually pull the bridge saddles towards me. When I let go of the string the saddle snaps back against the "walls" of the bridge resulting in this loud clacking sound. Is there anyway to fix this? I can't really play with a lighter touch because that's how I play and how I get the growl that I like. Any suggestions would be great.

(Personal pics coming either tomorrow or Monday! )

 

Still workin on it! A straight sale would make a up a good portion of that the difference .

Yeah, I noticed that too. They're slightly longer than the normal sized ones and have 2 screws instead of 3. I don't have any problem with it because I think these are the perfect sounding pups for this bass.

The slap tone on this bass absolutely kills, but I can definitely see where your coming from. Both Stingrays and Jazz basses have still got this one beat but this thing gets crazy close to the Marcus Miller tone with the mids slightly boosted, the bass and treble maxed, and the balance set at the center. A tad more zing would make it a dead ringer for that MM sound, but I'm happy with it. Getting the pickups coil split could fix might fix that and if it doesn't cost too much I'm definitely having it done.

While I haven't talked to Keith yet, Gard is really knowledgeable about how different wood, pickup and preamp combination sound and a great guy to boot. I bought the bass before talking to him but everything he told me about it was dead on.

 

Hehe as great as this Roscoe is, I still love Spector basses . If the Euro 4LX does sell I'm either getting a Euro 4LX-EX or a Euro 5LX-EX, lol.