Homepage Forums Guitar Discussion Bass Guitar Your opinions – a bass worth trying?

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  • #23904
    1bassleft
    Participant

    Please let me know your ops and don’t feel that “I’ll keep quiet because I haven’t bought/played loads of expensive basses”. The point is that this one is cheap. Cheapy cheapy cheap. I’m just wondering whether to give it a punt.

    My story is that, being a lefty, I don’t see many basses that are, y’know, different unless they’re some custom-built exotic. I’ve tried self-build but that’s gone wrong for me in the past and I’d far rather dip into my bag of bits and adapt some mass-market ready made if possible. A long time ago, I purchased a set of Graphtech piezo saddles and the blender preamp. Supposedly, they do a very good acoustic sound and the IC handles the task of switching/mixing with magnetic pups very well. Pity I got into 5-strings a bit later. It could be installed in a Jazz but, despite the instructions, I reckon it’s a damn tight squeeze or even a re-rout that I don’t fancy doing.

    So, I’ve toyed with the idea of having built a kindof Thinline Tele bass body, with the ’51P style pup, and putting the piezo saddles (Fender barrel type) on that. It’d look purty, but I’d have to have it made and all that drag. Then, I’ve seen on Fleeb this bass and you lucky righties can buy them for a measly £99. I’ve enquired, and they’ll do me a lefty for £149. Still cheap, but the 50% loading irks me on principle. Anyway, I’ll stop talking – it’s obvious how I could install a piezo bridge on this. Even if the pups are naff, I could put a decent one in the neck position (forget the bridge one) while I’m in there.

    Just wondered if you’d be tempted yourselves. Incidentally, any bass player in the Birmingham, England area would do me a big favour if they fancied having a plunk on the store’s righty and telling me what they thought. It’s a 32″ scale, BTW. Here’s a pic of it image-flipped to look like a lefty. The brand glories in the name “Ace Pro”, but I can live with that.

    #http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid220/p3f4621d7caef7f2a90c2bb9940bf45e9/ebb7a905.jpg

    Please post in your comments.

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    • #67021
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Update. I’ve decided against. The lefty @£149 was a bit of a markup from the righty price and two things have overtaken it. The Schecter 8-string lefty and the fact that I’ve now got a piezo bridge for 5-string. A piezo’d 4-string is not high on my priorities now (in fact, I’ll probably be selling the Graphtech saddles and Ghost preamp having got a 5-string to work on).

    • #66994
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Yes, it is a semi-acoustic, Tim. I actually like the f-hole (more so on a Tele Thinline, true). Looking again, I think those pups are EMG 35-sized. Fairly easy to put something decent in if necessary. I might give them a post-Xmas ‘phone call.

    • #67015
      Tim
      Participant

      Unfortunately I can only judge aesthetically, but it looks good, pity about the f-hole but you can’t have everything (is it actually a semi body?) could make an interesting thumb-rest I suppose. You can’t beat the LP shape looks-wise.

      I’d certainly be interested if someone does test one.

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