spacecowboy

So got a bit of a problematic bass on my bench at the moment. I knew when my friend gave me it to setup it would be a challenge but i'm stumped with this one and need some advice. I think my friend would be fine with me saying that this bass came in very worse for wear, it's been played and gigged hard and had been left for some time in it's case, a few years i believe. The metal had all rusted and the neck looked completely banana'd, without a lie the gap between the underside of the E string to the fretboard was 12mm. So the things that have gone well so far; Its a Mex Jazz Bass, with a swapped out Bad donkey Bridge. Took the neck off the bass, gave the truss rod a few tweaks to leave over night, came back to it and the neck was completely straight, not a single gap on my straight edge. Excellent. Levelled all the frets as they were very uneven and beaten up, crowned them, got them looking super lovely, checked the fretboard wood again, completely straight. No rocking on any frets. Excellent!. Put the neck back on the bass, put the old strings back on to do some more trussrod tweaks before new strings were put on... 12mm gap is back... instantly... so the tension and pull of the strings is completely pulling the neck out of shape and causing some serious upbow. I completely loosen off the truss rod, lubricate the nut and over the course of a week start to turn it a quarter turn to tighten it up again all under tuned up string tension, the truss rod is now at the point where I don't want to turn it anymore, it's getting stiff but there has been ZERO movement in the neck, not even a mm over the course of week. In comparison a recent Marcus Miller bass setup saw all neck problems resolved overnight with no fuss. I have taken the neck off the bass again, tweaked it to be completely straight, put in on the bass again, instant up bow, no amount of tweaking will resolve it. I'm stumped. Does anyone have any ideas at all? Photos below to help out. Cheers,

Did a quick pickup test video at lunch today for anyone wanting to hear it. Dry signal, bass straight in to my Apogee Jam in to Garage Band on a basic "Ampeg" amp setup with everything flat. First off I'm sorry you have to listen to the same riff over and over but that's the best way to hear the difference... if you can. I've kept the Treble and Bass flat on all, but hard panned the pickups so you can hear what they're doing, there's text on the vid so you know what's going on, at the end of the video there's what the bass sounds like acoustically picked up by the camera microphone, in the middle of it all of course there's a little bit of Space Cowboy. Honestly it really doesn't sound that bad, I'd like a bit more nasal bridge tone but the neck pickup sounds good.

Oh and sorry Kev I got it from this ebay seller look's like they get stock every now and again! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SX-ELECTRIC-BASS-5-STRING-ARCHED-BODY-NATURAL-SATIN-FINISH/362566353664?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

Hi Kev, yep they must be really sure of their couriers! Luckily nothing at all damaged here! Will do! I'm popping a video up later today going through the pickup variations so people can make up their own mind as to whats going on. It's super super light weight! Again i thought the box was empty when it arrived! I'll get my calipers on it asap and let you know, I actually think this could be 15mm... could be totally wrong though! Haha! yeah that would have changed everything and I would have stayed clear, I paid less than £300 shipped, so felt like a safe punt!

And I found some pics of how the bass arrived with me, the only thing removed was the cloth bag that the bass arrived in... they must really trust their couriers!

Sorry about the long reply to this and anybody waiting to hear about it! Short review - Bass looks phenomenal for the money, doesn't sound budget but also doesn't sound pro, very light, very playable, setup was easy and the bass handled it well. Probably the best budget bass I've played but isn't a long term keeper. Full Review - So the bass arrived, packaged well enough, no unboxing video as I opened it at work and I was uber keen to see what it looked like, you've missed nothing though, makeshift cardboard outer, SX printed fitted wedge cardboard inner with bare minimal padding, amazing the bass wasn't damaged, thought there was actually nothing in the box at all when I first got it... and with that point let's start there, Weight - Don't know if this is just something I'm not used to with the basses I play but this bass is really light compared to my other 5er's even my 4's and especially other Warwicks, the scales clocked this bass in at 3.2kg / 7lbs... Initial Setup - Of course the bass wasn't setup very well, mile high action but intonation was perfect and neck was pretty straight. Setup - Really easy bass to setup, Nut was filed pretty deep to start with and bridge was easy to drop in to a lower position, truss rod which was fully working, just needed a 1/4 turn tighten and everything was worlds better, the strings needed binning straight away as they felt and sounded bad, put some bright steel D'addarios on for some zing and now the bass is alot closer to what I'd want. Fretboard and Frets - Didn't need to level or crown the frets I got the action low enough with the setup thankfully and have no buzz across the board. If this was to be a forever bass I'd spend the extra time doing that, but, the bass plays well enough for now, the frets didn't have sharp edges, all 24 were bedded nicely and the edges had been rolled neatly, impressive on a bass so cheap. The board was also a nice bit of rosewood, approx 6mm thick, decent grain and it drank up plenty of lemon oil again pretty damn good for a bass at this price point. White dot inlays across the board. Hardware - The bridge, knobs, strap pins and tuners are all "gold" plated, they're surprisingly really good quality, the tuners have held tune all week, the knobs turn as you'd want them, the mid point on the pot's don't "locate" as positively as you may want so it takes me a couple of rolls to be sure of the mid position before a roll forward or backwards, the bridge is a really good monorail style bridge which as mentioned previously is easy to move around to setup the bass as you'd want it to. Strap pins are good quality with some felt between the metal and the bass wood which again is a nice touch. Woods - Very very light Mahogany body and neck with a Rosewood finger board, there is definitely 3 blocks used on the body and neck, 2 wings and a central neck & body piece, but the construction is flawless and the bass looks terrific, look at that curvature! I think it has been stained to look a little more like "Afzelia" as I haven't seen Mahogany look so "tanned" before, fingerboard wood is thick and as mentioned before has a nice grain pattern. Lovely matt finish to the woods. Pickups and Electronics - So this is perhaps the "weak" point of the bass depending on which angle you come from, I'm an EMG 2 band fan and usually lace my basses with that circuit and pickups, I also play a Sire V7 5 string jazz as my main bass and that has the incredibly ludicrous 18v 3 band more control than you need preamp and super hot pickups (Thank god for the passive switch), so when playing this bass which has a 9 volt 2 band preamp there is a very different tonal palette on offer and as such I'll not compare apples for apples more describe what this bass offers, considering there is a MM and angled J pickup configuration combined with a pickup blend, treble cut boost and a bass cut boost there is a surprisingly low amount of workable tonal variation available, the bass excels when treble and bass are at mid point and you ever so slightly roll to bias the front J pickup, this cuts the loud and sometimes hissy MM pickup off enough so it's not annoying and allows the bass to be heard without too much "preamp" influence, the only other workable configurations for me and the music I play are full MM with treble boost for some nasal finger style and you've guessed it, full J and a flat mid and bass for some slap, which for some people is all you want, for me i'll miss the instant dial-ability and wealth of tones the EMG circuits give me, but such a snobby point when we consider this is still probably one of the best looking budget basses you'll see. The circuit was wired neatly enough, plenty of room to mod the hell out of it and stick a beefier preamp and extra battery in should the feeling take you. Overall - I wish this was available 18 years ago when I started playing, I bought a Peavey Dyna Bass back then for £300 and this bass would have absolutely smashed it out the park, I need to remember sometimes that I have been spoilt rotten in the basses I've owned and played over the time I've been playing and if this had of been my first bass it would have been absolutely INCREDIBLE, a really minor setup got this bass super playable, it's so lightweight, it looks fantastic and for the money you'll be hard pushed to find anything better. For me it's not going to replace any of my basses, so it'll be sold on in the near future preferably to someone like me who, 18 years ago pined for a Warwick so they could be Stuart Zender but couldn't flip enough burgers to ever afford one.

Apparently, it seems, after a little digging that these basses have been kicking around around since 2011, but I have only recently come across this SX “nod” to the Ned Steinberger Spector / Warwick ergo shaped bass, for argument let’s agree that this particular model looks, albeit loosely, like a PNUT / Stage 2 / Jazzman Warwick Streamer bass. I’ve been keeping tabs on various outlets flogging this bass and managed to secure one on eBay recently and pocketed change from my £300. Over the years I have personally owned 12 Warwick Streamers, mostly Stage 2’s in 4 and 5 string guises, a couple of Stage 1’s and 1 LX, these have ranged from handmade low numbered beauties from 1983 and some less lovely early 2000 models. Some good, some bad but I really love these basses… or do I? If I loved them surely, I would still have them? Or is it maybe that the resale value of them is always stable or in some cases you can sell it for more than what you paid and usually the demand for them is always healthy so selling them on is never a chore and quite irresistible when GAS strikes? Anyway in short I’ve bought this relatively low cost 5 string homage to one of my favourite bass designs ever, I’m definitely not expecting early Streamer quality, nor am I expecting this bass to rival one of my previous Warwick ownership experiences, what I am expecting is a bass in thorough need of a good setup, pickup / preamp overhaul, a fret dress and a re string, but what might, after a little bit of effort, be a very playable bass that doesn’t get sold as quickly as the rest… It looks like a Warwick / Spector just without putting a dent in the bank balance. Got to admit guys it’s a genuinely good-looking thing. Any way it comes tomorrow so I’ll do a little unboxing video with some pics and some recordings in the next week, I'll give my honest feedback. Does any one on here have one?

You and me both mate!

It's definitely swings and round abouts, my Markbass cab sold within hours and then no interest at all in my Markbass head, even at £150! To be honest I haven't seen anything I want to part money with for a long long time... just waiting for a reasonably priced OC2 to appear!