Here are pics Alan sent me of the finished product.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Ordered A New Bass From AC Guitars!!
- Thread starter monkeyfinger
- Start date
The shipping company or import broker will normally give you a bill.
Well, you know, it's not exactly in the Tasmanian Blackwood tree's interests to be nice to folks who cut them down. In Nature, Beauty often means Danger.
If I hadn't mentioned this before, the Taz blackwood is reclaimed wood.Well, you know, it's not exactly in the Tasmanian Blackwood tree's interests to be nice to folks who cut them down. In Nature, Beauty often means Danger.
Yeah I am big on using sustainable or reclaimed wood. Do you know that most of the ebony harvested was left on the forest floor because it contained streaks? I read something like 90% went unused. That is pretty sad.
When I received my ACG I had to pay the UPS driver at the door. They accepted a check so it was pretty convenient.
That's a beautiful bass you got there Bfunk! Enjoy!!!
That's a beautiful bass you got there Bfunk! Enjoy!!!
Those sound like fantastic sounding pickups as I'm a big fan of HBs also, and you mentioning that they are "more hi-fi version of a humbucker" has got my curiosity going. I wish I could hear them in person with a set of SS rounds. The EQ sounds like it's really taylor made and usable.
Yes, I did. I have my first gig with it tomorrow night. I wanted to wait until after the gig to post a review and comments. Of course I have been playing it for a couple of weeks now at home and in rehearsal.
Review of AC Guitars Uber Recurve 5
I became interested in Alan’s work about three years ago during one of my investigations into having a bass custom built for me. I had been down this road many times before. But several things kept me from pulling the trigger. First, there was the uncertainty of the product. I always prefer having a product in hand that I can touch before making a purchase decision. If not that, I prefer having something I can return in short order if I decided it did not work for me. Second, I did not find it easy to fully understand what I wanted in a custom bass. I had a general idea of what worked best for me, but there were still so many choices to make that the thought process was sometimes stressful. Thirdly, I wanted something that would provide a unique and versatile approach to bass tone than what one could get by purchasing a few off-the-shelf components. In other words, I had to be convinced that this bass would provide tone possibilities that I simply could not get by building a parts bass. I’ve owned so many mass produced basses that I became convinced that another one simply would not provide the level of satisfaction I was looking for. So I decided to embrace the uncertainty of ordering a custom bass without ever trying one first. Alan’s basses came closest to ticking off all the check boxes I had on my list. The Uber bass, with its filter-based tone controls, really got my attention. To me it was designing an electric bass guitar not as a summation of parts, but as a complete instrument.
He has several unique features to many of his basses that I found very appealing.
· Woods from a very reputable and responsible source: Alan is very careful about who he gets the woods from. He offers a wide variety of materials that were harvested in a responsible manner and still have all the qualities of the finest woods available. One aspect of discussing wood selection with Alan is his belief that wood has very little impact on the instruments tone. I was surprised by this. But after I got familiar with the pickups and electronics of this instrument I understood why. I believe the electronics offer so much tonal variation that the wood becomes much less important than in other instruments.
· Acrylic impregnated wood option: I choose a Macassar ebony fretboard made of this material. Supposedly it is harder and less affected by weather than untreated wood. I find the bass less pingy than other ones with ebony fretboards that I have tried. I have no idea if the acrylic treatment is the cause of this. Anyway, it feels more like a nice rosewood neck to me, which is fine.
· Asymmetrical neck: I first encountered this on a Fender Roscoe Beck V. It simply means the neck is deeper near the lower strings than the higher strings. I think this is such an improvement over a uniform back radius that I don’t understand why more bass builders do this. I can see it not being so important with a typical four string, but for wider necks it is a big win for me. One upside is that it helps keep my thumb behind the neck. If you are the type who like to wrap your thumb around the fretboard, you probably won’t much like it.
· Easily adjusted relief: Changes in local weather conditions make adjusting the neck relief necessary especially if you like low action and use a light touch like I do. Alan uses a custom made adjustment wheel that is very similar to what you find on Music Man basses and the Fender American Deluxe Dimension bass. The adjustment is at the bottom of the neck. A small wheel that has holes drilled into the side is visible in a cut out at the end of the neck. You adjust the relief by sticking a small item into the hole and turning toward the high strings to straighten the neck and towards the low strings to loosen it. The wheel is much easier to turn than the other basses mentioned here. I found that for very small adjustments, I did not have to loosen the strings at all.
· The filter-based tone controls of Alan’s own design: This feature really separates the Uber basses from the rest of the crowd. The most important aspect of the bass’ tone profile is in the mid-range of the bass, those frequencies between 150 and 5k Hz that provide core personality of the instrument. Most bass designers start with a baked-in profile. Then they add some type of semi-parametric equalization that allows the player to vary that profile a little adjusting the relative levels or one or two preselected frequencies. But there is a problem with this approach. The settings effect both pickups. This means that when you change the blend of the pickups, you often have to change mid-range settings too. Alan worked with preamp designer John East and pickup designer Aaron Armstrong to produce a truly original approach to bass tone. This design allows you to select what part of the mid-range is emphasized and by how much for each pickup. So tone shaping takes on a whole new dimension. I find that I think of the bass tone as a blending of different mid-range emphasis of my choosing. In other words, I can set the neck pickup for a particular tone, do the same with the bridge pickup and then blend those tone signatures as I please. I don’t get into that issue of the neck pickup being too boomy or dark and the neck pickup being too thin or honky when changing the mix that causes me to make adjustments to the on-board eq. Each pickup can be set for a pleasing and distinct tone. Blending just emphasizes one tone over the other.
· The custom humbuckers: The Uber series includes a pair of custom humbuckers with some distinct features. First, each pickup has one humbucker per string. The leads from these individual pickups are fed into to mixing circuit to a single output. The value this provides is that there is better balance string to string and less cross-talk from other strings. The pickups are amazing full-range for humbuckers. They certainly sound more like humbuckers wired in parallel than series. They have an openness in the top that I don’t usually find with humbuckers. String response is very even assuming I do my job. They are also extremely quiet. (I am pretty sure that is also a consequence of the preamp design and excellent shielding too.)
· The mid-high controls: I am a finger style player. I love the sound of a lively bass that has a bit of bite in the upper mids and some zing up top. This bass has a mid-high control that gives me great control over this range. There are two controls for this: one to set the cut-off frequency, from 500-5k Hz, and one to adjust the amount of boost. I think this is a shelving resonant peak high pass filter that has some boost, or knee, around the cut-off frequency. I also think the boost control increases the resonant peak as you turn it up. So, let’s say you want to get some finger on string sizzle. I like 2.5k for that or there-about. I add a little boost and adjust the frequency to my liking. As I adjust the boost level, the highs come up with it. So the overall tone is more balanced. One very interesting aspect of this design is the ability to adjust the feed to the mid-high circuit. There is a trim pot in the preamp that allows you to blend the pickups into an output separate from the main mix. That mix feeds the mid-highs circuit. I found excellent results with this feature. Blending more the neck pickup produces a smoother mid-high response. Blending toward the bridge pickup adds a more harmonics for added zing. My sweet spot was about 70% neck and %30 bridge.
Other noteworthy features that are more commonly found but are never the less noteworthy:
· Headstock options: flat or tilt-back. I went for the latter. He uses a scarf joint which by all accounts I’ve read is extremely strong. I found the neck, headstock joint to be very sturdy looking.
· A wide variety of body styles. I went with the recurve which is basically a modern version of a jazz body. He has a great eye for design. Some, like the harlot, are pretty unusual.
· Resolite tuners: best tuners I’ve ever used. Smooth, precise and effortless. Alan tilts then back toward the player. They also feel great. They are thicker than standard tuners. It makes it easier to grip. They also feel like wood.
· ABM bridge: solid, easy to adjust with a lock down screw. The open design makes string changes easy. Getting any torsional stresses out of the string is a breeze. The lockdown screw is a good compromise between stability and crazy hard to adjust.
· Luminlay side dots: I opted for these. Just get them. ‘Nuff said.
· Jescar EVO frets: these frets rock. Smooth as silk. Bell-brass like tone. Slides are smooth for a fretted bass. Bends too. Apparently they are almost as tough as stainless steel. I love them.
Overall fit and finish are top-notch from what I can tell. This is my first custom. I have had the opportunity to examine and play other custom instruments from notable builders. I find this one to be as good or better than what I encountered. I think he spends a lot of time on the final shaping of the neck and body. The curves are very smooth. The recesses are uniformly deep with smooth edges. The pocket is to well matched to the neck that it appears to be a set neck. The nut seems well cut for good intonation and smooth tuning. I rarely play open strings, so this is fine for me.
The bass has a very full bottom end. There is plenty of bottom available from both pickups. (You may have noticed that the pickups are very close together.) The bridge pickup has a tighter bottom, the neck looser one. Alan adds a built-in filter to the bridge pickup to give it a more jazz-neck vibe and more tonal variation. He says the pickups would sound almost exactly the same without it. In the mids, the neck has a slightly tighter more sonorous tone. The neck pickup has more of a scooped tone. The highs mostly come from the hid-high control. I would say that the pickups are slightly dark if you have this turned off. But really, it’s that the pickups have a bigger smoother bottom than most other basses I’ve played. The resonant peak boost for each of the pickups can get pretty wild. With the peak volume set high and the frequency set low, you get this parked-wah sound. Sometimes it seems unpleasant when playing alone, but carries a lot of weigh in the mix. Speaking of mix, I have played this bass in two rehearsals and one gig. This bass has weight. There is no doubt about the heft the bottom provides even when emphasizing the mids or highs. You control the bottom by bringing up the mids and highs and cutting the overall volume. (Or you just cut bass at the amp.)
There have been complaints about the controls being very fidgety. I completely understand this criticism. Alan has made changes to the design to make precise adjustments easier. My bass does seem somewhat difficult to adjust when compared to most active basses. I have to change the way I think about eq’ing. For now, my approach for live use is to get good settings on the bass and leave it there. I then adjust the blend to taste for a song. As I get more accustomed to the filter settings, I will be able to make more changes on the fly in a gig setting. I have no problem making these changes at home or in rehearsal. I think that is because I know the rooms, a luxury I don’t have in most live situations. I also use an Empress para-eq to make minor corrective changes for room nodes and similar issues. I use the amp, a Mesa Subway D-800, for broader tone changes. (The voicing control on the amp is excellent for this.) What you get is a lot of versatility out of this bass. But if you need to make a quick cut in the bass level, you will likely be better off doing that somewhere else, like at the amp. That works fine for me. The truth is that with most active basses I’ve owned, I never use the on-board eq. If you like having that immediate access to tone controls, you may not like this bass.
There are some things I don’t like on the bass. First, there are four double-stacked control knobs. The volume blend has a center détente on the outer blend control and none on the volume. That is good. The filter controls have a center détente on the resonant peak level control, the top knob. This is not good, because the control is boost only. The same applies to the mid-high control. The top knob has a center détente which does not go with a boost only system. This is certainly not a deal-breaker. You can pull out the center knob on the filter controls and the mid-high controls. One the filters, these engage a fixed boost whose frequency and amount can be set in the preamp internals. Pulling out the knob on the mid-high control does nothing. That is another little annoyance. I am also not convinced the locking output jack is a good idea. I recall Alan telling me that he gets mixed feedback on this feature. I think I should have skipped it. But that can be easily changed. The one issue that I think deserves more attention from Alan is the high boost. When you pull out the knob on the neck filter control, you boost either 150 or 250 Hz by 2-12 dB. When you pull out the knob on the bridge filter, you get a boost of either 500 Hz or greater than 8k Hz by a similar amount. I find the 150 worked well for me when favoring the neck pickup. It added some nice depth when using a pronounced jazz-bridge tone. I am having a hard time with the neck filter boost settings. I usually cut around 500 Hz, not boost. The >8k seems like it is more intended for playing bass chords, tapping or slapping. I use those techniques very rarely. I wish it allowed me to boost upper mids, say around 2.5k to get some zing into my finger-style playing. On the other hand it does have a upper nice ping similar to a good quality acoustic guitar.
Overall impression: This bass is a bargain. Including shipping and import tariffs, I paid about $4200 for this bass. Given the design/execution quality, Alan’s outstanding responsiveness and features only found in this bass, he could charge an additional 25% for this instrument and still be competitive. The custom filter system is only available on two other makes of instruments that I know, Wal and Alembic. Either of these will be considerably more. I played a Wal briefly. I find this bass to have a more modern and hi-fi tone than the Wal. It certainly weighs less.
I became interested in Alan’s work about three years ago during one of my investigations into having a bass custom built for me. I had been down this road many times before. But several things kept me from pulling the trigger. First, there was the uncertainty of the product. I always prefer having a product in hand that I can touch before making a purchase decision. If not that, I prefer having something I can return in short order if I decided it did not work for me. Second, I did not find it easy to fully understand what I wanted in a custom bass. I had a general idea of what worked best for me, but there were still so many choices to make that the thought process was sometimes stressful. Thirdly, I wanted something that would provide a unique and versatile approach to bass tone than what one could get by purchasing a few off-the-shelf components. In other words, I had to be convinced that this bass would provide tone possibilities that I simply could not get by building a parts bass. I’ve owned so many mass produced basses that I became convinced that another one simply would not provide the level of satisfaction I was looking for. So I decided to embrace the uncertainty of ordering a custom bass without ever trying one first. Alan’s basses came closest to ticking off all the check boxes I had on my list. The Uber bass, with its filter-based tone controls, really got my attention. To me it was designing an electric bass guitar not as a summation of parts, but as a complete instrument.
He has several unique features to many of his basses that I found very appealing.
· Woods from a very reputable and responsible source: Alan is very careful about who he gets the woods from. He offers a wide variety of materials that were harvested in a responsible manner and still have all the qualities of the finest woods available. One aspect of discussing wood selection with Alan is his belief that wood has very little impact on the instruments tone. I was surprised by this. But after I got familiar with the pickups and electronics of this instrument I understood why. I believe the electronics offer so much tonal variation that the wood becomes much less important than in other instruments.
· Acrylic impregnated wood option: I choose a Macassar ebony fretboard made of this material. Supposedly it is harder and less affected by weather than untreated wood. I find the bass less pingy than other ones with ebony fretboards that I have tried. I have no idea if the acrylic treatment is the cause of this. Anyway, it feels more like a nice rosewood neck to me, which is fine.
· Asymmetrical neck: I first encountered this on a Fender Roscoe Beck V. It simply means the neck is deeper near the lower strings than the higher strings. I think this is such an improvement over a uniform back radius that I don’t understand why more bass builders do this. I can see it not being so important with a typical four string, but for wider necks it is a big win for me. One upside is that it helps keep my thumb behind the neck. If you are the type who like to wrap your thumb around the fretboard, you probably won’t much like it.
· Easily adjusted relief: Changes in local weather conditions make adjusting the neck relief necessary especially if you like low action and use a light touch like I do. Alan uses a custom made adjustment wheel that is very similar to what you find on Music Man basses and the Fender American Deluxe Dimension bass. The adjustment is at the bottom of the neck. A small wheel that has holes drilled into the side is visible in a cut out at the end of the neck. You adjust the relief by sticking a small item into the hole and turning toward the high strings to straighten the neck and towards the low strings to loosen it. The wheel is much easier to turn than the other basses mentioned here. I found that for very small adjustments, I did not have to loosen the strings at all.
· The filter-based tone controls of Alan’s own design: This feature really separates the Uber basses from the rest of the crowd. The most important aspect of the bass’ tone profile is in the mid-range of the bass, those frequencies between 150 and 5k Hz that provide core personality of the instrument. Most bass designers start with a baked-in profile. Then they add some type of semi-parametric equalization that allows the player to vary that profile a little adjusting the relative levels or one or two preselected frequencies. But there is a problem with this approach. The settings effect both pickups. This means that when you change the blend of the pickups, you often have to change mid-range settings too. Alan worked with preamp designer John East and pickup designer Aaron Armstrong to produce a truly original approach to bass tone. This design allows you to select what part of the mid-range is emphasized and by how much for each pickup. So tone shaping takes on a whole new dimension. I find that I think of the bass tone as a blending of different mid-range emphasis of my choosing. In other words, I can set the neck pickup for a particular tone, do the same with the bridge pickup and then blend those tone signatures as I please. I don’t get into that issue of the neck pickup being too boomy or dark and the neck pickup being too thin or honky when changing the mix that causes me to make adjustments to the on-board eq. Each pickup can be set for a pleasing and distinct tone. Blending just emphasizes one tone over the other.
· The custom humbuckers: The Uber series includes a pair of custom humbuckers with some distinct features. First, each pickup has one humbucker per string. The leads from these individual pickups are fed into to mixing circuit to a single output. The value this provides is that there is better balance string to string and less cross-talk from other strings. The pickups are amazing full-range for humbuckers. They certainly sound more like humbuckers wired in parallel than series. They have an openness in the top that I don’t usually find with humbuckers. String response is very even assuming I do my job. They are also extremely quiet. (I am pretty sure that is also a consequence of the preamp design and excellent shielding too.)
· The mid-high controls: I am a finger style player. I love the sound of a lively bass that has a bit of bite in the upper mids and some zing up top. This bass has a mid-high control that gives me great control over this range. There are two controls for this: one to set the cut-off frequency, from 500-5k Hz, and one to adjust the amount of boost. I think this is a shelving resonant peak high pass filter that has some boost, or knee, around the cut-off frequency. I also think the boost control increases the resonant peak as you turn it up. So, let’s say you want to get some finger on string sizzle. I like 2.5k for that or there-about. I add a little boost and adjust the frequency to my liking. As I adjust the boost level, the highs come up with it. So the overall tone is more balanced. One very interesting aspect of this design is the ability to adjust the feed to the mid-high circuit. There is a trim pot in the preamp that allows you to blend the pickups into an output separate from the main mix. That mix feeds the mid-highs circuit. I found excellent results with this feature. Blending more the neck pickup produces a smoother mid-high response. Blending toward the bridge pickup adds a more harmonics for added zing. My sweet spot was about 70% neck and %30 bridge.
Other noteworthy features that are more commonly found but are never the less noteworthy:
· Headstock options: flat or tilt-back. I went for the latter. He uses a scarf joint which by all accounts I’ve read is extremely strong. I found the neck, headstock joint to be very sturdy looking.
· A wide variety of body styles. I went with the recurve which is basically a modern version of a jazz body. He has a great eye for design. Some, like the harlot, are pretty unusual.
· Resolite tuners: best tuners I’ve ever used. Smooth, precise and effortless. Alan tilts then back toward the player. They also feel great. They are thicker than standard tuners. It makes it easier to grip. They also feel like wood.
· ABM bridge: solid, easy to adjust with a lock down screw. The open design makes string changes easy. Getting any torsional stresses out of the string is a breeze. The lockdown screw is a good compromise between stability and crazy hard to adjust.
· Luminlay side dots: I opted for these. Just get them. ‘Nuff said.
· Jescar EVO frets: these frets rock. Smooth as silk. Bell-brass like tone. Slides are smooth for a fretted bass. Bends too. Apparently they are almost as tough as stainless steel. I love them.
Overall fit and finish are top-notch from what I can tell. This is my first custom. I have had the opportunity to examine and play other custom instruments from notable builders. I find this one to be as good or better than what I encountered. I think he spends a lot of time on the final shaping of the neck and body. The curves are very smooth. The recesses are uniformly deep with smooth edges. The pocket is to well matched to the neck that it appears to be a set neck. The nut seems well cut for good intonation and smooth tuning. I rarely play open strings, so this is fine for me.
The bass has a very full bottom end. There is plenty of bottom available from both pickups. (You may have noticed that the pickups are very close together.) The bridge pickup has a tighter bottom, the neck looser one. Alan adds a built-in filter to the bridge pickup to give it a more jazz-neck vibe and more tonal variation. He says the pickups would sound almost exactly the same without it. In the mids, the neck has a slightly tighter more sonorous tone. The neck pickup has more of a scooped tone. The highs mostly come from the hid-high control. I would say that the pickups are slightly dark if you have this turned off. But really, it’s that the pickups have a bigger smoother bottom than most other basses I’ve played. The resonant peak boost for each of the pickups can get pretty wild. With the peak volume set high and the frequency set low, you get this parked-wah sound. Sometimes it seems unpleasant when playing alone, but carries a lot of weigh in the mix. Speaking of mix, I have played this bass in two rehearsals and one gig. This bass has weight. There is no doubt about the heft the bottom provides even when emphasizing the mids or highs. You control the bottom by bringing up the mids and highs and cutting the overall volume. (Or you just cut bass at the amp.)
There have been complaints about the controls being very fidgety. I completely understand this criticism. Alan has made changes to the design to make precise adjustments easier. My bass does seem somewhat difficult to adjust when compared to most active basses. I have to change the way I think about eq’ing. For now, my approach for live use is to get good settings on the bass and leave it there. I then adjust the blend to taste for a song. As I get more accustomed to the filter settings, I will be able to make more changes on the fly in a gig setting. I have no problem making these changes at home or in rehearsal. I think that is because I know the rooms, a luxury I don’t have in most live situations. I also use an Empress para-eq to make minor corrective changes for room nodes and similar issues. I use the amp, a Mesa Subway D-800, for broader tone changes. (The voicing control on the amp is excellent for this.) What you get is a lot of versatility out of this bass. But if you need to make a quick cut in the bass level, you will likely be better off doing that somewhere else, like at the amp. That works fine for me. The truth is that with most active basses I’ve owned, I never use the on-board eq. If you like having that immediate access to tone controls, you may not like this bass.
There are some things I don’t like on the bass. First, there are four double-stacked control knobs. The volume blend has a center détente on the outer blend control and none on the volume. That is good. The filter controls have a center détente on the resonant peak level control, the top knob. This is not good, because the control is boost only. The same applies to the mid-high control. The top knob has a center détente which does not go with a boost only system. This is certainly not a deal-breaker. You can pull out the center knob on the filter controls and the mid-high controls. One the filters, these engage a fixed boost whose frequency and amount can be set in the preamp internals. Pulling out the knob on the mid-high control does nothing. That is another little annoyance. I am also not convinced the locking output jack is a good idea. I recall Alan telling me that he gets mixed feedback on this feature. I think I should have skipped it. But that can be easily changed. The one issue that I think deserves more attention from Alan is the high boost. When you pull out the knob on the neck filter control, you boost either 150 or 250 Hz by 2-12 dB. When you pull out the knob on the bridge filter, you get a boost of either 500 Hz or greater than 8k Hz by a similar amount. I find the 150 worked well for me when favoring the neck pickup. It added some nice depth when using a pronounced jazz-bridge tone. I am having a hard time with the neck filter boost settings. I usually cut around 500 Hz, not boost. The >8k seems like it is more intended for playing bass chords, tapping or slapping. I use those techniques very rarely. I wish it allowed me to boost upper mids, say around 2.5k to get some zing into my finger-style playing. On the other hand it does have a upper nice ping similar to a good quality acoustic guitar.
Overall impression: This bass is a bargain. Including shipping and import tariffs, I paid about $4200 for this bass. Given the design/execution quality, Alan’s outstanding responsiveness and features only found in this bass, he could charge an additional 25% for this instrument and still be competitive. The custom filter system is only available on two other makes of instruments that I know, Wal and Alembic. Either of these will be considerably more. I played a Wal briefly. I find this bass to have a more modern and hi-fi tone than the Wal. It certainly weighs less.
Last edited:
As I get to know this bass better, several things become very apparent:
About the high output: This pickup system has very high output. From what I can tell by measuring the output using my sound card, it has about 20dB higher output on average than my Fender Roscoe Beck V in single coil mode. (That mode puts it very close to the output of a vintage 60's jazz.) That is pretty hot! I found some of my effects don't like the hot input, so I am in the market for new ones. On the other hand I am able to overdrive the input of my Mesa Subway D800 easily if I want. So that is good!
- amazing articulate
- extremely even response
- very punchy and open sounding
- very high output
- very warm
About the high output: This pickup system has very high output. From what I can tell by measuring the output using my sound card, it has about 20dB higher output on average than my Fender Roscoe Beck V in single coil mode. (That mode puts it very close to the output of a vintage 60's jazz.) That is pretty hot! I found some of my effects don't like the hot input, so I am in the market for new ones. On the other hand I am able to overdrive the input of my Mesa Subway D800 easily if I want. So that is good!
