Show Us Your Basses (Part 1)

Cool axe! Enjoy.

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Very nice @joeike !

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Congratulations @kristine ! Nice score on the extras! Love the inlays.

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I hope you have a Prince costume to wear with it to halloween.
At least you go time to get one. LOL.

Despite its Hideous,
I do kind of dig it., I mean if nothing else, it is a stingray.
But seriously, I think they pulled that one off.

Did you ever Mae it to 13th st so I can get that one bass off you so I can finally use my les clay pool pick ups?

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the new bass day that keeps on giving :tipping_hand_woman:t2:

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This is just borrowed to see if I like the 5 string thang before investing…
Harley Benton HBZ-2005 Deluxe
The pickups are “meh” but there’s a solid basis for a project here.

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I really like its appearance. I also find humor in the “upper fret access” being all “we put 24 frets on here, yes, but GET BACK IN YOUR LANE YOU F’ING BASS PLAYER!”

:rofl:

Too bad about the 34" scale, though.

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Ok, so, how about a review? :slight_smile:

I’m intrigued by the PRS Kestrel basses and have been thinking that were I to get another bass, I’d be looking at those. But they don’t seem to be too popular, at least no one in the circles I run in (basically here and the Fender Play FB group) have one that I’m aware of.

So what are your thoughts on it?

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PRS is mainly a guitar maker with a couple lines of basses. They are generally a premium brand which relatively recently introduced the more midrange-priced SE line which are made in either Korea or Indonesia, with both being really high quality. Their US-made instruments are generally mid to higher end guitars, same level as (say) MIG Warwick basses.

They only make a couple lines of basses which were up until recently also premium-priced, so they are relatively rare.

I’ve tried a lot of their guitars and really like them, will probably buy one someday; I have a Cort clone of one now. I can only assume the basses are as great as the guitars.

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PRS has a good rep for guitars, for all the reasons @howard mentioned. They have a bad rep on basses, but not based on anything concrete that I can tell. I see people give them bad reviews but they never owned one.

Probably a bit of elitism and a bit of loyalty to their brand, and that PRS really doesn’t market to the bass crowd.

If only they had PJs…

Older I get, the more I keep an open mind and consequently proven wrong fewer times

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The Kestrel and the Woodline series from Bacchus are at the top of my list of basses I’d consider IF I needed another bass :wink: (they are also about the same price).
Of the two, the Kestrels are way easier to find in Europe than the Woodlines.

Somehow, I wouldn’t have thought of heavy gauge pro steels in connection with such a bass though… in my mind, it needs something much more mellow…

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I was going to say @kristine, you probably won’t want to use those spare strings it came with. Might not be your thing. Then again, you never know.

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Thank you, @joeike @Reasonably_Happy @John_E @Al1885 @howard @HowlinDawg @vince.suttle @MikeC @JerryP @Koldunya !

Workin’ on it! I will say that when I first played it, I was in a store trying out the Fender Jazz Player Plus, several Squiers and a couple Sterling by Music Man. I was really enjoying the Fender and Squier Jaguar, when the clerk brought over the PRS. The neck and body shape are perfect to me; all the inlays and binding are icing on the cake.

It’s a Jazz bass, but the current, heavier strings do give it a different edge (not bad, just…edgy). I agree with @joergkutter and @John_E that I should try something mellower to see how the tone changes. While I probably would not have picked heavier strings, I like hearing the range this bass is capable of. Most importantly, when I hold this bass, I feel happy.

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Hooray!!

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That’s what counts most: happiness. Congrats, @kristine!

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Literally all that matters :slight_smile:

They might work! It depends on if you like a brighter style. Steel rounds can sound really good on warmer or darker, more mellow or thumpy basses (like the Yamaha BB or Fender Precision). On my TRBX they were so ridiculously bright that they were too much even for me, a diehard bright rounds fan :rofl:

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Another excellent thing about PRS is the man himself. Paul Reed Smith cracks me up. He is a… polarizing figure.

One of those people you are glad exists but probably happy you don’t have to work with every day :rofl:

Beyond being geek-iconoclastic, he keeps turning up in weird places. Like SOCOM.

He’s basically a brilliant, eccentric genius that makes great guitars. He puts a lot of people off because he really rejects orthodoxy and kind of plows through a lot of the existing brand religion out there, especially in interviews. Paul Reed Smith ain’t got no time for that.

You also have to love a company that names finish colors things like the Angry Larry.

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I bought a new TRBX174 in Old Violin Sunburst for my first bass. I was eyeing the 304, but this one was more in line with my budget. Nothing fancy, but I love it!

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Good lookin’ bass you got there. :+1:

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Nice! I’d actually prefer a TRBX174 over a 304. No preamp, so less knobs to fiddle with.

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