Alden Old Bass

Retro 60's style semi acousic bass. Archtop with single cutaway and two f holes. 31" medium scale. Tobacco brown sunburst lacquered top. Dark broun lacquered back, sides and neck. Black 2+2 headstock. The bridge assemble is also 'authentic' old fashioned with floating tail, wooden bridge with wheels to adjust height and four 'mini frets' which slide into grooves on this and which thestrings pass over. The bridge is not fixed.

Two passive 'Entwistle' humbucking pickups with volume and tone for each. Retro looking chrome and black covers. Each pickup is adjustable for height. There is a white plastic 'mother of pearl' floating scratchplate but this causes some buzzing so I removed it. It looks better without it IMHO.

Needs flatwounds to bring it to life ! It came fitted with cheapo roundwound strings and these buzzed and rattled a bit. I took them off and put on Labella flatwound 760fl's. Now it sounds excellent. Deep bass with warm woody overtones and plenty of soulful character. Similar to a Hofner 'beatle' bass. Not much growl - but that is probable due to the LaBella strings I put on. With two pickups and separate controls one can blend in a nice mix of sound to suit a number of styles. Best for sixties style music or mellow jazzy sounds. It is not really a rock or funk bass. There is some slight radio interference but no nasty hums.

The bass is well finished and the lacquer and trimmings are all very well done. No faults I could find. It was well put together and the neck perfectly straight. The machine heads and posts were all good.

The frets could do with dressing but I expect that at this price. It did however need some setting up. The 'mini-fret' saddles in the bridge were each placed in one of four parrallel grooves in the bridge. This meant that the bridge was at a weird looking angle. This needed sorting - easily done with a screwdriver. The intonation needed setting and the pickups adjusting slightly.

It is new and I have not gigged it so I can't tell you how tough it is. It would probably look even nicer with a bit of wear and tear. I would however not like to drop it on a hard floor. It stays in tune pretty well.

As with most oriental imports I don't know about who made it and I would not expect support from the manufacturer. The ebay shop I bought it from delivered promptly and probably supply good support but if it needed fixing I would see someone local.

I have been playing for over 25 years and own a number of basses including a fretless Wal and a Brandoni custom precision bass. I use a Hartke kickback 10 and a Phil Jones bass amp. I bought the Alden Old bass as an affordable way to have a semi acoustic for vintage tone and looks. It looks the part and does what I was hoping for. It is very rewarding to play and, with the right strings, will deliver a lovely deep warm sound. For me that is how a bass guitar should sound. For ??225 I am very happy with it.