Tom Curry Guitars

Musicman Bass

May 5th, 2007

Musicman Bass

Musicman bass?

I was thinking od getting a Musicman5 bass. For any of you who have played or own them, are they worth the money?

I tried the Musicman5 when I was shopping for a bass about 2 years ago. I wound up going with a Warwick Corvette Double Buck.

I must confess that I “didn’t get” the Musicman when I tried it. They have this really unique, fat mid-range sound that is supposed to be instantly recognizable, and if you love that sound, you love that bass. For me, that felt sort of “one trick pony” to me, and the sound isn’t something I was immediately crazy about.

I liked the Warwick because it felt a lot more versatile — active preamp that you could switch on and off (it’s a “hybrid” bass — it can be played either passive or active), ability to switch the tap of the pickups to go “humbucking” or “single coil”. It just felt like you could get radically different tones out of the bass without doing very much work. Sounded great picked, sounded great with fingers, sounded awesome slapped & popped, and was about $400 less than the Musicman.

So that’s my opinion — the Musicman felt like it was very well built, very solidly constructed, but didn’t feel particularly versatile to me. And for the price, that was a real turn-off for me and I wound up going with something else.

Good luck & happy playing!