El-Degas Precision Bass

Maple neck and fingerboard, Ash and alder plywood body, DiMarzio Model P pickup with series/parallel switch, volume and tone. It came with pickup and bridge covers, but I trashed those decades ago. Basic tradition Fender-style bridge with 4 brass saddles. Except for the pickup and switch, pretty standard.

Funny thing is, this really doesn't sound all that much like a P-Bass. It kinda sounds a little Rickenbacker-ish. Really works in rock and blues settings, I really like it.

Really thick paint job, but well done. The frets needed redressed after my first set of Rotosounds as the lacquer was over the frets. The action is just where I like it (medium to low), and the truss rod as never needed adjustment. Ever. In over 25 years. Set the intonation once and forget it. The pickup isn't perfectly centered, so replacement pick guards need to be filed a smidge to fit, and they need a hole drilled for the switch. Weighs a ton! Use a wide strap!

I love this thing. I always stays in tune and I beat on it pretty hard. I did drop it once. It fell off the strap when a stripped screw on the strap button allowed it to pull out and land on a Boss pedal. Chipped the paint in a couple of small spots on the pedal, cracked the bodysideways and took off a hunk of paint. Stuffed some glue in there and rubbed on a little house paint. Sure it looks ugly, but it works and I'm not getting rid of it anytime. Got strap locks right after that and put them on all my basses and guitars.

It was a cheap bass then, and El Degas is long gone.

I bought this really REALLY cheap at a music store going out of business. I could have bought a Peavy T-40 but didn't have the money. I don't regret it for a minute. This is a great bass. I've seen them in Jazz-style as well. If I ever see another one, any style, I'm buying it. All I've ever done (aside from the crack fix) is dredress the frets, replace the pickguard to white on white (came black on white), and replace the strings when they sound dull. Other basses have come and gone, this one is staying forever.

im guessing early 60's made
not made in america
sunburst
rosewood,

really nice bass, 22 frets i think

chrome coverd bridge
one chrome pick up
no toggle switch
1 volume and 1 tone

i really enjoy this bass, it perfct sounded............more like creamy sounded why spend 3000$ for a 60's P-bass while u can get this bass....perfect for any kind of music

nice action....can ba adjusted............but stil a great bass

this sthing im pretty this bass wil last forever...very nice set up and nice sound and action and i wuld use it anywere,bus,tour, or even in my home studio

this bass is a VERY VERY rare bass............i tryed looking at it everywere on jsut about every search engine and could not even find a picture.....EL DEGAS has got to be a very nice rare off brand their is!!

i have 4 guitars, 3 amps, and only 15 half years old.i played a little bass hear and their at stores....but when i picked this up at my friends house and i starting ripping like the pros.........very nice..will consider to anyone

Purchased from a shop in Toronto over Ebay
Japanese made El Degas Precision Clone, 4 string
Mine has a black body, maple neck, fretboard, and headstock.
Purchase with a Hudson Hard case.
Pretty standard, has a vlume, tone, and toggle switch control. The toggle switch doesn't affect the sound greatly, but with the right fiddling, and give a bit more bottom end punch or a clearer high overtone.
I've sen other El Degas Precisions with tghe Japanese closed-back tuners and a modified bridge, but mine is closer to the original style - original style bridge (which is pitted and looks actually not too shabby that way as a 70's bass) and Schaller (or Schaller style) open back tuners.
I give it an 8, for the fact hat it has the more vintage features. And I love the thumb rest mounted on the pickguard.

This bass has more of that classic bass sound you'd expect to hear on classic rock albums.
I own another El Degas (Rick clone, my review of it is here on Harmony Central as well), and the sounds are greatly contrasting.
I hated the tone at first - but I am all over it now. I actually hated a lot of things about the bass at first, more on that later; but now I've come around.
The sound, like I said in the last section, is not greatly affected by the toggle switch, but I've found that with the tone knob used together with a flip of the switch, you can boost the lows or highs.
I'm really more of a set it and forget it kind of player though, I'll probably find where I like the sound the best and leave it, or find a place where the tone is nice and bassy but also needs only a flip of the toggle to get a high boost rather than monkey around too much.
Go with a 7 - the Rick clone still seems to have a superior sound.

Original setup?? Forget it.
When I received from the shop in Toronto - yikes. Mismatched (and probably 10 year old) strings, lots more damage than what I was told about. These aren't the bass' fault, there are no flaws, just damage - whereas my El Degas Rick was obviously babied by the elderly fellow that owned it, this was used and perhaps slightly abused by its former owner.
Damage on the bottom edge of the body, obviously dropped. A good patch of finish gone, painted over with modelling paint - I removed the crappy modelling paint - the wood coming through shows character.
The pickguard screws and bridge are quite pitted/rusted.
These next two almost had the bass on a one way back to the seller:
1- Tuners are loose. I tighten the screws on the headstock, only to find that 3 of the screws are horribly stripped and will not tighten! The tuners hold solidly though, and I swallowed that one.
2- Another headstock nightmare. I find a crack leading from the rightmost tuner going almost halfway around the headstock towards me.

I was going to send it back, but it grew on me. Despite the flaws, it's a character bass and I like it.
The tuners bother me a bit - depending how I set it into the case or if I have to set it against my amp, the tuners are pretty easily adjusted by accident. What a pain.

Despite the damage on the bass, I know that it will probably outlive me. It's solid even with the damage its sustained.

I will however keep a second instrument when playing live, or better yet this one might be the backup. My only reason for wishing the backup is that headstock crack in case I get clumsy and smack it on something, or if I set down the bass and put it all out of tune with those bulky tuners. (Although I have a Boss TU2, so tuning is never more that a 30 second ordeal at the worst of times)

I will add straplocks to this sucker though - I never play without them.

The 'finish-free' area of the bass may continue to lose a bit of finish with heavy wear. I'm not too concerned.

El Degas is no more.
And anyone like me looking for info on the company have probably found the same thing I have; 3 Harmony Central bass reviews (and I've done 2 of them), and a bunch of newsgroup posts of people saying "Where do I find info on El Degas?"

I wish I had known about the damage on the bass before I bought it.
I really don't know if I would have bought it with the knowledge of the damage. Probably not, because I'm a cautious buyer - but I would have regretted not getting it. Even with the damage, it's fun and will last as long as I have it, no doubts in my mind.

Out of the "I used to own one" archives: that heavy s.o.b. (35 lbs) sported the standard sunburst (yellow-red-black) finish (a few chips had come off the black edge)a bolt-on neck with rosewood fingerboard. That sucker gave "solid body" a new meaning!
The neck needed adjustment, so it came out of the shop with the neck adjusted, AND a Badass bridge, AND a DiMarzio Model G pickup AND brand new Rotosound Swing Bass strings ... that techie could sell fridges in the North Pole! And he can be credited for giving me the Tinker bug: buy a cheap axe, slap a Dimarzio on and wail on ...

I used to play bass in a Folk outfit, and later on used my bass for home recording, I must admit it had a good "generic" sound that could fit plenty of different styles - agreed I had a hot bass amp counterpart back then with the Peavey TNT 100! A match made in heaven!

In a word, until the setup it plain sucked. The neck action was way too hard, the strings buzzed badly in certain positions and wouldn't stay in tune, the stock pickup had no depth, the intonation was the pits ... oh yeah, and the finish was chipped.
After the setup and upgrades it went from mediocre to quite acceptable. The weight was still its main flaw. Before the setup, I'd rate it a 4, and I'm being generous. After the setup, it went up to a 7, but it still doesn't score any higher than that, to me 7 is "acceptable". OK, maybe a 7.5!

Give the "artisans" credit, they built that axe to survive storms and earthquakes - or really clutzy players, but the product is by no means any threat to genuine Fender basses, I've seen better quality basses (stock) in the same price range from Yamaha and Ibanez.
Durable, yes, reliable - yes; but only IF better hardware is installed.

Never had the pleasure.

I haven't owned a bass in ages, I reckon that the ultimate upgrade on that beast would have been to replace the body with a Warmoth one, either in Alder or Basswood to make it lighter and more comfortable to play while standing.
I remember using it as a trade in on some other piece of gear (too long ago for me to remember) with no regrets at all. If I were to decide to buy a bass nowadays, there are definite better choices available in the same price range (under $200.00).