Reviewed by:
mouldysandwich, on august 21, 2007
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
Purchased from: Music Matters Lisburn
Features: I got this bass in May last year from my local store as it was the cheapest I could find which came with an amp. I assume it was made in China or Korea or somewhere like that. It has standard Stagg P and J style pickups, 2 volume controls and 1 tone knob. It has a solid alder body, a maple neck, and a rosewood fingerboard with 24 frets. It has the Stagg factory hardtail bridge and the tuners are the standard Stagg ones (non-locking, diecast nickel). It has a purple gloss finish with all black hardware. They are all relatively cheap components. It also came with a gigbag, a 2nd set of strings, a guitar pitch pipe, a cable (broke in a few weeks), a strap (also broke in a few weeks) and for an extra £20 a 20 watt Stagg amp (CA-20B or something) which I got as well. // 6
Sound: I got this as a first bass to learn and practice on, mostly intending to play rock and some funk. When using it with the amp that came with it you could get vary little tone variety, the single knob on the bass pretty much gave you control over the amount of treble and the amp had only a basic equalizer which only gave you a dull sound with little volume or tone. You only got a very flat sound with no real presence and I had to upgrade the amp within 6 months. Now I am using it with a Roland Cube-30 which makes up for the lack of sound quality significantly but still doesn’t give you the tone you’d get from a better quality bass. The pickups also pick up a lot of unwanted feedback which can be very irritating when working at high volumes. // 4
Action, Fit & Finish: The action was far too low when I got the guitar, since then I have had to make adjustments to the bridge but I still can’t raise it enough and there is a lot of fret buzz. The tuners easily slip while you’re playing and something on them buzzes when you play, as did the pickups when I got it: they were ridiculously loose. I have since tightened them and that is no longer a problem. It is very poorly finished, when you take off the back you see how cheaply manufactured it is: a poorly cut hole with burn marks (from a soldering iron) and thick lumps of varnish, paint and glue. The nut isn’t well cut for the strings, occasionally buzzing, and it had a very sharp edge, which seems like a minor thing but if you were to slide down towards the bottom of the fret board several times in a session your finger would end up raw. That at least was easy enough to be sanded, but you would still expect it to come out of the factory with a better finish. // 4
Reliability & Durability: I wouldn’t use this guitar for anything much more than practicing. And it sometimes gives me problems even for that. The input jack has a really bad connection even when I have fiddled with it/bent it into shape. It doesn’t help that all of the electronics are really badly soldered, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are bad connections elsewhere as well. The finish in easily scored (as in that your finger brushing it as you play can leave permanent marks). Despite that I think it is fairly well bolted together, my bass amp fell on the neck and surprisingly only the amp was damaged. It stood up to that better than its electronics have to a bit of use. // 5
Impression: I have had this bass for a year or so now, and it has done what I wanted it for: I have been able to learn on it and play with mates and it didn’t cost me too much. If I were to lose it now though I would not get it again. It is very much a beginner’s bass but I must admit I like not having to care so much now about taking care of it. I still feel Stagg could have just done a few simple things to improve it before it left the factory but I guess you get what you pay for. In short, if you are looking for a first bass, it does the job for the price, but if you can hold on and save up your pennies for a while you would be better off getting something more expensive and better built. // 6
/ my profile 
Was this review helpful to you? 
)