Beatbass VS Vintage Series : My GO-TO Road Bass

Coming up on two years of ownership of my Beatbass I can give a realistic review. I use this bass almost exclusively when I play out and jam with friends. I have probably performed 75 + gigs that include many outdoor events and cruise ship onboard gigs. I also attend 2 jams a week so over the space of almost two years I have used this bass a lot.

Some observations: It is light weight, maybe 6 pounds. It is well made and durable. I use a gig bag and it gets loaded in and out a lot. So far no battle damage. It is not really a short scale bass as my last set of slinky's for short scale are a tiny bit too short. The truss rod is user friendly and every so often as the seasons and conditions change you might need to tweak the neck. No big deal.

Tone: This one has no dedicated tone knob, you have two volume pots and two on off switchs for the bridge and neck pups along with a switch that must cut your output slightly. You can get a very wide range of tone by varying the volumes and using the switches . I don't play much slap style but I do not believe IMHO that this bass is particularly suited.

Easy to play, easy to carry, looks great and lord knows it is affordable! But there have been two times I had to "fix" something. One time I lost signal. After checking everything I pulled the quarter inch jack out and there was a whisker of wire, one tiny hair width strand of signal wire grounding out against the jack. Snipped with a wire cutter the problem was solved. That took about ten minutes. The other was a volume control was getting loose and allowing the knob to twist the pot in the body of the bass, Another five minute deal.

So if you are trying to lighten up (remember loading up the SVT up two flights of stairs?) and want to have a bass you can enjoy a lot I don't know how you can beat it for the buck. Plus if you play for Boomers they all know about this bass as they grew up with it-that doesn't hurt the tip jar.

My other Basses are a Steinberger Spirit 5 string and a Hohner B-4 played through either GK 100 Combo, Fender 100 Rumble, or Acoustic 25. I also own other Harley Benton guitars, all with very good results!