The bass did well at practice. The guys liked the sound of it. The guitar player was OK with it, but he thinks I should sound like Geddy Lee all the time, ugh. What do guitar players know about bass anyway?
I put half rounds on it and it thumped away happily. I am impressed by the pups, though not as powerful as TV Jones Thundertrons (I had to turn the amp from 8 to 9 o'clock to get the volume I wanted) they still did a nice job. They do have a nice response range and I think they are a bit better then the Epi pups I've had in the past in basses like the EB-3 and the Allan Woody. The 3-way switch gives the bass a lot of tonal variety. Needless to say, the 30" slim profile neck is great to play. The weight is nice and there weren't any feedback problems at volume. As usual, the e-string on a short scale struggles to be well-defined with a flat-style string. With rounds that it came with, the bass is clearly louder and the notes on the e-string much crisper. I know this is blasphemy, but I think the bass, with half-rounds sounds a lot like my Hofner Club. Not exactly, but they share a certain hollow body thump that surprised me. Maybe it's the thin body. My hollow body Gretsches didn't always that thumpiness, probably due to the big box bodies they have. This bass is different. To be frank, it sounds better than an original Coronado (which probably isn't that hard to do, but it is better IMHO).
Well, I'm gonna keep it for a bit and play around with it. I'll try some nickel rounds on it to see how that flies. It will be fun to experiment with it. For the money, it's not a lot of risk and I do love the look of the cherry burst. I have to say, it's quality is right in there with the lower priced Gretsches and Hofners. Besides, the pups are the same size a TV Jones Gretsch, so a drop in mod is possible too. It will be competitive in the market, I think.
