I'm finally falling in love with this bass. I ordered it with the wrong strings (steel rounds, what was I thinking), and I only had a bad old set of TI's at home and I couldn't do a proper setup. The A string was floppy and I couldn't stop it from touching the frets.
My luthier caught the problem and I ordered a new set of strings, and with a proper setup now the bass is revealing itself. It's a beast!
One curious detail, this bass was finished on the day of my birthday! When I saw the date on the certificate was the same as my birthday, I knew this one had to be special, haha!
It plays great, super easy. I love the neck. It is a U shaped neck and a little chunkier than the usual Maruszczyk neck. Just as I like it.
It's very light, because the body is chambered, but it balances perfectly, with the Hipshot Ultralight tuners.
Overall construction is great. Fit and finish is perfect.
The only thing that is not 100% is the pickguard. The cut is a little rough on one or two spots. Nothing bad, it's a detail. But I guess the intern did the pickguard this time.
The sound is great. I love the MEC vintage single coil pickup! What a sound! I already new this pickup, from my Warwick Starbass II. The Kloppmann PB63 is a super aggressive P pickup and has a great tone.
The two put together give this scooped tone that is very interesting, I like it. The drawback is that the harmonics are weak, with both pickups. But how many times do we use harmonics in a tune?
I think I will be using the pickups separately. I'm a "bass with one pickup" guy. And I wanted a P tone. But I also wanted something different. The MEC at the neck gives me that. No blend, just a switch, front, back, both. That way, it's like 2 basses with one pickup.
This is my 4th Maruszczyk, so I know what I'm getting. I communicate directly with Adrian (as all of us in Europe, I believe) and it's always easy and straightforward.
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Here is a quick and rough audio sample. It's not easy doing it a lot breakfast time with 3 kids, haha!
Phone mic, with bass with full volume and tone, through a flat Quilter BB800 and PJB C4 Piranha. I think with headphones on, you can get a sense of the tone of the bass.
https://youtube.com/shorts/gH2nit0bKNc?feature=share
