That's an awesome list man.
Thanks!
Could you give a review of the Bongo?
No.
Oh, all right....
I would use two words to describe these basses. Power & Grace
Power comes from the 18V preamp. It has two 9-Volt batteries to power the electronics, and that gives it some incredibly hot volume. Sometimes that power is a bit much to handle. The slightest tweak of the volume knob and I drown out my keyboard player.
Grace comes from the 4 band EQ (Bass, Lo-Mids, High-Mids, Treble). You can dial in tones from a very piano like clarity to an "I love hip hop" rumble. The playability and balance of the bass are near perfect. The back of the neck is painted, but it plays as fast as if it were a satin finish. I've even heard that comment from people who swear by having satin finished or unfinished necks.
Just to give you an idea how sweet this bass is, when Music Man first introduced Bongos, I decided I didn't need to even try them. They were (in my opinion) so butt-ugly that I couldn't be bothered. There are so many great looking basses that sound great that I didn't care how good the Bongo might sound. Then I saw one in person, and it doesn't look as ugly in person as it does (to me) in pictures. So I broke down and played one at the GC in Buffalo. There is only one reason I didn't buy that bass. I would've had trouble explaining the extra case to my wife as we drove home from Buffalo to Detroit. A 300 mile drive is a long way to get the silent treatement
.
The next time I played one was last Memorial Day at one of the Detroit area GC. Went to their Blow-Out Sale to buy microphone cables for the church and played around with the one 5 string they had left. I wanted to leave it there, but they dropped the price $400 and offered $0 down / 0% finance / No payments for 15 months. So I've basically been playing this bass for free since then. I have it up for sale with the idea that if it sells, I'll pay the bill when it comes and I will have played a really cool bass for a year for free. If it doesn't sell, I'll pay the bill and I'll have a really cool bass at a bargain price for as long as I want to keep it.
I play it at church every now and then and surprisingly have gotten no comments on how it looks. I have three 5 string basses. If I'm gonna play some serious, finger poppin', rump shakin' 1970s or 80s funk (Gap Band, Cameo, Chic sorta stuff) this is the bass I'm reaching for. Otherwise I'm reaching for my Alembic 5. For a $950 bass to come in 2nd to a several thousands of dollars bass says a lot for the $950 bass.
Hope that rambling reply helped!!
Peace,
James