The Bach 51 Preci Bass aka Tele Bass has arrived.
Well packed in an Ibanez (!) cardboard box with polystyrene at the right places. The outside of the box was reinforced with a little wooden beam.
The bass itself was wrapped in bubble foil at the headstock and the body.
Inside the box was no note, no letter, no bill, nothing. Weird...
Just two allen wrenches of which only one (the one for the trussrod) has the right size.
The bass is pretty heavy. The weight compares to my Les Paul Recording Bass that was made of massive Mahogany too. I don't know ther exct weight as were a scale-less household
The body looks nice and evenly red brownish.
The neck is Mahogany too, but a little lighter color than the body. There's a little bit of a flame. On the bass side -where the E-string runs- it's quite light even. Not really pretty in my opinion. I'd rather have an even colored one. But okay. The neck is straight as an arrow. For the time being there no reason to expect strange things to happen.
The fingerboard is Maple and it looks nice and even. It looks as if they didn't use too much oil, if any at all.
The frets on this bass are seated nice and they were polished. That was not the case with the copy I tried about a month ago. So that was a nice surprise.
The neck feels pretty comfortable. Similar to my Music Man Stingray. Slightly more C-shaped at the topnut side maybe.
The bass came out of the box in perfect tune!
Guess Bach Guitars tried to do me a favor by stringing the TeleBass with Flatwounds. But Flatwounds are not me... I miss the harmonics that give a bass POWER. I think they are Pyramid Flats. They have light gold silks at the end.
Okay, so I played it for a while but I decided to string it with the trusted GHS Boomers Heavy (115-50) that I'm used to.
The machine heads work fine.
The pickguard is a 3-ply. Black-white-black. If the bass stays I might put a black Pearloid on. We'll see.
The pots. Hmmm the Pots... They're crap.
Volume: first nothing happens and then all of a sudden you get everything. Sort of an On/Off switch.
Treble: even worse. Almost inaudible difference between complete shut and full throttle.
Out of curiousity I unscrewed the Control plate to take a look inside. The tiny no-name pots were covered in a layer of Mahogany sawdust.. The control cavity looks pretty neat. Not that it is any thing special though.
The pickup sat a little too low for my taste. Especially the E-side. I took it out to take a closer look. And put it back with small wedge of polystyrene underneath. Now the E-side is a little higher than the G-side.
They painted the routing black, which is a remarkable detail for a budget bass like this in my opinion.
The bridge. Kinda flimsy little piece of work. Because I put on different strings of a different gauge and because my band is tuned half a step down I had to intonate the bass all over.
Not a real problem, but not ideal either. A matter of compromising. A little push and pull. Before you know it everything is crooked with those EA & DG bridges....
I'm gonna get me a bridge with four separate saddles. And it has to be a string through body type bridge. See I'm a "Tone freak".
I miss a thumb rest. I'm gonna get me pickup cover real quick so I have something to put my thumb on.
The sound is your typical "amplified tree log sound" of a Precision. I have the idea that the E-string misses a bit of depth. (I may be spoiled because I'm used to the mighty Les Paul Bass tone)
But it might as well be the strings. I didn't have a new set so I put on an old spare set of used boiled out ones.
So far the first impression in the living room.
To be continued...
cheers, Rob
P.S. There is no finish. The bass is oiled with Tung Oil.
The body shape is slightly different from a real 7ender 51 P.
The edges are rounded off rather than the sharp edges on a 7ender.
There's a belly cut on the back plus slanted topside for wrist comfort.
