Zachary Guitars Z-1 Bass

Made in 2002 in Ottawa, Canada. Four string, 24 frets. Zachary Z-1 style solid mahogany body with maple neck and pau ferro fingerboard. Natural finish rubbed oil/wax finish. 2 Passive, with 2 Dimarzio Alchemy pickups. The Alchemy pickups, which have wood covers, match the body well. Incidentaly, I understand that Dimarzio no longer makes the Alchemy pickups, so future Zachary bases will be using something different. Gotoh ultralight tuners, German-made quick-change bridge. Controls consist of stacked tone/volume pots, pickup mode switch, pickup selector switch. Bass comes with custom fitted hard case.

It?s difficult for me to critique the sound. My only other bass is a Fender American P-bass, so I have no real experience with the ?jazz? bass sound. However, I can say that the sound is very different from the P-bass, (which is what I had wanted). One switch toggles the two pickups between single coil and humbucking mode, and the other is a three-way selector switch. Through my Ampeg BR-50 I find I can go from a deep, slightly uprightish sound using the neck pickup in the humbucking mode to a bright funky sound using the bridge pup in single coil mode; and numerous other sounds in between by using various switch combinations. I strung it with TI Jazz Flats, and while I loved the feel, I found them too "twangy" for my taste, so I put on a set of regular guage D?Addario Chromes. I like the sound better, but miss the soft feel. I think soft guage Chromes would be the perfect strings for this bass.

Alex at Zachary Guitars built this bass using a lot of the techniques that he has perfected building his excellent guitars. The fit of the neck in its pocket is perfect. And the five-bolt design ensures a very strong and stable joint. This particular neck has a slight V or boat hull cross section which I wasn?t too sure about before I tried it. In actuality it feels very comfortable. The neck has a silky smooth and fast rubbed wax finish on the back, a pau ferro fingerboard inset with contrasting wood marker dots in the usual Zachary angled pattern, and superbly set and finished frets. I thought my P-bass was easy to play, but this Zachary is slick! No doubt some of this is due to the soft TI strings, but still, the set-up and action are perfect. Alex sets his guitar actions VERY low, and did the same with this. This suits my lighter playing style well, though if you dig in more you would probably want a bit more relief and string height. The bass is just a bit neck heavy and wants to settle at a more horizontal attitude that I like (neck angled up a fair bit). This may be due to the location of the bottom strap button, and I may experiment with this.

I can't provide long-term ststs on the reliability and durability as I've only had the Z-1 a few months. Like any natural finished bass, the oil/wax finish will require a bit more care and preventitive maintenance than a thick lacquer finish, but it looks so much better, IMHO. It also hasn?t needed any tweaking since I?ve had it, beyond my moving the bridge spacing to a more ?standard? 3/4? from its original metric setting. (The bridge saddles are adjustable in three dimensions.)

Alex at Zachary Guitars is very accomodating and helpful if you are a knowledgable player. Frankly, he doesn?t suffer fools gladly. If he thinks you want one of his instruments merely as a collector, or that once you have it you?ll be modifying it, the Soup Nazi in him comes out (no guitar for you!). Alex cares about his creations, and will go out of his way to see that you get the perfect instrument for you.

Overall this is a fun bass to play. It's also a looker, and doesn't fail to attract attention from other players. As I mentioned earlier, my only real negative comment is the somewhat heavy neck ballance.