Best Choice Products Solid Wood Acoustic Electric Bass with EQ (Black)

I bought this from amazon after coming across this on eBay and wanting to guarantee a good shipping experience. Amazon always packs and ships well, so I ordered from here. Free shipping took less than a week to my house, and the bass arrived in perfect condition. I am very impressed with the bass as a whole! It's a little rough around the edges, and isn't something to brag about, but I got more than I expected out of it. I was looking for an acoustic bass to simply play and have fun with, and this exceeded my expectations for the price. It's not the best bass you'll ever play, but it's the best one you'll get for $125. The painting in the sound hole is a little iffy, and there was still masking tape on mine. As well, the fret markers along the top of the neck were a little dirty looking. Paint on the body has small imperfections, but nothing terrible. If you are a little picky, these are things that might bug you. However, sound wise, it sounds great to my ear. The body is smaller than all other acoustic basses I've played, but it is still pretty loud. I prefer it, it makes the instrument a little easier to handle. I had no problems with sharp frets or high action on mine. The neck feels plenty strong to hold the tension of the strings, as some other reviews have mentioned, though I do avoid the neck bends when playing The Awakening. The strings that came on mine are very nice; half the cost of the bass is probably in the strings. Over all, I am very glad I pulled the trigger on this. I am more than happy with what I got, especially considering I could easily spend this much money renting an instrument. I recommend that anybody who is looking at this to simply play and enjoy for yourself, or to use around a campfire, to simply buy it. It's so cheap, you won't regret it, and amazon will look after you if there are any problems.

Muy bueno

The box had a lot of sawdust in it when I opened it, but the bass sounds great acoustically, and even better plugged in. Electronics all work as expected. I did have to adjust the truss rod when I was first setting it up, but best to either take it to a professional, unless you know what you're doing.

I'm a professional guitarist with a home recording studio who often finds that my self-recorded songs could use some additional bottom end, especially when I record solo demos to present to my cello partner. Of course, once my partner and I agree that a piece is best played as a duo, the cello takes care of the bottom. However, I sometimes record other musicians and produce their demo tracks. Again, while I usually serve as the session guitarist / fretted instrument sideman for these recordings, I have often thought I should have a bass guitar to round out my recording arsenal and add some clear bottom to these home recordings. I've been working on a project where that was exactly the case. I was going to borrow a bass from a student when I found this guitar. I figured for less than $100 I can experiment a bit by running the bass directly through the board and get some sonic feedback as to whether a bass addition works on a recording or not without breaking the bank. Either way, I figured it MIGHT be a handy piece of recording "equipment". Boy, was I right! For this specific purpose this bass guitar fits that bill perfectly! Oh sure, the fit and finish is not perfect and it's unplugged tone is not great and is certainly not loud enough. But, recording directly through a board sounds fantastic. I am both shocked and pleased. To be clear, I am NOT a bass player and thus I would never use this thing as a piece of performance gear. And if I were a bass player, I'd probably looking for other options. But, as said, as a piece of recording gear this instrument would be hard to beat for the price. With these specific caveats, buy with confidence. UPDATE: Continuing to experiment with this bass in a "direct to recording board" way, I notice a significant hum. I put a Baggs Venue in the chain so that I could use a balanced XLR into the board and the hum remains. I think it's a grounding issue. I can greatly reduce the hum by knocking back the gain quite a bit and then restoring the volume in post. I'll keep updating as I experiment further. Final update: I'm saying good goodbye to this one. I never did find the source of the hum but suspect it's a ground shield problem. I could probably work around it but my original thought was to keep things very simple and simple means direct-to-board recording. This, I cannot do. We're it not for that reason, I would be rating the bass highly for its size and scale length, its easy-ish action, etc. Instead it's on its way to a player that doesn't have my specific requirements.

Personally, I like it but as some reviews state replace the strings, asap. It is also slightly smaller than my full scale electric. The electronics aren't horrible but not great either, they work fine on my fender rumble. My only complaint is the price, would be nice to include a gig bag for the 300+ (CAD) paid. A lot of other reviews also mention the fret noise from the strings, especially on the thicker one, which is true with the one I purchased. I wouldn't go with the suggestion of adjusting the truss rod unless the neck is bowing. Instead, when you're changing the strings try to remove the saddle, it might be snug but shouldn't be glued in. Underneath it is the pickup, which should also be removed, careful not damage it or the wire attached. Take some thin cardboard (a cigarette pack will work, or even printer paper, you'll just need more of it) and cut a slice the size of the saddle and pad it underneath the pickup to raise the string action. Best to do it with the old strings still on saves tightening and loosening the new strings until you get the height adjusted right. Also saves unnecessary strain on neck/truss from adjusting the rod. Put the pickup and saddle back in and tighten and tune the strings, test it out and if that sounds good, check the intonation and if need be, loosen the strings, adjust the cardboard/paper shimmy and repeat until the fret noise (and/or intonation) is satisfactory but none of it is necessary for the hobby player, or if you don't care about the fret noise/intonation. Would still recommend if you're looking for a toy. Oh, one last thing, the strap button closest to the neck isn't in the best position. It's in the cutaway part just bellow the 15th fret and if playing in that position your fretting hand hits it. Easy enough to move.