Dean Guitars Cadillac Bass

Apparently I am the first person to give an opinion about this bass. Well first of all the stock electronics are seriously lacking. That is why I replaced the stock pickups, and active tone control with a set of EMG P+J pickups as well as an EMG BTC active tone control. Add in an 18VDC (that's two 9VDC batteries wired in series) and this bass rocks. Alas,I kept a 25K pot with the stock EMG tone capacitor still in the circuit. So for all of those not in the know. I have a double buffered signal with brute force tone control. This is the stuff tone wise. I tend to keep the active tone circuit flat, and adjust the bass tone with the passive tone control. However on occasion I have cut loose with the active tone circuit for the occasional bass wank(way over the top distortin and what not). Now on to the bass itself. Well, the thing is a Korean built monster. Set neck, body and neck binding. And surprise, suprise! This little bass can be intonated spot on unlike most of the import Dean basses. Needless to say I am happy with this bass. The body shape is actually very ergonomic, now if you do not understand that word then you deserve all of the uncomfortable basses you can hang over your shoulders. As far as features this bass can be considered another hyper "F" bass except it has the weird body shape, and the classic pointy Dean headstock. The thing that really puts this bass over with me is the 1.5" topnut width. Come on that's "J" bass territory.

The original Pickups, and electronics were very noisy, READ PUKE SOUND FOLKS! The kind you notice when you are not playing. The hum-n-buzz were heinous. Dean hit it dead nuts with the supplied Grover tuners. But thier Electronics package was seriosly lacking. I happen to had a set of EMG pickups, and installed an EMG BTC active tone control. Any way, after the upgrade this bass just shines with 18VDC option that EMG recommends. Now the tone is just righteous, with phenomonal angst. The only thing I am now going to change is the bridge. I am going to install a Leo Quan Bad*ss II bridge to make this bass a tonal monster. Never gone wrong with one of these bridges, and I hope Dean Guitars reads these little reviews to see if they need to address any items. This bass now records superbly, and is my main stage bass. It has the coolest body shape, and that bitchin' Dean pointy headstock.

I bought this bass off of eBay new from an authorized dealer. The bass arrived at my house only needing some minor adjustments. Now action, and playability is so objective. So let me state that I am one of those weird ultra low action bass players. I have been playing bass going on , well let us say I have been playing bass long enough to remember when the Edgar Winter Group made it into the billboard top 100 with their songs Frankenstein, and Free Ride. Along with Alice Cooper, and a couple of his songs. Anyway, I have been sucking air for quite some time, and I am inherently lazy. But I believe 99.9% of anyones tone comes from thier fingers, and thier attack on the strings. Needless to say I have over the years seen a lot of persons beat the tar out of thier basses to achieve a humongously big Flatulent tone. I however am of the persuasion that what you put in, you get out. Hence all of the heinous ear assaults going on these days from Guitar players, all the way through to the so called drummers.

Now this one is easy. This bass is a brick. The only hardware I replaced was the strap buttons. Now I have some Jim Dunlop Straplocks on this tool. The original Grover tuners are just balls. They are at least 20:1 ratio, and this little piece of wood stays in tune at least over four 50 minute sets. The tuners are as the Brits say "Spot ON!". Now the electronics were average for Korean manufacture, but I remedied that with EMG pickups, and electronics. the finish is Classic Black with white/creme body and neck binding. The only thig I really don't care for is the mother of abalone dot markers on the fingerboard. I would of prefered MOP block inlays. But for the price I paid, WHO CARES ANYWAY! Oh. and by the way no backup needed. This bass is physically a brick!!!! And I replaced the original strap buttons with some Dunlop Straplocks. So basically I have the original lumber with all new, and better pickups, electronics, and strapbuttons.

Now, this is a hard one. I have purchased several Dean Basses over the last couple of years. Here is what I have found with this company. I have not needed them for warranty waork, since thier basses are inexpensive enough that I can afford to replace them rather easily. However, if you email them about the inabilty to intonate one of thier bass designs, or actually two or more as I have discovered. They will not accept any further emails from your poor ass. I know, I emailed them several times plauding the Cadillac bass, but my emails keep getting bounced. Now this company finally has a bass I actually like, and because I aired some deficiencies with thier import basses they now bounce my emails. Well!!!!! Good for them. I do not care if they want to hear critiques of thier gear. I had to buy five of thier basses before I got one that had the cahones to be a usable sonic tool for me. So all I can say is Dean Guitars is as Corporate as any American Corporation people. They are in business to take your MONEY! Like any other company in this Country. Thier American made guitars are absurdly overpriced as all of the other USA made instruments. Believe me I remember buying USA made basses for well under $1000.00, now that was kinda way back in the 80's. But a fella can hope, can't he? Hey, I want to give them a negative rating, as far as caring about slogging bass musician like the 99.999999% of us. But hey they are ringing in on all of the Metal helmet wearing guitar players they can get. Now, how about some USA made basses? Well when the only bass players you promote are Metal bass players, and Jeff "who?" Berlin. And on almost all "Metal" cd's you cannot here the bass player, or they are so atrocious at playing you do not want to hear them. Then I understand Dean's philosophy as pertaining to bass guitarists.

This particular bass scores an absolute 8 with me. I had to upgrade the electonics and pickups. The originals were so noisy and full of hiss I almost puked the first time I plugged it in. Now with those P/U's and such my Sansamp and effects were like useless. Hey!!!!!! Dean get yo' stuff together. Quit being cheap asses with the pickups and electronics. Just put some decent stuff in these basses. The overall set neck construction is 5X5, just tits in my book. But you got to get yer shit together with the Electronics, and pickups. Oh, and none of that EMG HZ high impedance crap. We are tired of having that stuff shoved down our throats. They have worse tone than the stock pickups that came on this bass. I'd give them a 10 on this one, but they are a big pile of poop when it comes to bass players. I hope they get thier quality control together with thier import basses, since USA basses are apparently nonexistant.