I finally got one. Initially, Scott - danke schön! - had offered his services to obtain one for me in the US but the downward slide of the Euro made that unattractive, so I bought one of the few that made it to Germany before the flood (currently, there are no Epi delieveries to Germany until end of year, but isn't the Mississippi outside of China?).
It looks pretty much like the black one in the promo pics here
http://www.epiphone.com/news.asp?NewsID=1624 (I wanted a black one with a fretless neck just like the one at the Frankfurt music fair, but there are only natural body fretless ones available from Epi, so I settled for a fretted one). Craftsmanship is good with a few glitches:
- Before clearcoating the bass, dusting it off would have helped, now I have a bass with guaranteed rub-off-unendangered wood dust underneath the clearcoat (its on the back only, but still),
- The body/neck angle of this bolt-on was hilariously too concave for a bass with a high and unadjustable bridge, action at the 12th fret was 6/16", a little shimming with plastic strips did away with all that and action is now more at 3/16", comfortable and buzzfree, but I wonder how a beginner would have grappled with that issue to whom shimming must be a daunting prospect (if he thinks of it at all as a cure)? For a bass that will in effect only let you control action via trussrod adjustment and neck angle shimming, a better quality end control is necessary, meine Herren from Gibson!
The good things:
It comes with a nice case and has a comfortable, but sturdy neck. Very good fret job with excellent high register access due to that radical cutaway of - alas! - Scott "Saw" Dasson-type ruthlessness.
The body is Ripper-proportions-huge and makes the bass look like a medium or short scale, but it has a fully grown long scale neck.
The sound? My good countrymen of Shadow Electronics (inventors of the piezo) have done a swell job with the electronics here, the official blurb gives you an idea:
"At the heart of this bass is the revolutionary NanoFlex(TM) and NanoMag(TM) pickup combination. Custom-made for this bass by Shadow Germany, these pickups provide a wide range of tones suitable for almost any type of music. Under the saddle, the NanoFlex senses the vibrations of the strings AND the body of the instrument simultaneously. Not a piezo, this exclusive, low-impedance 7-layer element has active electronics and 100% shielding to ensure no sound is lost and no hum is introduced. The NanoMag is located right at the end of the fingerboard - just like in Epiphone's award-winning Ultra-II guitar. Positioned at this sweet-spot, the NanoMag captures all the subtle nuances and harmonics of every string. Like the NanoFlex, it too is low-impedance with active electronics on-board but it features a tiny air-coil, 3 samarium-cobalt magnets and silver-platinum shielding for a hum-free output. Both pickups are controlled by an active electronic system featuring a Master volume, pickup Blend and individual bass and treble controls for each pickup." So if the NanoFlex is a modern piezo (by any other name) underneath the bridge saddle, the NanoMag is a small strip glued to the end of the (extended) fingerboard of the bass and picking up the signal in the old mudbucker position. What you do get is more than ample, subwoofish bass out of that position plus clear treble and presence with only subdued mids. Add to this the bridge NanoFlex sound which has an emphasis in mids (though bass is reasonable and treble/presence abundant) and you have everything you can wish for soundwise, especially as you can mix the two unorthodox pickup systems without any frequency-cancelling out and have individual treble/bass controls for each. The resulting sound very "there", bassy (with lots of reserves for mudbuckerish boominess if desired), yet crisp, with enough audible mids to cut through and - an issue with many oldtime piezos - even string response. The G string is even mighty compared to most magnetic pup basses and really jumps at you not only with treble zzzing, but also with warm, deep, musical bass frequencies.
The bass came strung with roundwounds and I've kept them for now because I enjoy the crispness which never gets nasty or obnoxious.
I'm not sure what audience this instrument is aimed at by Epi. It's not really an instrument for unplugged sessions, the chambered body not offering enough volume unamped or coloring the Nano sounds enough acoustically (there is a slight change in tone if you hold your hand against an F hole), yet the wooden bridge and the F holes are not really rock either. Whether it can carve out its own niche remains to be seen, but I doubt it. Not really in the beginner range of Epi and without any celeb factor I can see it deleteted rather quickly which would be a shame as it is a good and individual instrument in its own right. I've enjoyed playing no other non-magnetic pup bass as much as the Zenith.
