Having been old school and played just P basses for the last couple of years, I recently started hankering to go back to a 5 string, and then something with active EQ, and then I ended up purchasing this wonderful ACG from the guys at Great British Bass Lounge (whose photos I have used, along with a couple from the ACG site, I hope they don't mind).
I have to say, for a hand-made bass for just over £1k it's quite something!
So, first things first, the spec:[list]
[*]Three-piece body of white Limba
[*]Neck is Ash/Bubinga/Ash with ebony fingerboard - zero radius fingerboard and asymmetrical neck
[*]Pickups are ACG FB with the East P Retro EQ, plus a 4-way rotary pickup selector
[*]Hardware is Hipshot Type B bridge (18mm spacing), Hipshot Stringtree, Gotoh GB720 tuners, and Dunlop Dual Design straplocks
[/list]
First impressions:
The bass weighs 8.8lbs, which is right in my comfort zone, and balances perfectly. The body shape is really ergonomic and it's a delight to fly around the neck. Effortless access up top!
The asymmetrical neck is lovely. Again, it seems to make playing so effortless, as the thumb sits more naturally behind the lower strings and there's no temptation to grip the neck. The flat fingerboard is a great idea too, and it makes me wonder why we bothered with radiused boards in the first place?
The EQ setup is terrific. You can run it passive, with just volume and tone on the first stack knob, or activate the active circuit, based on the East P-Retro, which adds a push/pull ‘bright’ function (pull up knob on the first tone stack), a bass boost (pull up knob on the second tone stack) and boost either the mids or treble and bass (both with variable frequency, all set via the second stack knob). The 4-way rotary pickup selector (third knob) offers: bridge only/bridge and neck in parallel/bridge and neck in series/neck only and gives quick changes to EQ very easily.
So, a beautiful, easy to play, and superbly put together British bass....