NBD: Sandberg Lionel

[dmckee]

In my ongoing (ahem) “investigations” of short scale basses, I finally buckled and bought a Sandberg Lionel. It’s a lovely bass. Feels great ergonomically and balances perfectly despite being very light (not much more than 7lbs). Narrower/thinner neck than I’m used to but it’s growing on me. 

 

A few thoughts though I’d been keen on hearing other Lionel owners’ opinions on, mainly around tone. 

 

I’d read some folk saying the pickup is more modern / less vintage sounding than your average P bass. That may or may not be true, but my overriding feeling tonally is that it sounds much less like a 30” than I was expecting. 

 

My experience to date with 30” basses is that you get a more even tone across all the strings, so (for example) in areas like the lower frets of the D string, those notes just sound a bit thicker than they might on a 34”, and conversely, the E and A strings are possibly a little less deep, making the bass seem overall better balanced across the strings. 

 

But not on this bass. The E and A strings seem massive and the D and G strings seem thinner sounding. Ie much more like a 34”. 

 

Anyone else have that experience and/or any thoughts on why? (BTW I’ve got D’Addario Chromes on it, as I have on most of my other basses).