Update, Nov. 5th. 2019....The bass arrived yesterday. I really don't know where to begin, but I'm going to give you all my initial impressions, and what I HAD to do, to make this instrument playable. First impression, the styrofoam box they send these things thousands of miles in, seems to do a pretty good job of protecting the instrument. A real mess when you have to open it, then discard them. The bass looked really nice unboxing it. Initial inspection:
1. The sunburst, and the final topcoat, are very nicely done. The bad: There are numerous underneath the finish 'glitches' and repairs. Some finish has not filled places on the fret board. There are obvious doweled imperfections in the wood billet for the neck. 2. The bridge- is a GUITAR bridge, with six saddles! THAT'S why the spacing looked weird in the photos they sent me. The bridge cover needed to be removed for me to correct this.. it was like pulling a tooth, the screws were apparently driven in with a power driver. Tough to remove. 3. The bass DIDN'T WORK when I plugged it in! 4. The neck- was backbowed horribly. Strings were tuned down, but not that much 5. The truss rod cover made me wonder what anyone there knows about these basses. It was machined crooked, too- a touch on my belt sander fixed that fast. It's pretty hysterical looking with the upside-down logo... see photo. The nut was too tall, and had sharp edges. 6. The neck, is 'spongy'...not a very high quality piece of wood. 7. This bass is HUGE. The headstock, is HUGE. and the tuners are BIG.
O.K., so what did I do?
First thing, was to adjust the truss rod. Thankfully, it does adjust. Second, was to diagnose the electronic issue. I discovered that the switch is the main culprit, and the bridge pickup ground wire was nearly off the pickup at the bobbins. I stripped new wire, and re-soldered it. Got it working..later that evening, I decided to install a Switchcraft 1/4" jack, in place of the awful stock one. As you all might already know, the pots and components on these Chinese instruments are pretty bad. Now, the pickups.... they are microphonic. Not terrible, but they are. They actually are decent sounding, and fairly quiet. They have a major flaw. The bobbins are too short, and you need to disassemble them, and remove the black hardened silicone/ glue- and use wooden, or plastic spacers to position the coils so that there is less of an amplitude issue. This bass had a weak 'E' string, until I messed with the internals a bit. A good set of real Rick pickups would likely correct this issue for good. Third- The frets! UGH... not even close to being level, So, a level, recrown and polish, rounded off the rough ends, and solved that problem. Fourth- Setup- I removed the stock, and actually decent feeling and sounding rounds, and installed a set of Fender 9050 flats. I slotted the bridge saddles to get the spacing I wanted, and set the intonation. I filed down the top and edges of the nut, and rounded it off. The little nut and washer have to be loosened each time you need to move the saddle then locked back down. I got the intonation spot-on. Fifth- I removed the large- and pretty god quality strap buttons, and installed Schaller type straploks. The bass looks, feels and plays nicely now. And it sounds surprisingly great.
Conclusion: Unless you are a professional repairman like I am, or know one that is generous and patient- or you are good at tinkering, I'd avoid buying one of these Chinese basses. The overall- This bass looks like it was made IN A HURRY. Telltale signs of a stressful and rushed production line are all over it. I wonder what kind of instruments they'd make if they had the TIME to really make them right.
The pluses are- you can have a bass that looks like, and SOUNDS damn close to a real 4005, which are- last I checked about 16-20k and up- if you can even find a lefty for sale- for about 400 bucks. The minuses- It will take some time, maybe some money, to invest in a bass that you'll always know is really a copy made in a nation where they don't really care what happens to their workers.
Future mods: The gigantic tuners will be replaced New, better pickups. Total replacement of all the stock electronics.
Now, the photos.
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Last edited by LHBASSIST on November 5th, 2019, 11:34 am, edited 4 times in total.
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