Cort C5P Artisan

2003 Cort C5P, made in Korea. Five strings, 24 medium frets, basswood body with very nice dark walnut finish, 34" scale Rock Maple bolt-on neck with Rosewood fingerboard. Six controls: Volume, Pickup Blend, Active Treble and Bass, Concentric Piezo Volume and Tone. Two MightyMite soapbar pickups and Fishman Power Bridge Piezo pickups. Nice contoured double cutaway body shape with satin finish. Massive, adjustable Fishman top-loading bridge. Mine came with a Cort premium gig bag (very nice) and two allen wrenches.

I play in a praise and worship band that covers just about anything but electronica and rap and this bass has really surprised me with its versatility!

The C5P is not noisy at all and sounds great straight to the mixer or through my Behringer Bass V-AMP. Whatever sound you want is there - bright and snappy for slap & pop, deep and dark and growly, and/or respectably woody tones thanks to the Fishman piezos. The piezo sound is hotter than the pickups but back them off and blend them with the magnetic pups and you can get virtually any tone you want. Play around long enough and you'll probably find a few tones you did't know you wanted until you heard them. The secret to getting great tones out of this bass is to play with the piezo/magnetic pickup blends.

The fact that this bass came with piezo saddles for under $400 just blows me away!

The stock round wound strings are bright for my taste and the texture is rougher than the Elixirs I prefer. They may break in over time but as they come any sloppy fretting on the player's part will be accentuated.

For overall tonal versatility it's easily the best bass I own - it's definitely giving my Dean Rhapsody a run for the money. I'm very tempted to give this a 10 for sonic versatility alone, but between the strings and the piezo it is a little too easy to dial in too-bright tones that emphasize fret buzz. While this might be fixed with a slightly more tweaked set-up and different strings I still have to knock it down a little for that.

Set up was actually pretty good and intonation was dead on, but I will likely play with the setup a bit. The action looks high for some reason but the steel ruler tells me it's no higher than my other basses and it plays very easily.

The B string feels a little sloppy (likely due in part to the 34" scale) but it sounds tight and doesn't buzz. It actually keeps tune better than most other five string basses I've played.

There is a bit of buzz toward the middle of the neck on the G and D strings but it only seems to come through the mix when very bright tones are dialed in. This will likely be fixed with some tweaks to the set up.

The medium frets are smallish compared to most other basses I've played and make proper fretting imperitive. This was a little frustrating at first but has actually helped improve my technique over time. The frets could have been polished better though, and the treble end of one fret is just noticably rougher than the rest of them.

The pickups are well adjusted with nice overall balance. The only other niggling thing is the concentric volume/tone pot for the piezo pickups, which feels a little loose and sloppy compared to the other controls on the bass. Tightening down the allen set screw on the upper control (volume) helped a little but it still feels cheap compared to the other controls. None of the controls are scratchy and other than the piezo controls all feel nice and solid. All other hardware seems very well mounted and seems to have been installed with great care and good workmanship.

Anyone who's played live more than a couple of times will tell you "never gig without a backup..." or at the very least backup strings and batteries and cables and... you get the picture. This bass would easily stand up to live playing and the great gig bag it comes with will readily protect it from most forms of travel damage.

The satin finish isn't very thick so I imagine any good whack might ding it. My plan: try not to whack it on anything.

The strap buttons are good and wide enough to hold on to most straps, but I always put Schaller straplocks on my guitars and this one is no exception.

Other than a slight apprehension about the durability of the piezo volume/tone control concentric pot, I have no reservations about the durability of this bass.

Honestly, the only guitar for which I had to deal with customer support was a Rogue. Based on what I've seen with this one it will likely be as reliable as my other guitars and far more reliable than was that Rogue. In other words, I won't bother having Cort's customer support number engraved on the headstock.

The reaons I bought this bass (sight unseen) is that I was almost shocked that I could buy a bass with both mag and piezo pickups for such a low price. The hope of having such a tonal range at my disposal for such a relatively small outlay was worth the risk. I was not (and am not) disappointed.

I've been playing bass for about nine years. At one point or another I've owned about a dozen bass guitars. My other current basses include a Dean Rhapsody 4-string Quilt top and a Dean Edge 5-string fretless. These have proved so versitile that my other (and often more expensive) basses just gathered dust. Other basses I've owned or played in one situation or another (from music store to live) include just about anything you can think of except for some of the truly high end and boutique basses and any of the plethora of very custom jobs that can be had when money is no object. Just my opinion, but given the quality of the many basses that can be had for well under $1000 for a non-"pro" that doesn't make a living at it to spend more than that is ridiculous.

This bass is relatively light and well balanced so playing for a extended time is no problem. The finish is a little dark for my taste but that's just a matter of taste - it's still quite a lovely piece of work. If this bass were stolen I would definitely buy another assuming I could find one. They seem pretty rare.

The price I paid included the gig bag and shipping. You should see this gig bag - thick padding, a padded strap-down for the neck, no less than five zippered external pockets, carry strap, carry handle and hanger loop. The only disappointment is that it lacks backpack-style carry straps. Easily worth $40-$50 on it's own. If not included shipping would have been at least $30, so I figure the guitar itself set me back about $320 for what should be a at least a $600 bass.

If you are on a budget and can only afford one bass, this would be very high on my list of recommendations. The magenetic pickups provide very clear, articulate tone appropriate to their positions, and the piezo pickups can add a whole new dimension to the range of sounds available. Name your style and this bass is capable of producing a workable tone for that style. Playability is very good, looks are very good, build quality is suprisingly good for this price range. Some might be put off by the necking being attached with only four bolts when five or six seems to be the standard these days but the neck fits its pocket tightly and I can't say that I hear anything that indicates to me that the neck is poorly mounted. If you ever get the chance check one of these out and try to tell me you're not impressed, at least for this price range. I'll call you a liar to your face. :)