After a few decades of recording black metal and doomy ambient albums, each with a different sound, with my old P-style 4-string, it was time for an upgrade. I needed to improve just two things - 5 strings and better transients. The rest, if necessary, can be fixed in the mix. Transients are the initial snappy beginnings of notes, important for speed picking and playing through distortion. After some research, I realized I can get what I want either with an expensive bass with two single coil pickups, or just about any jazz bass. This one was sort of looking at me as an obvious choice. After one month, here are my conclusions so far.
First, it's a HEAVY bass. Mine has 5.4 kilos (11.8 freedom kilos). The 4-string version can be even heavier so I guess I got lucky. It comes with two wrenches (truss rod and saddle) and an inexpensive but perfectly usable 3-meter cable.
Starting with the headstock, the tuners are good. I tune it, it stays in tune, no idea what else to say. The string tree thing is a great idea (from much more expensive basses). When the bass arrived, one of the strings wasn't inside it, and that's the only QC issue I found.
The neck is a pleasure to play or shred. The satin finish is great, and if you play with your thumb on the back of the neck, "D" is the right profile. Frets are completely level with a tiny bit of neck relief. I haven't even touched the truss rod. No fret buzz on any string or fret. Good sustain. Some fret ends were scratchy so I took a small file and fine sandpaper and fixed that. When the factory strings settled down I lowered the action so now it's below 2mm on G and below 2.5mm on B string on the 12th fret. No buzz unless I hit them hard.
There's some neck dive if the bass is horizontal. Sitting down with the bass on my leg, I can find a balanced position by moving it a little. By now I just do it without thinking. On a strap it's better. I ordered the Harley Benton Strap Security Locks and they made the upper horn around 1cm longer, so now there's no neck dive unless I start jumping around, but it's a bit hard to do with a heavy bass and neighbors below me.
The pickguard is deep black and lovely to look at. Under it there's a "channel" for wires, so you can't remove it and have a Jaco style bass, it has to stay on.
The body is perfect, it's made from 3-4 pieces of ash but I really have to look hard to find where they are joined. Some expensive basses have poorly matched wood pieces. Well done, whoever was in charge of this.
The bridge is just as good as on my old bass which I still have and play. One thing is better - the saddles have enough space beneath them to go even lower. If you want the death metal fret-buzz-clank sound, you can do it without a neck shim. Also, the 16mm string spacing is great for speed and comfort.
Knobs do their job properly. They are not like an on-off switch. The tone knob seems to have 3-4 levels of dimming, which is good enough and probably normal. Also one IMPORTANT thing - a lot of Jazz Bass owners routinely keep the volume at 80-80 or 90-90 and say it gives them the sweetest sound. In some situations it's the same for this one. It's still louder than my old and loud bass. There's a technical explanation for this but reviews have a word limit.
Pickups are loud and clear. There is some single coil hum but less than I expected. There is no shielding and hum can vary depending on where you stand. With both pickups at the same volume, or one pickup with tone at zero, there is no hum. Low B string is loud and angry, even a bit louder than other strings when played with fingers. When played with a pick, all strings have an equal volume.
The sound... I got my transients. Listen to the sound samples on this page to hear what I mean - this bass, to me, just stands out. If I'm speed picking with my fingers it growls. With a pick, it's tiny explosions. Good stuff. Of course, it depends on what you plug it into. It works well with a compressor, distortion, Double Thruster and BDI21, and you can expect to waste hours on playing with the sound instead of actually playing the bass. I got a Jaco sound, a midrange nasty death metal sound, a romantic midnight moody sound, a woody sound, a poisonous distorted sound, and some more. And that's on my cheap bedroom amp. When I record it on my computer, it sounds even better. It can even sound like a Jazz Bass if that's your thing. I'm still learning.
Finally, it's just a great looking, classy bass. Put it on your bed and you'll want to sleep on the floor. But seriously, it's an honest, no-nonsense, solid instrument. The proportions are just right. Back in the day people would pay 500-600 euro in today's money for a similar instrument, and record some classic albums with it. A well-known frontman of an "epic heathen metal" band used the same bass as my old bass on their early albums and toured with it, and he told me online that he paid around 100 euro for it. Then he upgraded to a Warwick. I'm not famous so I upgraded to a Harley Benton - and I'm still happy. Thanks, Thomann!
