Fret-King Esprit

[Machines]

[size=4][b]Fret-King Blue Label Series Esprit[/b][/size]

Fret-King are a brand unknown to me but that have been around for before, albeit dormant recently. It appears that Trevor Wilkinson has revived and redesigned the brand for relaunch.

From the Fret-King website:
[i]Fret-King™ by Trev Wilkinson was born out of the desire to address a real need, expressed by many professional ‘journeyman’ guitar players for an authentic build ‘working vintage guitar’, free of compromise and without having to pay homage to nostalgic and outmoded design criteria set many decades ago.[/i]

So what can we expect from this ? A vintage inspired instrument with a few modern twists ? We shall see ! The bass arrived extremely well packaged, opening the box in a box revealed the Fret-King branded Kinsman softcase, especially shaped for the bass. It has pockets-a-plenty and you could stuff a lot of accessories in them to ease the quantity of kit to carry from the car. The case is very well made and well-included with the bass.

After removing the Esprit from it's case, the first thing that struck me was it's body shape. It's appears to be a cross-species of a Gibson Explorer and a Thunderbird. The large 3 piece mahogany slab is uniformly grained and nicely glossed. The stepped diagnonal lines add a nice visual feature, along with the B/W/B pickguard. At the business end of the bass we have an extremely solid looking Gibson style chrome bridge. It is only anchored at one end, and the rest of it is floating, so to speak. The one piece chrome bridge saddle looks lovely, but is only adjustable in 2 places. This would be a problem if intonation needed adjusting on individual strings. Looking further up we have a very closely placed P & J pickups. The gap between the J pickup and the bridge saddle is pretty small,I would expect this to give me a very tight and bright, but also thin tone. Next up is the P pickup, which looks very pronounced in the abscence of a pickguard around it. Still, this gives more anchor space for a thumb should it be required. Controls are a simple Volume/Volume/Tone via Gibson style knobs.





The neck is also a solid piece of glossed mahogany, it's dimensions feeling more towards a Precision than a Jazz, with slightly less depth. The rosewood fingerboard is smooth and devoid of the cracks in the graining often seen in this wood. Fretwork is very tidy, no sharp edges or raised frets - as good as my Stingray. The headstock reminds me of a left handed Burns Bison (the new ones). I'm not a fan of the tunerpegs being on the bottom, and it felt awkward when tuning them (especially since the E string is furthest not closest). Still, they are Gotoh machineheads and felt well geared. A subtle Fret-King logo adorns the glossed black headstock. They could have left it glossed mahogany, although I don't know how this would have affected the overall look of the bass.



As always, I had the backplate off to see the internal gubbins. The triangular blackplate is shielded and attached via a simple screw in each corner. The 3 250k pots were soldered and wired neatly, with excess wire being tied into a loop that don't get in the way when you put the plate back on.



This bass is advertised as capable of "earth-shattering ultra-deep fundamentals to classic rock tones", let us check this claim ! I decided the comparison bass would be best as my Jazz, which as a passive single coil bass is most likely to be similar sounding. Plugged into my Ashdown ABM300, EQ out flat, set the input level with the Esprit and then cranked it up. Hmmm. I didn't expect THAT ! The bass sounds quite modern to my ears, definitely a low mid emphasis slightly lacking in fundamental, and very very bright. Dare I say it sounded a *little bit* like a Warwick ? The 2 pickups being so close to the bridge is going to give this sound and not the 'classic rock tones' advertised. I gave each pickup a chance to speak for themselves; the front P pickup first. Yes - it does sound like a Precision pickup, but not like a Precision bass. The body and neck woods are definitely playing their part in the sound here, there isn't a low end here like on a Precision, but again the mid frequencies.

It doesn't sound passive, it sounds a bit hi-fi. The back J pickup alone is as expected, very trebley and lacking in booty. I wouldn't expect it to do anything else though.. the bridge pickup is best thought of as there to give the neck pickup some punch. The sound of both pickups is very different to my Alder bodied, maple necked Jazz.




I took this bass to practise with my band (funk rock) and it shares a similarity with the basses that inspired it - neck dive. The short body made this inevitable really. It isn't the worst i've encountered, and is something you generally have to accept if you want a funny shaped bass. The Esprit is very audible in the mix, it felt like I had the the mids turned up on the EQ even though it was flat. The bridge pickup alone is completely lost unfortunately, I don't think it could ever be used on it's own in a band environment. The output is a lot lower than the neck pickup and without some knob-twiddling, you won't ever hear it. The neck pickup alone is fairly grindy and suits rock/metal quite well. Played with a pick it really shows it's resolve, it has that Precision grit but it's different to usual.

What I must ask is where this bass fits into the existing market. With an RRP of £649, it's taking on some very well established competitors. In the price range of £500-£700 is the Fender Highway 1 Precision & Jazz, along with Gibson Thunderbird Studio, Lakland 44-01, Warwick Corvette Standard. None of these basses are lacking in quality or great sound, so it's going to be tough for the Fret-King to beat them. I think this bass is more for someone wanting a well made instrument that has some classic rock styling, but not with the classic tone. For those wanting something a little different to the norm, the Esprit may please. My personal feeling is that it is overpriced in today's market, especially since it is made in the Far East. The other brands i've mentioned (bar the Lakland) are made in the US and Europe, where production costs are significantly higher than the Far East. In this respect the Fret-King may struggle against the well other established brands.

[b]Quality: 8 [/b]- Very well made, I could find no flaws. Fretwork is excellent and parts used are solid.
[b]Sound: 6[/b] - Not what I expected and not workable in many styles, but does have sound of it's own that works for some music.
[b]Ergonomics 6[/b] - Suffers from neck dive, I dislike the reverse headstock too.
[b]Value for money 6[/b] - There are more versatile basses that are as well made for less.

[b][size=3]Overall 6.5/10[/size][/b]

[b]Summary:[/b] A great looking instrument that delivers a pounding rock tone, but isn't particularly versatile for anything else. Very well made, but this is definitely reflected in the RRP. There are other basses in this price range that in my opinion are superior in terms of sound, versatility and value for money.

Many thanks to JHS for sending me the instrument and Tonyf for his photography.

[EBS_freak]

yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck!

[basstard]

Double Yuk!

[Machines]

Ok - looks like people from Staffordshire don't like it .

[BigRedX]

Any chance of getting the Green Label Europa Bass for a compare and contrast?

[Machines]

Alas not, they are custom order only. Even BGM couldn't get hold of one !

[BigRedX]

When I spoke to Trevor Wilkinson at the LGS, he said they were currently making 4 and I don't think they were all customer orders.

It's a pity because your review confirmed what I thought - the Espirt Bass is just another passive P-J but with a weird shape and comes across overall as style over function. All the interesting stuff has been saved for the Europa.

Incidentally I played the original Europa bass with the 3 split P pickups and individual switching for each half on a couple of occasions and never had any balance problems with it

[EBS_freak]

Still yukking....

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I like the styling. I bet the neck dive would be fixed by moving the front strap button to the neck heel area.

Its crying out for a great big mudbucker right up by the end of the fingerboard.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='257597' date='Aug 7 2008, 09:17 PM']I like the styling. I bet the neck dive would be fixed by moving the front strap button to the neck heel area.

Its crying out for a great big mudbucker right up by the end of the fingerboard.[/quote]

Exactly! Which is why you should be looking at the [url="http://www.liveitlive.co.uk/europaiv_spec.html"]Europa Bass[/url] and not this.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='257671' date='Aug 7 2008, 11:07 PM']Exactly! Which is why you should be looking at the [url="http://www.liveitlive.co.uk/europaiv_spec.html"]Europa Bass[/url] and not this.[/quote]

Oh my... that's yuk also. Who would pay £1,449.00 for that?? £1,449.00 could buy you a lot of bass. One that you could set the intonation on properly too!

[Machines]

Their price point does seem quite high considering they aren't well established. And I agree, you can buy something far more impressive for that cash..

[bass_ferret]

What gives with the sh*tty bridge? Why?

[Machines]

I haven't got the email here, but JHS said the bridge was "a homage to the over engineered bridge of the EBO". (Possible misquoting here)

It does look pretty similar...

[crez5150]

Thats a lot of money for that IMO!!

[bass_ferret]

I can see that - but even later Gibbo's had a more adjustable bridge - I still cant see the point of such a crap idea thats gonna put of lots of potential buyers.

That Green Label costs the same as my GB's!

Edited August 8, 2008 by bass_ferret

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='Machines' post='257855' date='Aug 8 2008, 10:14 AM']I haven't got the email here, but JHS said the bridge was "a homage to the over engineered bridge of the EBO". (Possible misquoting here)[/quote]

"A homage to saving cash instead of paying for a decent adjustable bridge".

Unless you are buying something for it's historical/vintage vibe (e.g. Hofner violin bass), I fail to see why anybody would want to spend that much money on bass that you can be 99% sure is not going to be in tune across the whole neck and you can't do anything about it because the bridge is not adjustable enough. It's like the 3 saddle teles, you can never quite get them in tune. If you don't ever play about the 5th fret, you may be ok.

I think there are some very hopeful people in the marketing department at Fret King. Sorry, I just can't see this thing keeping up with the competitors out there.

I haven't seen the bass up close, but I think the plastic work is ugly also - the truss rod cover and scratchplate look icky. The logo on the headstock makes it looks like a toy and the edge of the fingerboard at the body just looks really crude. A bit of shaping would be nice.

At least it has been screened... to a fashion. It looks like they couldn't have used less screening paint if they had tried. I am hazarding a guess that screening paint that thin is as good as... well... useless.

I say again.

Yuk.

Where do I buy one?

[Machines]

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='257868' date='Aug 8 2008, 10:29 AM']I think there are some very hopeful people in the marketing department at Fret King. Sorry, I just can't see this thing keeping up with the competitors out there.[/quote]

That was the impression I got, who's going to take a risk on this when there's well other established basses out there cheaper ?

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='Machines' post='257884' date='Aug 8 2008, 10:42 AM']That was the impression I got, who's going to take a risk on this when there's well other established basses out there cheaper ?[/quote]

Kids.

Style over substance.

[Rich]

Those prices are going to kill them stone dead. They'll be gone in months if they don't have a drastic downward re-think.

[EBS_freak]

Ahh. I feel better now.

[BigRedX]

Do I detect some insecurity EBS_freak?

Your GB not doing it for you?

[ped]

To be honest, whilst the looks aren't for me and the price is definitely expensive, sadly lots of companies think that is an acceptable amount for a simple passive bass with a couple of ordinary pickups. Fender have been doing [i]worse[/i] for years ;0) At least this has some individuality.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='258077' date='Aug 8 2008, 01:42 PM']Do I detect some insecurity EBS_freak?

Your GB not doing it for you?[/quote]

Quite the opposite...!

[ped]

What's the point in that not-quite-complete bog seat? Never understood those.