OK its here and I have stripped it, done a bit of a polish here and there as there was some oxidization on the "Black Chrome" hardware. (Not sure I'm keen on this yet). I've given it a fret polish, lightly oiled the fingerboard, put new strings on and set the intonation and action.
I took it to practice last night with my original band and played it through my Eden nemesis NC115 and it is very Gibson to play. The neck feels like some old T-birds I've played. I'm not so experienced as others here in this area that I can tell you what year and version of T-bird but its neck feel and the tone are very TB to my experience.
Especially when compared to my Jazz bass.
This Sth Korean one was made in the Samick factory and the build quality it of a very high quality. There are a few differences between this one and the Chinese one I tried in the shop a few weeks ago. Mostly the through body neck, (Chinese one was 6 bolt and Maple/walnut/maple) This neck is 3 piece Mahogany. The Body is Mahogany and the body top is maple.
As you would expect with all that Maho the sound is typically warm and rich with a bluriness to it. There is some top end snap and the mids were very balanced and full without being muddy. It has a lot of presence in a comfortable kind of way and sat in the mix nicely without clashing with keys etc. It is quite dark sounding and the sparkle in the top end made it feel balanced for me.
The passive EMG HZ's give a very consistent sound which I've come to expect from them but still lets the organic woody nature of the basses tone shine through. The front top knob is the pup blend control the back one is the overall volume and the smaller lower knobs are the Active tone controls for each pup.
I was amazed at how many different sounds were at my fingertips.
This is a very solid sounding bass with a lot of presence, a very comfortable and gibson feeling neck and a very consistent (across the FB) and variable sound.
I'm very impressed with it.
