MTD Kingston 4

The features as described below, and unmodified by me or the previous owner from what I can tell. Bought used locally here in Houston, playing it for about 1 year. The Buzz Feiten tuners on an inexpensive bass are great. The thin, 24 fret neck is more comfortable, for me, than a Jazz-style due to lower curvature. I'll give it a 9 for features because everything on it works exactly as it should, and works well together, but this is not a G&L 2000 with endless setting options.

I play mostly classic rock, folk rock, and folk music. The stock sound was a little bright as Musicman-style pickups are supposed to be, so I put on tapewound strings and it really mellowed/warmed the sound up. The tone control really works and provides a great range. I'm playing it through a SWR 4004 head with Avatar 2x10 and 1x15 cab stacked, also with a Behringer 1200 combo and through a church PA. No issues, the bass compliments each system just fine. The level of output from the passive system is excellent.

Bought used, so no factory info. I love the light weight and balance of this bass, the fretboard has a great feel and the stock electronics are silent when they are supposed to be. There were no flaws on the instrument when I purchased it used. I like the styling of it as well, you know there is nothing out there that looks like it, which is sort of fun, too. Tremendous value.

The bass is at least 5 years old and all the stock hardware looks showroom, and the previous owner was a 16 year old so it did'nt get babied. I wanted a passive bass as a backup for gigs when I got this, but it quickly replaced my Fender Active Jazz as my main bass and I only bring a back up because I'm just an old dude who worries too much. It has never glitched.

When I was switching the strings to the tapewounds, I called and, voila, got Mike Tobias on the phone. He emailed me several times with suggestions, etc., and showed a lot more interest in a guy who bought a used bass than a major manufacturer would if you bought a band full of instruments. What more could I ask for?

I've been playing for 3 years, with a church-based band that plays outside the church when we can. My small collection of bass guitars are all 4 stings with a Rouge P-bass, Fender Active Jazz bass, Dean Acoustic-Electric Performer, Jackson C-20, and a Dean Edge Fretless. The Kingston seems the best all around for what I can do at this point. The best features for me are the warm tone, great lightweight body, and great feel to the neck. If I lost it, my only question would be which MTD to get, but I'd get another!

Made in Korea it features one musicman style humbucker and one volume and one tone knob.Nice pearl blue finish on basswood body and maple fingerboard on maple neck.Feels very light and well balanced.Not a lot of features but really all that I need.

For a single pickup instrumnet it has a nice range of sounds,from a warm walking tone to a killer funky slap and finger funk type tones.I was looking for an active sound and it comes pretty close with the passive pickup.

I bought the bass used off of Ebay,replaced the strings with some MTD strings and set the action low.The factory did an excellent job for a lower end instrument and a very good job in general.No noticeable defects or problems.

I've gigged with it a few times and have had a few offers to sell it.It sounds that good.No reliability issues yet.

I emailed MTD for some specs and received a reply from Mr Tobias himself a short time later.Can't ask for more

I've been playing for 35 years and wanted something different from my trusty fenders.When this bass arrived I wasn't crazy about the feel of the neck but quickly adjusted.I put a new set of MTD strings on and it sounds great.It doesn't feel or sound like a Fender and thats what I was looking for.I read all of the reviews here before buying and you the writers were correct.A lot of bass for little money.

Plain Jane 2 knob, (volume and tone), maple neck and fretboard, basswood body, a single passive humbucker placed a little more towards the bridge... very easy to pick up and play, the piuckguard is shaped a little wierd.. kinda has that musicman look to it, but it does its job i guess. Just a standard black coated bridge and the buzz feiten tuning system, which rocks. The unfinished neck is very thin and fast with 24 frets, which is a plus to me. There the tuning system and the fact that the tone knob actually works like its supposed to unlike the 2 standard fenders i have owned give it a 10 for me.

The tone knob actually works for it so you can get a kind of warmer thud with alot of midrange, to a very bright almost singing bell tones with tons of clarity. The bass cuts through the mix in both of my bands, one being a mix of funk and hard rock (think Rage against the machine), and the other is a progressive metal band.(Think tool) The bass sounds good for both. It has a few tones to it that scream musicman, and it has an amazing slap sound to it, not to mention its a very easy bass to slap. When im not with my bands i play a ton of slap heavy funk and alot of wierd trippy slapping and thrashing popped chords (Primus) and the bass excels as a slap bass. To get an idea of how it sounds slapped... listen to Higher Ground by Red hot Chille Peppers because when i slap that riff on my bass it sounds almost exactly how it sounds on the cd. Playing it with the tone knob all the way up or with a pick makes it sound like an Anti-Flag bassline with that little bit of midrange growl or grind that Chris2 from Anti-Flag has on the mobilize cd. (i'm not an anti-flag fan, but my brother has the cd and i bet if he used a kingston instead of a musicman... the sound would be almost the same except the kingston has a little more bass to it than Chris2's tone. I'm not saying a musicman isnt capable of having more bass to it than a kingston..(musicmen have active bass controls) I'm just saying that his tone on mobilize is not as bassy as my kingston sounds through my amp. (An Acoustic 150 and a 4X12 cab) I would highly recommend this bass to a punk rocker who wants that musicman punk bass sound that so many punk bassist are using these days, especially if you can't afford a musicman :D , or if you are looking for a rather cheap bass that has an expensive sounding slap tone.

The action is very low stock on mtd kingstons, which is because the bass is intended to be easy to slap, and it is. I personally love it. I have no dead spots or buzzing so it seems good enough for me. The candy apple red finish is sparkly and cool looking too in my opinion. Stays in tune very well also, which is a huge plus for me.

i havent had to adjust the truss rod or anything on it, and i've had it since last christmas. I have dropped it from waist height and it has fallen off of chairs it was leaning on more times than i'd like to admit and i only have one little knick in the red paint from when i dropped it on cement. (i was pissed at myself) If you dont slam it on the floor during shows it won't break. The bass feels light but very sturdy.. it has eastern hard rick maple on the neck so im not worried about warping for a very long time. My fender mexican standard p bass warped in 2 years and i had to adjust the truss rod a million times. I'm yet to adjust the truss or string height at all on it because it hasnt moved since i've had it.

i ordered online... it came the day after christmas when it was supposed to be here before x-mas... but that is not Mike Tobias's fault, its the holiday rush or just the company who sent it to me. (zzound.com)

I've been seriously playing for about 3 years now.. which may not seem long but i have dedicated much of my life to bass and i can play Victor Wooten songs already so i dont think i'm doing to bad for myself. I had 2 mim fenders, a yamaha bb604 and an american Jazz... which i sold all but the Yamaha after having the kingston for a few months because i didnt play any of them anymore. I heard of the bass from Talkbass.com.. which is a community of hundreds of bassists, luthiers (i'm talking name brands too such as mike lull and mister tobias himself and many more), and many of them believe the mtd kingston is the best bass under 1000$. I don't know if thats true.. but i sold my 900 dollar fender when i bought it so it can't be that bad. Amazing value in a bass.

With just one pickup and a tone know, it's quite simple. Nevertheless, these do their job remarkably well.
The body looks very cool, with a distinctive design.
It has a very fast 24 fret neck, no dead spots on it. Plays very smoothly. This bass is remarkably light, which i find comfortable. Also, it comes equiped with the Buzz Feiten tuning system, which is designed to enhance intonation.
Finish is nice, the pearlescents have a very nice deep glow to them.
It didn't come with a case or gig bag however.

The sound is great. No noise. For this price, it's incredible. The pickup delivers a very powerful and rich sound, and even though it's just one, with the tone knob you can get quite a range of useful sounds.
From deep drones to whoomps to thumps to edgy slap, it pulls it off quite nicely. Of course, it's still limited to one pickup but it's much better than other basses in the same price range that i've tried.

Action was a bit low for my taste. Other than that, everything was fine.

Very reliable. Solid construction, everything feels solid eventhough it's so light. It stays in tune very well. The bridge seems rock solid, knobs behave like they should.

No idea. I haven't had any problems with it so i did't contact MTD.
I believe warranty was one year.

I've played bass for a few years. My main focus is guitar though so my budget for bass is a bit limited, but i do love to play bass. So i'm glad i found this one. Not too expensive, but great sound, playability, and i love the way it looks too.

I bougth my MTD Kingston second hand and the previous owner had modified the bass. He replaced the original humbuckers by active Bartolini pickups.
This 'version' has two tone controls (bass and trebble) and off course the volume control.

I was not looking for a second hand, but I found this bass in the guitarshop and felt in love with it. Boosting the bass control gived me the deepest sound I ever heard!!! Thanx to the bartolinie pickups this bass sounds great and complete noise-free. Only when I turn the treble way up I hear a little bit of noise. Drawback is that the battery has to be replaced every 4 or 5 months.
This Bass outranked easily the warwick streamers, godin SD pro, Fender Jazz, some Bass Collections I tried too.

The bass set up was great, but it was afther all second hand!
Finish is great, deep black and a beautiful pickguard.
Maybe the only comment is that the pickguard has little gap, but this is not disturbing.

I haven?t gigged yet with this bass! But it appears to me as very robust!
I would use it even without a back up!

No comment!

I love this sweet monster. I won't sell it not for less than 1200 euro!
Are looking for a fantastic bass guitar for a reasonable low price, this is the ONE!

Made in 2003.
24 Frets, 4 strings
Solid Basswood body, Maple neck
Single MM style pickup
Solid black body with pearloid pickguard

Generally this is an outstanding single pickup passive bass guitar
I could sure go for an active preamp but that ain't happening at this price level

I play a combination of jazz and funk and this is an AMAZING bass for just that. I suspect that at some point I'll be replacing the stock electronics and strings but for now it's got the sound of a $2000 bass for $480! Unreal!

This plays as well as any guitar I've ever laid hands on. I did a big search for this latest purchase checking out everything from Laklands to Moduluses down to Ibanez and this was THE ONE...amazing guitar...absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately I already dropped the bass from about waist height. It stayed in perfect tune and didn't even scratch.

Mike as in Michael Tobias answers his emails personally. Can't ask for more than that when you're talking about a low-end bass.

Possibly the best darn deal out there. An amazing value. Honestly, if you put a slightly better bridge and tuners on this guitar -- maybe a preamp, I could see it selling for $1.5k.

Heck of a bass!

1 Humbucker at bridge-mid position (not exactly at bridge nor middle, but in a great spot for good sounds when you play). Hell if I know when it was made, but I assume 2002, to explai nthe Buzz Feitan Tuning System it has on it (GREAT!!!!!!!) since Kingstons started coming with the Buzz system in 2002. Beautiful red pearl finish, similar to the Modulus Flea's blue finish but in a red, nice and sparkly. 1 volume, 1 tone, passive (obviously). The bridge is the typical kind you'll see on many absses, btu it's sturdy enough. The hardware is black, which looks great on the finish. The neck is amazingly thin, and it is also quite fast, and upper-fret access is no problem despite this being a bolt-on.........the cutaways start at fret 19 and the heel is no big deal and so it's easy to reach even higher if you need to. Very light, made of basswood I believe. Pickguard is pretty cool looking, body shape is handsome too. I like it. 24 frets. No inlays, just side markers. I also got a coffin case with this

Now, I play a lot of metal/nu-metal, but I love to play Jazz,BeBop, and i like to lay DOWN THE FUNK!!! This bass can handle it, and does it quite well. When I used the tone knob, I was surprised to find that this bass had an actual working tone knob. In other words, you get more bass at the expense of some treble and vice versa depending on your setting. You see, I owned an Ibanez GSR200 and a Fender Unknown Jazz-Type, and with those two's passive elecs' tone knobs, all it did was throw in crap on top of the sound and make it muddy. With the tone knob on this bass, it actually works how it should. Great range of tones. Very easy playability too, with the thin neck. Fingering and pickign techniques work well with this bass, but where this bass really shines is slap/pop and tap. It has a great, bright sound when you use yoru fingers (nice and clear but bassy), but when you slap it, it sounds like a slap is meant to sound, and tappign is wonderful. You will love or hate this, but I love it. A bright, crisp yet bassy sound. Very nice.
As for a complaint.....
Like I said, pick and fingers can be done well on this bass, but they don't tend to be heard as loudly as a slap, though that's typical, but it's kidn of annoying to have to turn up the volume for the fingers and then all of a sudden throw in a slap and have it break windows. But still, I love it's sound and its no big annoyance, I was really exaggerating a bit.

The factory setup wasn't too great, it was okay, btu not great. The actio nwas WAAY too low, btu didn't buzz that much, though it still buzzed, especially when playing a muted G. I raised it a bit.
The pickup is in perfectly.
Everything was pretty much good except the action, right fro mthe factory.

Very, very reliable. Despite being light, it can take aggressive playing. It's finish is also durable, it's hard to make it dirty, and if you do, it wipes out very easily, unlike black finishes. The hardware is good. The strap buttons were great, they even had padding under them. I installed strap loks though.
I would gig this without a backup, mainly because my backup bass is ten times worse than this and might have a bowed neck.

I wouldn't know, but Musician's Friend is great and fast, and they're reliable so if I have problems, I would contact them.

A fabulous, fabulous bass. It will please you. Like all basses, m yreview was done in comparison to basses at half it's price and basses at twice it's price, and this is honestly, the BEST PASSIVE bass you will find in the range from $300-800. Even better than a lot of Fender's passive Jazzes and comparable to some good active basses. The passive elecs actually work! If it was stolen, I would want to buy another one, but I'd probably get somethign more expensive, or I'd look for the thief and kick his ass.
If I wish it had anything, I guess I woudl say perfect actio nright out of the package. I hated how the factory set up was.

This is a 2001 model. It was made in Korea. The neck has 24 medium frets with a zero fret. It is a 4 string. The body appears to be 2 pieces of either poplar or basswood - it is very light and feels kind of soft. It is painted black pearl (which is really cool). It has one tone control and one volume for the dual-coil MM-style pickup (passive). The neck is one piece maple, and the fretboard is maple as well. The neck is finished in a light satin finish (very fast). The body is very compact. It is very balanced. The bass doesn't sit well in my lap without a strap. The bridge is of the inexpensive 'bent-tin' variety, but it appears to be very finctional and solid. It is adjustable for string height and intonation. The tuners are black, kind of cheap, but will probably hold up for the life of this bass. The nack is 34" scale, assymetrically contoured, and very thin. It is super easy to play if you have small hands. It makes my Jazz neck feel chunky. The only included accessory that came with mine (used) was a piece-of-crap gig bag made by TKL (Powerflex?). This bag absolutely sucks. This bass deserves better than this sock with a zipper. I'm not sure if that is the standard gig bag shipped with these basses or not. Might be an aftermarket addition. This bass has everything you need, and not much else. That is a good thing here. What is here works and sounds great!

This bass is essentially a back-up. I bought while I await delivery of a more high-end custom bass. I'll probably keep this one a while though because it so easy to make it sound terrific! One knob to fool with onboard and nothing else. It surprised the heck out me when I first plugged into my Nemesis 2x10...serious growl with tons of low end definition. It's a very easy bass to slap - the string spacing is great, and the action was set almost perfect right out of the box. The neck appears to very stable with nice even notes up and down the neck. While this bass doesn't have the tone or craftsmanship of a typical $2k and up instrument it easily surpasses some of the $1k basses I've played. I haven't gigged with it yet so I can't comment on that aspect. I like everything about it so far except the fact that it slides off my lap when sitting down playing. Did I mention the gig bag is junk?

While I bought this bass used I can say that this bass was set up great when I received it. The action was actually too low for me, and I generally play with lower action. It didn't buzz, but I like to dig in occasionally so I had to raise the action a touch. There are no flaws on this bass that I have found so far. The craftsmanship rivals every other bass I've owned to date in the sub-$1k range.

As stated above, I've yet to gig this bass. The hardware seems inexpensive, but durable enough for steady gigging as long you don't abuse it. The paint seems to be thick enough for years of wear and tear. The body will probably bruise easily because of the low density tonewood used in construction. The strap buttons seem to be okay. I would definitely used it on a gig without a backup.

I've not had to deal with the company yet. It has a 1 year warranty card included with the bass.

I've been playing 8 years. I currently own this bass and a Nemesis 210p combo. I just sold my Fender US jazz and another jazz. I've owned just about every major brand of bass out there at some point. This bass delivers the goods. If it were lost or stolen I might pursue another one, but I probably go for the fretless version in a 5 string. I love the way it's plays so effortlessly. I don't like the way it plays sitting down - the body is almost too small for that. My favorite feature is the nice straight neck and that dual coil pickup - very nice growl. My ratings reflect the value of this bass as compared to what you'd have to spend elsewhere to even attempt to get the same features and craftsmanship on this bass. Obviously, this bass can't hang with a Fodera or a high-end MTD 435, but it's not made to - in it's class there's none better.