Product: Univox UB-1
Price Paid: US $115
Submitted
11/06/2002
at
11:26am
by
chuzz
Email: chuzzrocket at yahoo<dot>com
Features
:
8
The UB1 is a one pickup bass made by the late great Univox, a Japanese company that produced guitars, basses and other audio stuff from the late 50s / early 60s until about 1982. There's a great website www.univox.org where you can learn about their stuff.... The bass has a slim, Rickenbacker-ish neck, a cool scrolled headstock and a Jaguar shaped body. Very cool looking. The bridge is one of those thumbwheel types. One stock passive pickup, one volume and one tone knob. I think the year of the one I have is from 1966-1969.
Sound
:
9
I'm not a big fan of one-pickup instruments generally, but this is a cool instrument. It has a nicely dark and doomy category. I've used it for punk, blues and rock and it's pretty seamless. It can't be described as having tons of tonal variations, but it's fundamental tone is great, and I know when I'm recording when the song is calling for this bass. Definitely vintage-y sounding, but not cheesy vintage. And the main thing is, it has its own sound. The more ya play, the more you have to appreciate instruments that have their own unique voice, and don't sound like yr typical Gibson or Fender off-the-rack axe.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
the bass is solid. The neck goes into the body with the typical 4 screw backplate setup. Action is nice and low, and as mentioned above, if you're use to p-bass necks, you can get on one of these and it's like playing a guitar - nice slim neck, fast action. The bass was dinged up like crazy, but I don't care. I cleaned it up as best I could. I like player guitars, not museum pieces.
Reliability/Durability
:
6
Because of the thin neck and oversized, scrolled headstock, I notice a lot of extra weight, which may be straining the area where it meets the body. Not so much that it will snap, but i have noticed after the setup that the intonation has been wandering. On the other hand, I bet the bass has gone thru long periods where it has needed setups and hasn't gotten them. This thing isn't fragile, but it's also not built like a tank. A good case is a must.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
They're long, long gone........
Overall Rating
:
9
this may not be the best bass ever conceived for live playing, and it's one pickup set up doesn't give it a ton of tonal range, but the native tone is has is undeniably cool. it's a great 'player' guitar as they say. perfect for recording, and i've even gigged with it a few times.
