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SX Ursa 6-string Jazz bass
- Thread starter Figbassist75
- Start date
I have my Hipshots in hand now. I pulled out my caliper and compared the string spacing on the head with my 4 stringers and to my surprise, it is close enough to look like it will work fine! In fact, it looks to me like there will be less pull to the side than I have with the stock guides (I hate those stock ones!
).I'll put up pics when I've put 'em on.
Hmm, interesting. I usually prefer to remove string trees and wind the string farther down the tuning peg to compensate, if I can get away without buzz and/or wonky sounding open strings. Definately worth trying!
I hope that the thing shows up earlier than
UPS's delivery estimate. I have seen threads about waiting for real "custom handmade" high end basses. My anticipation is no less, although my investment is...
I got mine today and I LOVE IT!
Its about 17.5mm string spacing and feels great! the neck could be a little thinner up around the nut, but for $150 I'm not complaining by any means.
The fit and finish are BEAUTIFUL and now the real question...how does it sound !???!
Well out of the box this joker sounds MEAN!!!!! if you can imagine a 70's jazz with emg's then you have the sound of this bass. It's JUICY, WET, and PHAT.
YES with the STOCK pickups and strings. I don't know about the people complaining about the pickups and strings are thinking. Mine sounds AMAZING and just plain out amazing. It'll take a lil adjustment to get use to the 6th string again, but this isn't going anywhere are getting anything chnagers other than differnt knobs ANYTIME soon.
Did i mention this bass sounds ABSURDLY FAT?!?!?
Its about 17.5mm string spacing and feels great! the neck could be a little thinner up around the nut, but for $150 I'm not complaining by any means.
The fit and finish are BEAUTIFUL and now the real question...how does it sound !???!
Well out of the box this joker sounds MEAN!!!!! if you can imagine a 70's jazz with emg's then you have the sound of this bass. It's JUICY, WET, and PHAT.
YES with the STOCK pickups and strings. I don't know about the people complaining about the pickups and strings are thinking. Mine sounds AMAZING and just plain out amazing. It'll take a lil adjustment to get use to the 6th string again, but this isn't going anywhere are getting anything chnagers other than differnt knobs ANYTIME soon.
Did i mention this bass sounds ABSURDLY FAT?!?!?
Now that is the kind of report/rewiew I like to hear just days before Brown Truck Man comes with mine. I liked the strings that came on my Douglas sixer, I was sad when they finally broke...
If I recall, the Douglas basses don't come stock with the chinese cheapos but something more upscale.
All I know is that people on talkbass were bitterly complaining about the poor quality of the strings at the time. I emailed Kurt, asking about buying more of the same strings. His response was that they were generic Chinese strings that only came from the factory on the bass.
Not doubting, just blowin the dust off of my brain. Just checkin to see if I was right, and if so, what changed.
No problem, I had to clear away a bit of dust and cobwebs to remember that email myself.
BTW, once the C string broke, I swapped the strings onto a five string, where they lived hapily for several months...
The LTD SX basses were.
And I do believe the Douglas/Brice basses come with them also.
I put a set of DR's on mine and it made a big difference in volume.
A couple of easy mods I also did...the first a very typical one of shimming the neck with a couple strips from a playing card.
The second one, and one that may be equally important in getting a good sound was that I noticed how tight the pickup screws were in the pickup housings, so I took them out and re-drilled the pickup holes in the plastic. I think I used a 1/8" bit, and now the pickups are able to slide on the screws. The pickups are held to their height by little humbucker springs and the wholes ere so tight before that they couldn't "spring" up or down. Now my pickups are set at the proper height instead of pushed way down on on side and right under the strings on the other.
A couple of easy mods I also did...the first a very typical one of shimming the neck with a couple strips from a playing card.
The second one, and one that may be equally important in getting a good sound was that I noticed how tight the pickup screws were in the pickup housings, so I took them out and re-drilled the pickup holes in the plastic. I think I used a 1/8" bit, and now the pickups are able to slide on the screws. The pickups are held to their height by little humbucker springs and the wholes ere so tight before that they couldn't "spring" up or down. Now my pickups are set at the proper height instead of pushed way down on on side and right under the strings on the other.
I put GHS flats on mine and it made a big difference in volume too. Also in tone, giving the "old school" sound I wanted. However, I can see if someone wanted that sort of standard bright 6 string sound, they might like the original strings. But I really didn't like them. I liked the Chinese strings that came on my SX 5 string much better and used them until they died. The ones that came on my 6 string SX seemed kind of light gauge and nasty to me. I'm surprised Jeremyr loves them. Hey, whatever!
Playing card? The "traditional" neck shim is a piece of matchbook cover printed with the name of some dive bar!
Yeah, I noticed the tight pickup problem too. But the screws they use are smooth up near the head supposedly to make the pickup slide easy. Unfortunately, I thought, that this should work OK, and put it back together the way it was. Big mistake. It also went back to sticking like it did before! I'll have pull those out of there and drill them. Maybe the next time I have the strings off.
This is a common problem on SX basses. But the problem is typically (I've not checked my Ursa 2 6) not really the cover, but the fact that the pup screws are going in at an angle. I can usually get the pup where I want it by using one hand to hold/push/pull the pup while screwing/unscrewing with the other hand. But the best way to solve the problem is to fill and redrill the holes for the screws. I did that once and yeah, those pups adjust like buttah!
ok this isn't a fault on the bass but in relation to the most obsessive aspects of my technique;
I just replaced the standard knobs (which are fine) with some clow in the dark speed knobs since they are shorter and soft when I slap around the c string I scrape my cuticles on the jazz knobs (which are about to go live on my strat) & within the week I'm removing the tone knob (since i never use them) also to make room for my thumb technique.
I'm also thinking of "ramping" it but that has to do mostly on where i'm tryig to go technique wise.
Yes.Are they all gone?
Word is, there won't be more in stock 'til mid-2011. That's the thing with Rondo...if you see something you like, you gotta hop on it quick, or else there's a good chance you'll get assed out for a while. 
Ooops! I finally actually pulled the guard off so I can send it away and have a BWB one made, and well, it IS a little different. Different from both my GF guards and some old SX guards that I replaced. It IS CLOSE to the size of a normal guard... just a little different.
You still could probably make any standard Jazz guard work IF it wasn't for the wide-spaced pup ears.
