NEW LEFTY BACHBIRD aquisition thread (Gibson NR TBird Clone)

[andrew]

After 8 months of waiting my bass is most likely getting shipped this friday.

Cool! Looking forward to your review of the bass.

[saf]

I'm totally lost this threat I'm affraid. Can anyone give me a n update in a nutshell?

[Thunder]

Got it!

After all the waiting, it arrived this evening.

First impression straight out of the box: as you can see, they did not use the best looking woods for this particular instrument. I'm not suprised, since the basses of this brand are relatively low budged, they cannot afford to throw away ugly pieces. I asked Bach to send me one with a nice even grain but i guess he forgot about that. So a non-transparent finish would maybe have been a better choice. The neck feels great and the knobs turn like they should on a lefty bass. No on-off volume. My first impression soundwise: pretty good. A nice dark voicing, lots of sustain.

Tonight, i am going to adjust the bass to my liking and get used to it a little. Tomorrow i'll take it with me to band rehearsal. So more to come about this bass!

[AustinLeftyBass]

Is the bridge mounted parallel to the tailpiece, or at an angle?

[Thunder]

Parallel. But its wide enough to have sufficient adjustment space.

[PunkRockBassist]

so how much did it cost?

[Thunder]

I live in The Netherlands. Including shipping i payed 275 euro (379 US dollar).

[fivebass52]

I asked Bach to send me one with a nice even grain but i guess he forgot about that. So a non-transparent finish would maybe have been a better choice.

Actually, I LIKE the grain on your bass. It looks like a real piece of wood, and starting from the straight grain under the bridge, the rest of the grain has a smokey-swirly pattern toward the edges that gives the body an interesting character. There's a three-dimensional quality to it... it almost makes it appear "alive" under the finish. I hope it grows on you. It certainly makes it unique, and one-of-a-kind.

It's a good-looking bass, but more importantly, I hope it is sonically what you're looking for.

[Matt R.]

Nice

[iome]

Nice, i like the grain too, hope you enjoy it.

[Thunder]

Thanks!

I don't mind the grain in the Sipo that much, i agree it has its personality. Although i would have preferred a slightly more even kind of mahogany looking grain. I was more referring to this big knot on the edge of the body. There's another smaller one on the other side and a couple of tiny ones in different spots. If i was a builder i would never use this wood on a transparent finished instrument. The mahogany used on the neck is of good quality. Another weird thing: they drew a pinstripe with a black boardmarker over the length of the neck where the fretboard is glued on to the neck. Totally unnessecary IMO. I don't know if they have done that to mask something or out of esthetic reasons but on the E side the line stops around the 7th fret... Very sloppy. Its underneath the laquer so i cannot restore this myself. On the G side of the neck the pinstripe is ok.

I DID enjoy playing it, i will post a review soon.

[Thunder]

Review posted!

http://www.leftybassist.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1972

[PunkRockBassist]

now how would i get bach to make me one ?

[Thunder]

You can mail them. They have them in stock i think. http://www.bachmusik.com/en/music-instruments

You could also contact this guy: http://www.numberoneguitars.com/
He has some sort of Dutch Bach dealership. It will ofcourse add a little to the total price but it buys you the safety of an extra quality check.

I bought mine factorydirect from Bach because of the wonderful initiative on this forum..

[Thunder]

[cangaroo]

finally received the bass yesterday ...

still not had the chance to test it with an amp full cranked, anyway from a costruction point of view mine was a little disaster.

It has a lot of dings and imperfections on the finish, anyway the wood grain of the body is a little better of the one showed above.

It arrived at my house with no setup at all, out of tune, some strings were left floppy, some others where pulled at a very high pitch.

I tuned the bass and i discovered that the open E string, along with the first ten frets buzzed no matter of bridge height, so i gave a look to the nut and i discovered that the nut slots where too low so i adjusted the slot with a little piece of paper. I assume that the nut will be replaced soon at this point, but at least now the action can be adjusted low enough for playin.

With that trick the thing improved and i finally had the chance to play the beast in my little roland amp (with earphones ... my parents were sleeping).
I'm not used to tbird like sound, but it seems that the sound is good (i like it more with tone rolled off totally or almost) with full tone open it delivers a very aggressive sound (a la who). I can't tell how much far this bass sound from a real t-bird but i guess that it's a good piece of wood for its price. It has even a very good sustain, beat down my 4001 in this, also i have not found any serious dead spot.

[Pro Stock John]

Very nice. Is that the only finish available?

[fivebass52]

finally received the bass yesterday ...

still not had the chance to test it with an amp full cranked, anyway from a costruction point of view mine was a little disaster.

It has a lot of dings and imperfections on the finish, anyway the wood grain of the body is a little better of the one showed above.

It arrived at my house with no setup at all, out of tune, some strings were left floppy, some others where pulled at a very high pitch.

I tuned the bass and i discovered that the open E string, along with the first ten frets buzzed no matter of bridge height, so i gave a look to the nut and i discovered that the nut slots where too low so i adjusted the slot with a little piece of paper. I assume that the nut will be replaced soon at this point, but at least now the action can be adjusted low enough for playin.

With that trick the thing improved and i finally had the chance to play the beast in my little roland amp (with earphones ... my parents were sleeping).
I'm not used to tbird like sound, but it seems that the sound is good (i like it more with tone rolled off totally or almost) with full tone open it delivers a very aggressive sound (a la who). I can't tell how much far this bass sound from a real t-bird but i guess that it's a good piece of wood for its price. It has even a very good sustain, beat down my 4001 in this, also i have not found any serious dead spot.

What's your thoughts after having your bass for the past month-and-a-half?

[Thunder]

Very nice. Is that the only finish available?

A Dutch Bach dealer posted something on a Dutch bass forum about custom colours to choose from in the near future. Also an upgrade to better electronics is considered.

[Agent00Soul]

Sorry to revive this thread after so long, but my on/off desire for one of these instruments has gone back to "on". I figure if I am still thinking about it a year later, I probably do want to buy one. I wanted to ask the owners how the instruments were working out now that they've had some time to play them.

These two clips seem to have made up my mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=711jJPRoXH8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwAbXgPGeic