Cort GB35A

I am a pro player who recently purchased this baby from france....they dont sell it in the UK, as a back-up bass. Its basically a fender jazz rip off.Two pick-up with tone and volume's. This thing is active and has a massive sound. The neck feels good and the complete guitar is finished to a good standard. The big problem is the body. It looks great but is made of cheap, therefore, light wood. This creates an imbalance with the neck which can be a pain at times (although i have owned a Jazz V and it was the same) however I do record with this Bass and it does sound good. Live the pick-ups are a little noisy at times but the sound is huge and the guitar is very playable

Massive. If you play through a big rig this bass will create a sense of 'thunder'. I use a yamaha digital amp with no effects and run it flat. It is good for most settings however for Jazz it is not my prefered sound...its a little too......phat! This thing is better live but as i stated earlier it works for me in the studio and the stage (get a strap that sorts out the weight problem)

It came out of the box and played like a complete dog. The machine-heads are rubbish and the action was suitable for an olympic high jump. My guitar guy put it straight and with some light boomers on it and it is now a good bass. If you buy one of these, budget for a complete set-up on it

This is bass is totally reliable and has not let me down. The guitar is in keeping with Cort's build quality and now it has been set-up, is always on the road with me. It is a good piece of kit

1 years warranty...which for the money is great, No probs as yet

I play on tours, TV, recordings and gigs and use this as a back-up for my Cort A series. I did have another look at the Fender Jazz but there wan't much difference to be honest (part from the price) Whilst this is a budget bass it is excellent value for money. If it was nicked I would get another as it is cheap as chips (or as fries for our american cousins). I do worry about turning up to do a TV show with a ??175 bass with 'Made in Indonesia' on the headstock but hey, if people want to get snobby then, as we say in the UK 'stick em'. This is a budget bass and if im honest, it is worth a more than the price suggests. If your looking for a cheapy 5 string then check this baby out. If you can cope with it being a little 'neck' heavy, get the set-up right and your laughing.

This 5-string bass was probably manufactured in 2006, in Indionesia. It's pretty much Jazz Bass meets Music Man, in terms of layout.

The active 9V electronics are unexpected at this price point. They feature volume, blend and concentric Bass/Treble cut/boost, controlling a pair of Mighty Mite pickups (Jazz at the neck and MM at the bridge). The volume knob has a pull-for-bypass switch, should the battery go dead during a gig.

It has a satin-finished Maple neck (34" scale) with 22 jumbo frets on a rosewood board, and large offset abalone position dots. The body is made from 4 nicely-matched pieces of Agathis (think Poplar), under a transparent butterscotch gloss finish, with a white/black/white 3-ply pickguard.

The bridge is a slight upgrade on the classic Fender bent plate, with grooves under the outer two saddles to stop the pole pieces from moving side to side, set up for thru-body or conventional stringing.

The body style is a slightly modified Jazz Bass, with a fairly deep cutaway. The headstock is in a Music-Man-ish 3+2 style.

The tuners are old-style "elephant ears", just like on your Dad's P-Bass. They go well with the neck profile, which is slim front-to-back, but has a fairly broad P-Bass vibe to it.

The guitar came with nothing, not even a cord, but considering I got it for $100 under normal street price as a closeout, I'm not complaining.

I dig everything about this bass, except a bit of buzz in noisy electrical environments. I'm probably going to open it up at some point and shield it properly, but the buzzing isn't bad enough to make me rush to fix it.

I bought this bass as a backup to my handmade through-neck 35" EMG-equipped five-string. With the J and MM pickups, it's very punchy and much less "polite" than my other bass- makes for a nice contrast for rock or up-tempo material.

The sound has a lot of clarity and bite, with a nice, edgy grind when you're doing the MM thing. I bought it because it sounded more like my expectations for an MM-style bass than a pair of real MM basses in the used section at the shop where I bought it. One of them was a mint pre-Ernie Ball 4-string with a $2,500 price tag on it.

The treble and bass controls are very sensitive, particularly the treble. Just a hair of treble rolloff is enough to take it into darker, Fender territory, or give it just a smidge of treble boost for an aggressive agro punk sound. Very versatile...

There's a good variety of sounds in this bass, although most of them are in growly rock territory. It's nicely sensitive to my right-hand attack, especially for such an inexpensive instrument.

You can also get an another tonal option by using the bypass function on the volume knob- this gives it a darker, more organic sound.

As a B-string fanatic, I have to mention that with it strung thru-body, the low B is very good for a bolt-on, 34" fiver, but it's not as rock-solid as my expensive neck-through 35" bass.

Of course, I spent more on the pickups for that instrument than I have in this whole bass...

This is where you can see the difference between this relatively low-end Cort and a Pro instrument.

The fretwork, fit and finish, etc., are vastly improved over other Indionesian instruments I've seen. I didn't have to do any fretwork, but it did take a fairly extensive round of action and intonation adjustments to get the best out of it.

In the store, the action was too low and the neck had too much relief, causing so much fret buzz that you couldn't really hear the full potential of the instrument. Still, I'm glad that I took a chance on setting it up, because it's an excellent, lively-feeling and sounding instrument now that it's been properly adjusted.

I am pleased to say that nothing needed replacing, the neck pocket is nice and tight, all the screws were tight, etc.

The tuners are probably the weakest piece of hardware on the instrument. They hold pitch well and tune smoothly, but there's so little friction, that they don't feel confidence-inspiring when you're tuning.

Still, this is an amazing instrument for any price point under $1,000. I will happily gig on this with no shame, something I wouldn't say about most affordable instruments.

I immediately swapped the strap buttons out for Schaller locks, as I do on all my instruments.

No complaints or concerns about any of the hardware, except possibly the tuners. The jack and controls feel solid.

The finish appears to be your usual bulletproof polyester stuff, and should stand up well to abuse.

As mentioned previously, I had to give the neck a tweak when I first got it, but it doesn't seem affected by humidity, etc., and it's a chunky enough slab of hardwood that I'm not expecting any problems.

I have been gigging for over a decade with my custom bass without a backup, and this one has the additional advantage of a bypass for the active electronics. Once I've gotten to know it a little better, I see no reason why I wouldn't trust it "flying solo".

Haven't dealt with the company before.

I'm in my early fifties, and started playing bass in my pre-teens. I have a beautiful handmade bass, an SWR Studio 220 head, Acme Low B2 and Flyte 103W cabs, and assorted outboard gear. I don't use effects much except for occasional compression.

I recently bought a Bose L1 system, although I use my conventional cabs as subs instead of the Bose bass modules. This has revolutionized my onstage life- I've never heard myself so well before, and I am thinking pretty hard about retiring my SWR rig permanently.

I've had numerous exotic and expensive basses over the years, including some very nice Fenders, from a 2002 American Deluxe 5-string P-bass, to a beatiful old '64 Precision. This little guy hangs in with the best of them, even if it doesn't have to eye appeal of boutique instruments like my other bass.

I'm very glad that I stumbled across this bass. It beats the heck out of a number of much more expensive instruments that I was considering before I bought it. And it has that carefree feel that cheap axes always have- if it got stolen or broken, I wouldn't freak out, I'd just hunt down another one...

If you're thinking about buying one, and the mediocre out-of-the-box setup puts you off, my advice is "go for it"- if you're not handy with tools, it's still more than worth the cost of a professional setup.

2005. Made in Indonesia. 22 frets. 5 string. Probably laminated, haven't opened it up. Mighty Mite pups, neck s/c and bridge humbucker. Controls: volume, pup blend, dual concentric treble and bass (cut and boost). Not sure about woods used. Finish, black neck satin. Original body design.One piece bridge block. Tuners, no-names- tune up well, and keep tuning, not locking (don't need to be). Neck looks like rosewood. Standard frets. Not much by way ao accessories, crappy lead is about it.

There are 2 good reasons to buy this bass. Firstly it's inexpensive (I can't bring myself to call it cheap) and secondly, plug it into anything and set all controls flat, and you'll get a good sound. I'm a guitarist who does a lot of home recording, and synth bass doesn't hack it for me. I don't slap, but play pretty much all styles. I work in a theatre, usually as guitarist, but occcasionally as bassist, and the Cort sounds good. Two of the other bassists we used have the same model, and our fussy producer has never moaned about the sound. (Said producer has a '73 Fender Jazz- we all stuck to the Cort). Being active, there is enough tone control to suit most styles.

In general there's not a lot of niggles with this bass. The worst thig about it is that it's neck heavy. The factory action was set at a medium height, which I like. I don't like to play like a girl, and don't want rattles when I hit the thing hard. There has been an issue with the wireing, as it has cut out on me a couple of times- fixed by banging the body! As yet, haven't found the problem, but looking inside, the components are the worst thing about this otherwise fine bass. The bolt-on neck is one-piece. Apppearance wise, it's a good looking bass. I've only ever seen it in black. I don't like the look of the headstock- 3 tuners at the top and two at the bottom, looks like an addaptation from a 4 string. Personally, I prefer a Precision neck to a jazz (odd- the jazz was made to suit guitar players), and the neck has more of a P bass feel.

As said before, 2 of my friends have the same model, and in the 3 or so years they've had them there have been no problems. The hardware seems solid throughout. So far, none of the three of us have had to adjust the truss rod. All of us have used them without backup.

I've been playing 47 years, but make no claims as a bassist, I use an American Standard 40th Anniversary Strat through a Pod pro and a Laney V50. Everything I say about this bass should be measured against the price. I don't give 10's, as nothing is perfect- but if you want bang for your buck, this is hard to beat. If you play every night the neck heavy thing could become a big issue.