Okay, so I ordered one of these new Telecaster Basses. To check it out.
It arrived friday moring.
First impression, straight out of the box was good!
Looks classy with the bookmatched spalted maple top and creme bindings round the top and backside.
The humbucker at the bridge is a model I haven't seen before. Nothing like any of the humbuckers BaCH uses on their bass guitars.
It is kinda wide and it is radiused, so it follows the radius of the fingerboard.
I'll have to ask BaCH what it is exactly.
The sound of the front single coil pickup is very P bass like. No surprise, 'cause that's what it is basicly (albeit a short scale one). An amplified log is what I usually call this sound. Just like the BaCH fifties P copy that I used to have.
Very "open" sounding with lots of "ring".
The humbucker sounds a little meaner. Oddly enough a bit J- bass like.
I wouldn't be able to hear it is not a single coil if I hadn't seen this big black pickup.
I lowered to pickup somewhat, because it was too close to the strings for my liking. In order to do that I had to take it out and remove some of the foam underneath it.
Plus I lowered the front pickup too. That was a piece of cake with the height adjustment screws.
Now they're nice and balanced and more comfortable on the fingers.
Friday night I took it a gig I had ( first gig with new band Definition of Madmen
)
Just like I had expected, the sound on a full tube amp is brutal!
This bass guitar has lots of dynamics. If you play it gently you get a nice round and full woody tone. If you play it hard you get a mean growl with lots of bite and a sweet drive.
The strings were very fresh (and not exactly my taste), so I had a wee bit too much top highs in my sound. So I dialed back the Tone knob on the bass a bit and lowered the Treble on the amp a little. No big deal.
Being a short scale fan, this bass really feels comfortabel straight away. Even with the rather chunky neck.
I seems to me the neck isn't finished at all. If it is then it must have been a very subtle thin layer of oil or satin finish.
This Telecaster bass is a remarkable instrument that seems to appeal to
geetards a lot. Most of the comments came from guitarists (who wanted to order a Telecaster guitar with spalted maple top and creme bindings)
I took some snap shots in the garden:
