Max Normal
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Posts posted by Max Normal
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12 hours ago, Bassassin said:
For some reason the 90s MIJs go for a fair bit less than any of the 80s Squiers, including the later E & A serials. Would think quality-wise they're exactly the same, maybe the 80s were just 'special'.
Would still think £350 for a Fujigen Jazz is pretty good. They won't lose value.
I was under the impression that the 80's models coincided with FMIC having to build a new factory in Corona after they bought Fender from CBS in 1985. During the factory build, Japan was the only place building Fender basses, and this supposedly had a positive effect on quality (maybe they were using up USA parts, I dunno) and is why previously Squier badged JV basses subsequently became Fender badged E-series basses.
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Nice. Probably a very expensive repair though, unless you converted it to LED.
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36 minutes ago, Hellzero said:
Does it justify the delirious asking price ?
Not really, no. I had a read and this dude was one of many bass players who played in the Pat Travers Band, and not even an original member (Travers seems to really go through bassplayers, which says something about the man). Seems to have faded into even more obscurity afterwards. Travers plays with Jaco's nephew now, who probably is a bit better known. I reckon there's plenty of Basschatters who have had a gig with a famous or semi famous artist, doesn't make their bass more valuable.
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1 hour ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:
Not sure what make this a status quo bass. At the moment it isn't really a bass as there's no way to tune the thing.
The sticker is a nice touch though
It's white and has no headstock like eponymous Status Quo's single-string bonging John Rhino Edwards' white Status headless. This is of course, where any resemblance to a Status bass ends.
$245.00 seems a lot for a piece of firewood!
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Could be good to flip or for a learner. If the neck's ok, reckon you could get this up and running in an afternoon of rummaging in the parts drawer and a wee bit of soldering.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/384392618616?hash=item597f95e278:g:ywAAAOSwT2lhP0ez
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19 hours ago, Witch Hazel said:
i recently bought an Ltd B-205SM FL (5-string fretless), which, aside from the bridge, seems to be nearly identical in construction to yours, and i've been quite happy with it. i'm not sure why they don't get talked about as much as other "budget" makes.
i ended up shimming the neck slightly to lower the action, and there are some minor things i think could be improved - the battery compartment could be easier to access, the pickup output really is very low, and the bass is on the heavier side - but overall it seems like a good instrument for the price.
The pre-amp does seem to affect the volume quite a lot. It's not ideal, but I find that you can get some boost by setting all 3 EQ knobs slightly higher than the centre detent.
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Review model purchased August 2021 for £428.00
Fit and finish 4/5
Tone 4/5
Playability 5/5
Value for money 5/5
Introduction
Multicourse 8-string basses are a relatively rare beast and tend to attract a premium price for something you might not use every day, so you might be tempted to go for one of the lower priced offerings, but with perhaps some trepidation as to quality.
To add insult, comprehensive reviews for any of the multi-course basses that are on offer tend to be relatively non-existent, and those that are out there tend to dwell on the novelty of having 8 strings rather than the usefulness as an instrument for the specific bass being reviewed. I intend to put that right for at least one possible solution to your 8-string needs (or wants), introducing the Ltd B-208SM.
For those not in the know, Ltd are a lower-cost far-eastern subsidiary of ESP guitars, a company perhaps best known for producing higher-end pointy guitars aimed at the rock and metal market. Think Sterling to Musicman, Tribute to G&L or Squier to Fender (although comparing this to a Squier in terms of quality might be a little unfair to Ltd).
The bass being reviewed was purchased for £428.00 including UK VAT, with a fast and fantastically hassle-free post-Brexit transaction from Thomann in Germany, who handle payment of VAT, shipping and clearance without you having to do a thing, so it feels just like it did when we were still in the EU. However, you’ll see these for sale for as much as £699.00 in the UK.
First impressions
It’s a good-looking bass which follows “modern” design cues. The body is made from 3 pieces of ash which are fairly well matched for grain and colour. The rear of the bass has a very modest tummy cut which still manages to take away the majority of discomfort but may not accommodate the larger beer belly quite so well as a Fender contour body. The body has a Gibson-esque carved top, which also serves as a modest forearm contour, and is finished off with a rather stunning spalted maple laminate which also has a fair bit of flame to it.
It has a Fender-style body shape, but is a little smaller than a standard Fender, with a lower cut-out well shaped to accommodate access to the highest frets on the 24 fret neck, and an upper bout which extends to above the 13th fret to provide a comfortable playing position while minimising neck dive by sensible forward placement of the strap button.
The neck joint is set deep into the body and is firmly secured with six bolts set into individual ferrules rather than a traditional neck plate, and the body has a nice, rounded contour where the neck meets the body.
The neck itself is of 5-piece construction, made from maple with two attractive skunk stripes of jotoba that extend to the top of the headstock. The fretboard is also jotaba, which is a dense hardwood with properties reportedly somewhere between rosewood and ebony. Mine has an extremely tight grain and could easily be mistaken for ebony. The fretboard jotoba is almost black as opposed to the reddish-brown skunk stripes, so there is some question as to whether it has been dyed, or if this is a natural variation in the colour of the wood.
The headstock is quite small considering that this is an 8-string bass, which can only be beneficial when countering neck dive that is always going to be a problem when you have so many tuners to deal with. The headstock is provided with another piece of spalted maple laminate to match the body.
Everything is finished off with a very thin satin finish which resembles an oil finish.
Although the body is a little smaller than a Fender, it feels quite satisfyingly solid and chunky and with fairly hard edges, not unlike a Les Paul. This is not a lightweight bass by any means, but this is perhaps needed to offset neck dive due to the weight of extra hardware at the headstock end. Mine weighs in at 4.4 kg.
The bass arrived with the action set high, the strings slack and the intonation not adjusted properly at all. The neck relief was set perfectly out of the box and did not change significantly when I tuned the bass up, so there is obviously a pretty heavy duty trussrod arrangement going on in there. After an hour or two of tweaking, I managed to get the bass playing very well with perfect intonation on all the strings and a nice low action.
Fit and finish is generally good, perhaps what you would expect from a slightly higher-end bass. The neck and bridge are perfectly aligned, the routing is neat and tidy.
However, there are a couple of very small niggles: You could get a cigarette paper down the front of the neck pocket either side of the neck, and one of the neck joint bolt ferrules is sitting slightly proud (about 0.5mm). Also, the area where the heel of the neck transitions into the neck profile could have been a little tidier.
Hardware
All of the hardware is finished with a kind of smoked gunmetal chrome which I rather like.
The hardware seems to be of pretty decent quality, with Gotoh-style enclosed bass and guitar tuners being used for the bass and octave strings respectively. The tuning feels smooth and accurate and tuning stability is excellent – none of the problems that I had with my old 12-string acoustic guitar at all, you can tune this up once at the start of a playing session, and you are good to go. The side-mounted jack socket has a very satisfying and secure clunk when plugging in.
The bridge is a tune-o-matic style with individual saddles that allow intonation adjustment for each string, and this is something that you definitely DO need, and which should put this bass above some other offerings in a similar price range in your wishlist like the Hagstrom H8-II which does not. However, setting the intonation is a right pain with the intonation screws located in front of the bridge, so your screwdriver is hampered by the bridge pickup. Patience, a long narrow screwdriver of the correct size and something to protect the finish in case of slips is essential. Luckily, this is not something that you will need to repeat too often.
The bridge does not have individual saddle height adjustment for either the bass strings or the octave strings, however, the bridge saddles follow the 400mm radius of the neck, so if everything is setup properly this should not be a problem. Indeed, out of the box, I adjusted the action to 2.25 mm on the E string at the 12th fret before any significant fret buzzing occurred, which should be low enough for most people.
The bridge and tailpiece are both cast metal, possibly aluminium, and look to be of decent quality. The height adjustment screws are plated the same as the rest of the hardware and feel hard and resistant to damage from a screwdriver, with a nice smooth action. The bridge is not affixed to the surface of the body like a normal tune-o-matic, it slots into a routing to allow lower action, which is very neat and so tight to the bridge as to be almost invisible.
I have read people expressing concern about a lack of individual height adjustment for the octave strings. This is NOT an issue on any 8-string bass that I can think of. As the bass strings have a larger diameter than the octave strings, your fingers will always come into contact with these first, so having a lower action for the octave strings is irrelevant unless you wish to use a highly modified setup and technique. In fact, in my opinion this would make the bass harder to play as you would struggle to feel the location of the octave strings when you fingered a note, not to mention more complicated to set up.
In use
The neck has a fast “Thin U” shaped profile which feels neither particularly thick nor thin to me. It’s certainly easy to play and not a “table leg” considering the extra tension that it has to deal with. Like the body, it’s finished off with what feels like a very thin satin lacquer or oil, nothing at all like the thick, sticky poly finishes you get on many budget far eastern guitars, giving an overall feel of quality to the instrument.
The frets are nicely dressed and there are no sharp edges or raised frets, which was an extremely welcome surprise in this price range. This is easily equal to something coming out of an expensive USA factory, and I found myself having to make no adjustments at all to the fretwork.
The fretboard has a shallow 400 mm radius which would seem suitable for a bass with multiple courses of strings. Nut width is 45 mm, which is just a little more than a precision bass, and which makes the neck feel easy to play. It feels like the sweet spot between being so wide as to be cumbersome, and so narrow as to have problems fouling adjacent string courses which might be a problem on the Warwick Rockbass 8-string for example, which has a more Jazz-like nut width. String spacing is a standard 18 mm from centre to centre of each course at the bridge.
There are two 4” EMG-style 5-string soap-bar pickups with the words “ESP designed” printed on them, while most real ESP basses would actually be found wearing EMGs.
For electronics, the bass is equipped with larger volume and blend knobs, and three smaller knobs to adjust the onboard 3-band active EQ, which is reversed in order – bass, middle, treble. All the knobs have a smooth action with a little turning resistance, and feel of high quality, like you’d expect from CTS for example. All of the knobs bar the volume also have a centre detent. The preamp is nice and quiet with no noticeable hiss.
There is no active/passive switching or mid sweep, so this is a simple setup to use, but you will need to bring a spare battery to gigs – and a screwdriver…. the battery cover is screwed on, which seems a poor decision considering the availability of modern clip-on battery covers.
In use, I found the pickups and preamp to be of low output, not much more than my Fralin-equipped passive jazz bass. The preamp is very practical in its range of adjustment, and it’s hard to find an unusable tone setting.
I have read comments where people, who perhaps confuse output with tone, have complained about the pickup/preamp combination, but I disagree. It reminds me somewhat of the low output transparent sound that you find on MEC equipped Warwick basses, which to me seems like a good choice where you have to differentiate between the bass and octave strings. The sound also manages to avoid being too jangly or treble biased, you can easily dial in enough bass to remind you that this is indeed a bass guitar. I’m not aware of the precise range of the all-important mid-frequencies that have been chosen, but there is a nice clear hi-fi modern tone which avoids sounding overtly coloured by the preamp or at all honky or muddy.
Pickups and tone are of course highly subjective, but to put it into perspective, I have a set of 4” EMG-X pickups and an EMG preamp that I could drop straight into this bass, but I will not be doing so.
There is a little neck dive when sitting, and you find yourself naturally applying slight downwards pressure with your right forearm to counter this. However, I didn’t really notice this at all after a few minutes playing, so it’s not really a problem. Standing using a 7 cm wide suede strap, there is no neck dive at all.
Overall, this bass sings nicely both with fingers and a pick, and it’s insanely fun to play – I can’t put it down and I’m finding a lot of inspiration in it. Not only do you get that nice clear octave sound when fingering notes, but you can strum it and play broken chords to great effect too.
Conclusion
This is my first Ltd bass, and I’m surprised that they don’t get more love on the forums.
Although this bass has been manufactured in Indonesia, it has clearly been very carefully designed by ESP to fulfil its function, and it does that very well. The fit, finish and playability are on the whole what you’d expect from a more expensive bass.
Add to that the additional provision of durable specialist hardware required for a usable 8-string bass, and this begins to put other “budget” offerings such as G&L Tribute, Sterling and Squier to shame.
I bought this bass because I needed it, and I will be taking it on the road with confidence. I also frequently modify my basses so that I can get the tone and playability that I need. Not so this bass, it will remain in its standard configuration.
Most players only play multi-course basses for a few songs in the set at least, or perhaps as something fun to play at home. In this case, I have to ask you, do you need anything more? Unless you intend to use an 8-string as your main instrument, or have cash to spare, I heartily recommend this one. It’s a usable instrument and in my opinion, very good value for money.
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5
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I may need psychiatric help, but I kind of like it (not enough to buy it though). Bit cheeky calling it "Fender bass guitar".
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What a load of hallux!
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I recently developed my first nodule on my left hand under my ring finger, no contraction yet. Apparently 1/3 of cases don't progress to contractions, so here's hoping. There's a clinic that specialises in radiotherapy for early stage, and apparently the chances of arresting further development with the treatment is good. The treatment is £3000.00, which sounds like a lot, but it's still only 1/2 the price of a Wal...... The consultation was done over Zoom and was free.
I was told to watch and wait, and I have to measure the size of the nodule and how much I can lift my finger with my palm flat on the table every month or so and keep a record. Once it shows progression I need to contact the consultant and have the treatment. I think it's going to be several years before we see Neal Millar's treatments become licenced, so this looks like the only viable early stage treatment at the moment. I'd rather not wait and have surgery or collegenase treatments if I can avoid it.
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4 hours ago, TheGreek said:
JOOI what was your best offer?
£475.00 which was a bit steep still, but there you go.... Since then it's had a Fender Hi Mass bridge (the saddles move sideways on the Mex ones, which is frankly, pants), a tortie guard, CTS pots, switchcraft jack socket, Orange Drop cap (pots were worn and crackly) and I have some swanky Fralin pups to put in it. It's also getting a bridge pickup rout to USA spec and a level, crown and polish next week as the frets were pretty worn. The body and neck are solid though. Maybe should have bought a more expensive bass from the start, but I do like to upgrade things. I also like to remind myself why I don't usually buy things from eBay.........
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5 hours ago, TheGreek said:
There's a MIM PJ on Gumtree currently for £575:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/fender-precision-deluxe-bass-/1403929420
Fender MIM Jazz for £750
https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/fender-jazz-bass-/1403211434
MIM Jazz on ebay BIN £499
As @Max Normal says prices do seem to have gone up though
Just bought the eBay jazz, thanks for the heads up TheGreek!!
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2 hours ago, TheGreek said:
There's a MIM PJ on Gumtree currently for £575:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/fender-precision-deluxe-bass-/1403929420
Fender MIM Jazz for £750
https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/fender-jazz-bass-/1403211434
MIM Jazz on ebay BIN £499
As @Max Normal says prices do seem to have gone up though
Ooo Thanks! Off to have a word with the b̶a̶n̶k̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶r̶ missus!
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On 30/04/2021 at 17:05, TheGreek said:
A Mexican Fender would sell for around £300??? I think anything around that is a fair price considering the upgraded pups/ bridge.
I don't see any Mexican Fenders going for that little these days, many are being sold north of £600.00 on eBay, which is more than they cost new.
People seem to be selling CV Squiers for more than they cost too. There's a worldwide shortage of guitars and basses right now, and since the MIM were axed and the new more expensive Player series was introduced, there's a lack of new instruments in the £500-600 price range too.
If Mexican and Chinese instruments are going for such silly prices, I can only imagine the prices for S/H USA basses are getting pushed up too. I hope they come down again once production figures get back to normal after the pandemic, as I'm after a Jazz for my Zep tribute, and right now it's silly money!
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Looks identical to a Mex Deluxe Active Jazz to me, apart from the spaghetti logo and US serial. Could just be a decal job, or maybe a neck swap.
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For my Sterling, I got a single block wide strip of lego from my daughter's lego box, put the corresponding smooth lego strip on top and attached it to the scratchplate with two thin command tags and trimmed the edges off the tags. Good thing is it sits firmly, but you can remove it without any damage. Worked very well. Nowadays I just use the E-string as a thumbrest on my 'Ray 4, and float my thumb when I'm playing the E.
It was all black so not obvious. I did get the P*** taken a bit when I told people, but it worked so I didn't care.
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Looks like a giant earwig.
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They always have an excuse that they didn't know what it was because they inherited it or they are selling it for a dead person.......
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36 minutes ago, BassBunny said:
+VAT and "collection" fee. So add on about another £140.
Indeed, and the one in the Ebay listing is in Germany, so same applies
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On 15/01/2021 at 21:30, binky_bass said:
You can get a new one from GuitarGuitar for a few pence more. Don't be fooled by the name!!
Only £629.00 on Thomann.
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Pink Floyd - Pigs (Three different ones)
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Another hand carved bass in his "other items".
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On 17/12/2020 at 07:53, prowla said:
Why is US stuff going to get more expensive following brexit?
BC is one of my Brexit-free sanctuaries. Can we refrain from discussing it on here please?
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Ltd B-208SM 8-string bass
in Basses
Posted · Edited by Max Normal
Hi Richard,
I'll try and get round to it, but my guitarist has my recording equipment at the moment. When would you use one? In a power trio situation usually. For example, John Paul Jones used one on the album "Presence". Examples would be the driving rhythm behind "Nobody's Fault But Mine" or "Achilles Last Stand".
12 string basses are hard to come by, but as Bunion mentions, those wanting to affordably cover Jeff Ament's 12-string lines in songs such as "Jeremy" which incorporate octaved basslines and bass chords can do a passable job.
For any octaved-up basslines, an 8-string will always arguably do a better job than an octave pedal, because there are no tracking issues, no problems with recognising low register notes and no lag, so there are applications here in jazz and funk settings too.
Apart from all that, they are just fun. They fill in your sound when you need to and don't have a rhythm guitarist, and playing simple chords sounds amazing.
I play in a Led Zep tribute act, so that's why I have one.
Cheers
Mark