Bently Series 10 Bass

I've been reading the bass reviews and I'm wondering whether the bass they're talking about is the one I am now holding? The bass I'm talking about is the Bently Series 10 bass S/N E509365which is a Korean-made model. I've heard a lot about how BAD Korean stuff is, but this one is a beauty! I bought it brand new from an eBay seller out of Montreal and took the plastic off the pickups - it was a blow-out sale. It come with three control knobs, Violume and a Tone for each pickup. The finish is of a transparent type and although the color is a mild creamy whitish green colour the finish is quite appealing. The bridge is like a p-bass bridge, the bolt-obn neck looks like a black Jackson neck and the tuners are black-like a Gotoh style of tuner and are very responsive. Because of the finish, I can't tell what the body or the 20 fret 4 string j-bass style neck are made of, but the instrument plays well.
The body style is like a p-bass with a p-bass pickup where it usually is and a double j-bass pickup by the bridge. It was set up for me and it arrived in brand-new shape, no scratches etc. Although it is a passive pickup setup, I've been using it through our PA as my bass amp is in the shop. All the other band members told me that it sounds great! It didn't come with any accessories except for the strings but that's fine, I have everything else I need.

The bass is quiet even though it still has the original pickups. My band is a popular Canadian band in Calgary Alberta and we do everything from Funk to Pink Floyd. It really sounds crunchy for Funk!I'm currently using it with a Traynor 400B bass head, a re-wired Eden CXM-112 (you woudn't believe the terrible quality of Eden's wiring and crossover insiude the cabinet!)and a 1x15 cabinet with an AUDAX double voice-coil bass speaker which has also been re-wired with monster-type cabling.
The bass has a bright bassy sound which is very well suited to my playing style. It can either be bright or very bassy or in-between, it's up to me to mix it for whatever we're doing. It would be nice if the bass were a different colour and a but less heavy, but for the price I'm not complaining. At this time I've mainly used it in our practice studio, but I expect that it'll sound good onstage too. I use it with a DOD Noise-gate to cut down any pedal noise, a DOD Octoplus and an older DOD CHorus/Flanger. The flange works well for Floyd!

The bass came well set up, no problems with noise or the like, action is fine, although I had to fine tune it as the frets up the neck were sounding quite "buzzy." I just used an allen key and "no problems." I feel that I have gotten a great deal because I got the bass for such a good price. Our guitarist who is also a well know sound man on the Canadian west coast, says that the bass is very easy to mix and sounds better than my Jay Turser JTB-440 which I also happen to like a lot.

This bass is very solid, and although I haven't used it on-stage much, I believe that I could use it without a backup although I like to have a second instrument available as I break strings a lot. "I'm Funkin' for Canada!" The finish looks very hard, I haven't made any scratches on it yet and I've been playing it with a belt buckle behind it. With my Turser, the finish is quite soft so there are lots on indentations on the back, but this bass, nothing so far.

This bass has no warranty and I doubt that there is a supporting company around. I do have acces to inexpensive good guitar people - our guitarist for one, who is sponsored by "Evans" pickups and really know his stuff!

I've been playing over 30 years and have played professionally for over 25 of them. I have had 2 Fender Jazz Basses, 2 Fender Precisions, a BC Rich Eagle, an original Gibson Thunderbird (which I got rid of because the neck was so fragile it would break if you looked at it the wrong way)a Steinberger XL-2, A Cort Curbow 4 string, a Cort Gb-24, a Samick Music Man copy and this Bently Series 10 - my 11th bass. I really like it, it stands up to all the basses I've owned. It sounds really punchy and bright which is what I want and we've been really putting it through it's paces. I know you might not believe this, but it sounds very much like my Steinberger XL-2 which I had to sell to help pay the bills. If I could have anything I'd like it to have active pickups, perhaps an extra tone control for the double j-bass pickup at the bridge and also a tone selector switch. I got REALLY lucky and got a great bass for a very inexpensive price. It has that piano-string quality that I have been looking for since I sold the Steinberger. Although this isn't a Steinberger, it's all I could wish for having so little funds at this time. If it were stolen or lost, I'd buy one again if I could find one like this, but I can tell you that I believe that they are very rare, and once again looking at the other reviews a good Bently Series 10 like this one may be almost impossible to find.