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NBD My first ACG - Recurve 'Helium' fretless


Brother Jones
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I was awakened from my slumbers this morning by a gent delivering this:

http://www.acguitars.co.uk/acg_admin/wordpress/portfolio/0220-recurve-4-fretless/

Now I have to admit that buying a bass at this level without playing it first is a risk. I've been looking for a really good fretless for a few years to replace the Zon Sonus that I should never have sold. And I'd been thinking of asking Alan to build me one - although I wasn't sure I could be patient enough, plus I was a bit worried about weight, as well as how I'd get on with the asymetric neck and zero radius board. So my SGC Bass Collection fretless had to soldier on for a while.

When this bass popped up in the 'for sale' section of the ACG website, it just screamed 'buy me!'. And I did.

Alan was a delight to deal with; very straightforward, and very helpfully arranged delivery on a Saturday.

Whenever I buy a new bass, there are an uncomfortable few days when I need to set it up with preferred strings, lower action, etc. Straight out of its (very nice) Fusion gig bag, it was obvious that just wasn't going to be an issue with this ACG. I honestly don't need to even think about doing anything to it. It is light - 3.1kg. It's not quite as light as the Bass Collection, but feels a little more solid as a result. It looks absolutely beautiful (I'm having trouble taking my eyes off it) and the luthiering is flawless. It also has a quite distinctive smell...

The flat board and asymetric neck work perfectly. My intonation seems to be a lot better than usual on it. Yes, the preamp is going to take some time to master, but the tonal palette is clearly huge, and offers things that conventional ones can't. The pickups are seriously powerful and (unless I go nuts with the preamp settings), very quiet for single coils.

All in all, while buying this was an impulse, the result isn't just the best fretless I've ever played, but the best bass I've ever owned.

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Welcome to the ACG community - I love mine, build quality is great and the asymmetric neck is a joy to play and as you say the tonal pallete from the Pre-amp and ACG p/ups is huge. I try not to adjust mine too much.

I can't fault it - IMHO Alan is up there with the best British builders..

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