Well, the Primavera now has buffed (mandolin) frets, an adjusted bridge and truss rod, a new battery, some lem oil on the ebony board and a new set of Elixir roundwound coated strings which I thought with their mellow sound would fit the Bartolini TCT active electronics well as these tend to a little on the sharp side.
It's - as could be expected from the looks - not a rocker's bass. The tone is assertive in a well-behaved/understated manner, no frequency jumps at you, no frequency seems to be missing, very even across the fretboard, bass, mids and treble equally represented in a very transparent, three-dimensional way. A maho or alder body would blur more both as regards treble and mids, a maple bite more in the treble department, a zebra wood body sound denser and deader. Primavera sounds a bit like (heavy) ash, very contoured, present and focused. A serious-minded wood -
But in a jazzy outfit where you want every note to be heard, yet never get in the way of the other instruments, it could work wonders.
The relatively thick neck, the coated strings and the lack of abrasion from the mandolin frets make for a very smooth playing feel, you slip from low to high registers like nothing with a lack of fret noise that makes other basses sound outright sloppy.
Uwe
