Product: Sandberg Basic 5
Price Paid: euro 560 USED
Submitted
07/26/2007
at
07:52am
by
Severu
Features
:
9
2005 5-String bass, made in Germany (it doesn't say where it is made, to my knowledge they produce these guitars only in Braunschweig, Germany)
24 Frets, solid top (don't know what wood ??? my guess it's an ash body)
It has a very nice, thin (compared to a P) maple neck with maple fretboard, in my opinion the best feature about this bass is the playability and material of the neck!
It has a massive MM-style Delano humbucker with an active 3-band EQ preamp. If you pull the volume pot, you switch to passive.
It has a black glossy finish with a tortoise shell pickguard and the neck is all maple. Tuners are Gotoh-style Sandberg tuners, that hold the tuning very well.
An interesting thing about the bridge - the string spacing is adjustable!
Sound
:
9
I like the fact that it has BALLS. It's a MM Stingray-oriented instrument, so you kinda know what tone you get just by looking at it. The EQ is very versatile, but unfortunately the flat setting of the EQ, which I always prefer to use, is in this case too thin and midrangey. With proper EQ adjustment this bass is a monster, very bright and powerful ??? very good for slap! The only thing this bass can't handle are Precision-like warm sounds, but for that I have my trusted Fenders.
I think this bass is made to be played live, in the studio I would use the P-bass for the main tracks and this one maybe for a fast riff played with a pick or for slapping. I play this through my Ampeg SVT3-Pro rig (with a dbx163x compressor and a Warwick 411 Pro cab) and it sounds very good, just like a monster!
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
No Opinion
I bought this one off eBay, so I can't comment on the factory settings. When I got the bass it was set up just fine, maybe the action too low but still there was no fret buzz. I just like a slightly higher action, so it's a little bit difficult when I play ??? keeps up the element of danger :)
The bass is in excellent condition, the neck is straight as an arrow and everything is working just fine. Built like a german Panzer. :)
Reliability/Durability
:
9
Everything on this bass seems sturdy and reliable. We'll see how much abuse it will stand. I play this bass live ??? alongside my trusted Fender P 5-string ??? when I need more agressive sounds.
Customer Support
:
10
I mailed them once and asked them about the year of manufacturing and they responded after two days ??? since they're a small and maybe undermanned company I'll rate them 10 for that one!
Overall Rating
:
9
I've been playing for 10 years. I've had many basses of different makes and manufacturers. I currently own a Yamaha RBX775, a Fender Takeshi Sig (5-Strings), a Fender Aerodyne Jazz and the Sandberg.
If stolen, I would probably look at the Sandberg California PM Series (Precision-like models with MM-style and P-split pickups), trying to achieve a warmer sound. The quality of the instrument is top notch and it performs like expected. I wish it had serial/parallel coil switching for the MM-style pickup. But that's just a little thing, I think this bass is a very very good instrument and I'm glad I bought it.
