EKO MM-305

This is a 5-string Music man clone. Beautiful brown sunburst, not-so-beautiful (but not ugly either) white pickguard. Eko is originally an Italian brand, but nowadays they're made somewhere in Asia I think... Probably China or Korea or something. I'm not exactly sure of when it was made, but since I bought it new in November 2006, it's probably 2005 or 2006. What's interesting is that this information is nowhere to be found on the bass. No manufacturing year, no "Made in"-information, nothing. Just "Inspected by 3", whatever that means...

Materials are pretty basic, but decent. Three-piece alder body, bolt-on maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. 34" scale, 21 frets. The neck is quite wide and thick, so if you have small hands, this isn't the bass for you. But it fits my hand perfectly. The body resonates very nicely, which is of course an important thing to look out for in a bass. If you have a bass with a bad body, it won't sound too good, even if you put top-of-the-line high-tech pickups in it.

One passive humbucker pickup, separate volumes for each coil, one tone. Moderate output. Tuners are a bit flimsy, don't keep the tuning as well as my other basses. But stays in tune thru rehearsals and gigs though, so it's not a massive problem.

One thing I have to mention is the B-string. Anyone who's played with many (especially cheaper) 5-string basses knows, that on many occasions, the B-string doesn't play that well. It has no sustain whatsoever, the sound is not as good as the other strings etc. Well I can truly say, that this is NOT the case with this bass. The B-string sounds and plays just as good as the other strings, at least up to about 12th fret. I recently had the chance to try out an American Fender 5-string jazz bass (which, where I live, is not by any means a trivial thing. In fact, it was the first time I've ever SEEN a 5-string American Fender), and I have to say that the B-string on my Eko performs better than the Fender equivalent, at least with these individual instruments. I'm not saying that this is the case with every Eko and Fender.

And one more thing: this thing is heavy. So the muscles on your back and neck better be in good shape! :)

Sound is surprisingly good, actually. I even got the chance to compare this with a 5-string Music Man Stingray, with a pricetag of about 1800 euros, and I liked the Eko's sound better. But make no mistake, if you're looking for a Music man sound, buy a Music man, you won't get it with this bass, at least with the stock pickup. I mostly use it with the top coil volume maxed, bottom coil about halfway up, and tone likewise halfway up. This setting gives me plenty of bottom end, but still maintains enough bite and clarity in the top-end. I play mostly with a pick, with quite a heavy touch, and it seems to compliment this bass pretty well. With all controls set to the max, it gives a nice sound for slapping. But if you need a smooth, very bassy tone, for dub/reggae, for example, I suggest you look elsewhere. This bass can give you smooth and bassy, but it doesn't sound that good. I think it just lacks power, for some reason. For example my Ibanez SR745 does this a hell of a lot better. I think this bass is at its best in rock and punk.

My band plays heavy alternative rock, and the sounds I get with this bass suit the style quite well. I use a Hughes&Kettner Quantum 2x10" combo with a Behringer 4x10" cab, and also a Fender Champ all-tube guitar amp as a preamp. (Yes, that's right - a guitar amp! And I dare say that it improves my sound quite a bit.) I also use a bunch of effects, EBS compressor and octaver, Digitech overdrive, Ibanez wah and a bunch of Behringer's plastic abominations, namely chorus, phaser and flanger. They work quite well with this bass. At home I record also progressive rock, pop, metal, etc. This bass handles them OK.

This bass is definitely not noisy. On the settings I use there's just a little bit of hiss, but this is mostly due to my lengthy effects chain. When plugged straight into the amp, there's no noise to speak of.

I've only played one gig with this bass, and the stage mixing was so poor that I hardly heard at all what I was playing. But my friends in the audience said that the sound was good. I've used it also for recording at home, and it seems to work quite well for that too. But then again I'm not a professional musician, so my standards are probably lower. If music isn't what puts food on your table, like it doesn't for me, and you're not interested in spending that much money on your bass, like I'm not, I think this is a pretty good all-around bass.

I'll be looking forward to hearing how this bass will sound after a year or two of heavy use. I've often heard people say, that it takes a few years for the sound of the bass to really open up. Now that I've bought a new bass instead of a used one, for the first time in my life, I'll be interested to hear if and how the sound will evolve.

I'll give it a 7 for the sound, but if you take the price into consideration, I'd give it a 9.

Factory setup was quite good. Intonation was a wee bit off, but the guy in the store saved me the trouble and adjusted it. Action was just about right for my taste, this being not very high, but these are of course matters of taste, not objective truth. Finish was good, at least there are no flaws that I've noticed.

I've only had this bass for a couple of months, so it's difficult to say how well it will hold up. The bass itself seems to be solidly built, but I'm not so sure about the hardware. As I mentioned before, the tuners seem to be a bit flimsy, and I guess I will have to replace them sooner or later. I haven't had to adjust the bridge or truss rod, so I can't really comment on them. The bridge doesn't look that solid, but looks can be deceiving.

When playing gigs, I try to always have a backup ready. This is mostly due to my tendency of mishandling the strings. And the last thing I want to do is start replacing strings in the middle of a gig. But this bass seems reliable enough to be used without a backup, if you don't have one at the ready.

All in all I don't want to give a rating in this category, since I've only had it for such a short time.

I haven't dealt with the company, but their website, www.eko.it, seems to be exclusively in Italian, which is stupid, plain and simple. They should understand that English is the language that people in any country are most likely to understand. How many people understand Italian? I sure as hell don't know a single one. And everyone I know understands at least a bit of english. And in terms of customer service and support, I think the least that a manufacturer, that sells their products in many countries, should do, is have an english website.

So, due to my furious anger towards their website policy, I'm gonna give their CS a really crappy rating.

Oh yeah, warranty is one year. I hope that if something goes wrong and I have to have it fixed, they handle it better than they do web design.

I've been playing bass for about ten years now. But I've only just a few years back started to get into different kinds of gear. Before that I was satisfied with anything that made a sound. Nowadays I'm constantly on the lookout for interesting gear, though my income is so small at the moment (I'm a student at a university) that I can't afford to buy the things I really want. I have three other basses, the aforementioned Ibanez, a Warwick Rockbass Corvette standard, and a Harley Benton cheapo, all 5-string basses. And since I bought this bass, I've been using it almost exclusively. The Ibanez is quite good and comfortable to play, but the sound just doesn't fit the music that I play with my current band. The Warwick's sound fits the music better, but it doesn't give the bottom end that this bass gives. And I only bought the Harley Benton to customize and defret it, not for "real" playing, although I have to say that it sounds quite good considering that I only paid 80 euros for it.

If this bass was stolen or lost, would I buy it again? Perhaps. Not definitely. I think that I was lucky when I found this bass, as it's probably one of the better individuals of this model. That's the real problem with cheap Korean- and Chinese-made instruments: some of them are good, some of them are only fit to be used as firewood or decoration. Maybe I would by it again, if I found as good an individual as this one is. But I don't think that it's very likely.

When I was looking for a new bass, I tried out a couple of other Music man clones, namely OLP MM3 and Stagg MB-305, and also Yamaha BB-615, even though it isn't a Music Man clone. The most important reason why I bought the Eko, was the B-string. The b-string in the OLP was decent, but not good. In the Stagg and Yamaha basses the b-string was utter crap, so they were absolutely out of the question. The OLP's sound was perhaps a bit better than the Eko's, even though I didn't get the chance to A/B them, so I can't be sure. The OLP's sound was definitely closer to the Music man sound. But the Eko is much better looking, and about 150 euros cheaper, so in the end it was an easy decision.

The things that I love about this bass is the b-string and the neck. I like the sound, and I like it's looks. Not a single thing that I hate. I'm not particularly fond of the tuners. Well, actually there is one thing. The string spacing is not as wide as real Music mans, which means that standard Music man replacement pickups won't fit. Luckily the neck is so wide that by replacing the bridge I might be able to widen the string spacing enough. But that's the only major negative point with this bass.

So, how to summarize this over-the-top-lengthy review in a few short sentences? For the price, I think this is a good bass. But as is always the case, especially with cheaper instruments, **never** buy an instrument without trying it out first, if at all possible. So if you mail-order this bass based on this review and get a load of crap on your hands, you've only got yourself to blame. :)

Considering the price, I'll give this bass a 9. You probably could find a better bass for the same price, especially if you buy used, but I think it wouldn't be easy.