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New Reverend Prototypes On eBay

Okay, I've never even touched a Reverend (they're kind of elusive around these parts), but I have always dug the looks and they seem to have an excellent reputation.

Can any officiandos shed some light on the new 2011 line and these prototypes?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140503410960&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140503404523&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140503414394&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123
 
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I played two of em at NAMM... pretty sweet little basses. The "Decision" is their version of a precision... that MM looking thing is basically a split coil (which you can see if you look at the polepieces closely) with a blade jazz type pickup at the neck, making it a Reverend style PJ. Didn't try that one myself.

I did, however, play the Dub King... and it was pretty sweet. It's a short-scale semi-hollow (all the rest are long scale solidbodies) equipped with that MM looking split coil slammed right up against the neck, and an actual MM-style humbucker near its traditional position. I was playing through a real tiny Ampeg combo that didn't sound especially great, but I enjoyed the sounds I was getting out of the neck-precision pup a lot. Very p-bass-like, though perhaps a bit deeper, with that added fatness shortscales often have. The MM sounded like a passive MM... which isn't my thing, but it definitely had that ganky quality you'd expect out of that configuration. Very cool bass. The neck on this one was painted black, and reminded me of what you'd encounter on a Gretsch bass or something similar. Not particularly "fast" but very classic, befitting a semi-hollow shortscale. Controls were vol/tone/blend... pots felt solid, except for the blend which felt kinda cheap, to be honest.

Also had a chance to play the "Justice", which is the Reverend Jazz bass. The neck on this thing was fantastic... slim, fast, to me it felt pretty Fendery... complete with a skunkstripe down the back. The bass had an entirely different feel than the semi-hollow Dub King, and I liked the way it played a bit more. It was hard to tell how the bladed jazz pups sounded through that practice amp, but obviously they were much thinner than the Dub King I had just played. I expect it would deliver what you're expecting, but I'd need to try through a real rig (somewhere that isn't at NAMM, preferably) to really get a feel for the tone. Build quality on both of these felt very good... for some reason I was expecting them to price down to around $800, but I might be wrong. Also might depend on the model.

There was 4th model too, I believe called the Ramrod. It seemed to be the "rock" bass, akin to the Warhawk in their guitar line. It had the reverse black headstock, and honestly I forget the pickup config... I think it was probably a split-coil + MM, but I forget, and I didn't actually plug it in.

The pickup shells look a little goofy on the split-coils, but they seemed to have an authoritative tone, and in the end that's what matters. Pretty cool basses... I'd love to hear others' thoughts on them!
 
The Decision looks a lot like a badass PJ Jaguar to me... And I like it. A lot. If only that was a quad coil humbucker at the neck to get a P / J / MM ability from one pickup set. We can still wish...
 
It's so great to see Reverend making basses again. I feel like Joe Naylor never really got his due for the greatness of the Rumblefish, 5L and Brad Houser.
I'm definitely intrigued by these new models, especially the sound of a solidbody Reverend bass. And, being G.A.S.-free and cash-poor, I will be content to read other people's reviews and impressions!
 
That Dub King looks awesome,the others do too!,but,I really like the D K...I really like Reverend's take on the 4-in-line(Fender) headstock too,classic yet original....A long time ago I had the chance to play a Rumblefish and it was something special. I can only imagine the new line being nothing but awesome and unique..in Reverend's modern-retro style.
 
I *really* like the older ones.
Nice to see they got the upper horn more or less so the bass should hang better.

I don't see these cashing in on anything that was good about the old line. Be interesting to see if they have enough new mojo to succeed.

I had hoped for "offshore priced" versions of the old line. Clearly, these are a different direction.

I begged, relentlessly, for a Club King hollowbody bass with P90 pups. The Dub King got the first part of that nicely enough, but I just don't see MM type pups ringing true to the HB tone I hear in my head.

Lastly, if the prototypes on ebay represent "the price of a used bass with no case," I think these are priced a bit "high-ish."
 
ishouldbeking. Was the jazz copy made of real wood or formica like the old rumblefishes?

pretty sure they have the same basic construction as the Reverend guitars, which are solid korina. I have an older Warhawk 290 guitar from back when they were building them out of mahogany, and mine is the bolt-on version (later switched to set neck/gibson scale for this model) and its truly a fantastic guitar. Whenever my band records my guitar gets used as much as our guitarist's much more expensive 335 and Nash tele.

I think the idea with the Dub King is to give you a beefy neck pickup configuration, and it seems like the MM bridge pup could be used to dial in some 'cut'. At least that's how I found myself using it. As Chef said, the MM on its own on a bass like this is the opposite of what I'd personally want. I play with a pick exclusively (which is usually perfect for a shortscale semi-hollow), but that MM was clanky as heck on its own. Fingerstyle dudes might appreciate the ability to dial some of that in, however.

The styling of these in person was kind of cool, though there is something a little silly about them too. Feels almost like a caricature of 'retro' style more than the real thing, if you catch my drift. It's cool if you're into the quirky bass thing, but they don't exactly have the classic appeal of the time-tested designs. The long upper horn didn't bother me as much as it does in photos, however.
 
I'm going to add a +1 to most of what Chef said above.

I'm glad they're making basses again and look forward to possibly trying one some day but they seem priced higher than I hoped, and my guess is I'll vastly prefer the old Rumblefish. I played my Reverend PJ last night and I'm more attached to it than ever.

The new models make me love the Rumblefish even more.
 

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