So after a bit of behind the scenes work, I went for a little drive yesterday. Mike's shop is about 250 miles away from me, so maybe it was more than a little drive....
Upon arriving at his place, I was given a quick tour of many of the guitars. They all look very nice. He had the Rush, which is a Floyd Rose equipped LP custom, as well as an SG copy, and a few of the "signature" models. These are based on name player guitars, and are electronically, and wood-onically VERY similar. There is a Vai version, a Van Halen verson, Malmsteen, etc.
Now for the basses! He had a Super-B, in the burst finish, as well as a black Fusion-5, and both a white and a burst Tuscany Swing 4 string Jazz type. The purpose of my trip was to help him shoot some demo videos of the basses. In so doing, I got to get some real up close and personal time with those four. I will do a mini review of each here, and after the videos are up, feel free to ask me anything, as well as tell me my playing was not up to par.... These were the first video reviews I have done. Mayhaps I will get more comfy in front of the camera if we do more.
OK, the Swing. This is a very nice Jazz 4 clone. Of the two, I settled on the sunburst one. It had a nice two piece alder body, rosewood fingerboard, and some figure to the maple of the neck. Speaking of the neck, this one is VERY thin, both width wise, and depth wise. Almost like the Geddy bass's neck. The binding and pearl blocks were very well done. The bridge is a high mass bridge, not unlike the Gotoh. Electronics are two single coil Jazz pickups, with two volumes, and an active preamp with bass and treble controls. This bass looks great, plays very well, and sounds like a jazz bass. I feel I should mention that the route around the neck pickup is a bit of a swimming pool route, though not huge. This bass is not a candidate for pickguardless "Jaco" playing. That said, it is a VERY nice bass. I will say this one is much closer to Leo's creation (or at least CBS's mid 70's version thereof) than one of the other, often spoken of, jazz clones that seems to be a favorite on TB.
Next we have the Fusion-5. This one is a "fusion" (duh!, it hit me while making the video) of a jazz type neck, on a P type body, with both reverse P and MM type pickups. Alder body, maple neck, maple fingerboard, matching black headstock, with black blocks and binding. Controls are two volumes, with the bridge pickup's volume control being a push/pull for humbucker/single coil. Finish this off with a boost only preamp, and we have a nice, solid bass. I do not have the specs, nut width, spacing at the bridge, nor the FB radius, but they are all on line. This neck is also pretty thin front to back. Very even tone across the strings. I actually got to take this one home with me for something of an extended review. I will play this bass on gigs, and report back here. If any of you folks local to me want to check it out, it is here. I like the range of tones this bass produced. It does the P thing very well, while having a nice, thick, very usable B string. The MM type pickup in the bridge works as advertised. Thick, burpy, and harmonics jump out of this bass. Nice, versatile bass.
Moving on, we have the Super-B. VERY COOL BASS! This one is sort of a Tele GUITAR shaped 5 string. Basswood body, maple neck, rosewood 'board. The sunburst one I played features a figured maple veneer top, and all black hardware. Oh yeah..... That HUGE pickup..... There are FIFTEEN magnets in this beast. This pickup has SIX coils. They are wired such that they work like this: the two neck coils form a humbucking "single coil" P pickup sort of animal, and the remaining four coils are wired as humbucking pairs, which are then switched between series or parallel via the push/pull switch in that section's volume pot. Complicated?? Nah.... Sound? VERY cool. This one, neck coil only, had a very "51 P" thing, to my ear anyway. The rear two coils were pretty MM sounding, being that they live about exactly where the MM pickup lives in, well, an MM bass! This bass is finished off with a two band boost and cut preamp/EQ. It was a very tough call for me to decide which bass to take on the extended review. The Super-B is a very cool bass. I really like the tones, the light weight (yes, it balances well with a strap, thankyouverymuch!) and, perhaps less obviously, the "it ain't just another fender clone" quality it has, while still retaining a familiarity to those of us who grew up under Leo's wing.
I asked Mike to make sure to get a few fretless versions of these basses. He should have info on the Frudua J5 bass very soon. All in all, VERY nice stuff for the money.
Stay tuned for the videos!
Lee
