Fleabass Street Bass Funky colours help to elevate the Street Bass above the generic clone-like feel of a typical budget priced bass…
Equally suitable for novices or more experienced bassists, the Street Bass rocks!
controls. The heavy-duty chrome plated bridge is worthy of a special mention, it feels very high quality for such an otherwise low budget instrument and seems more than up to the job. It is also great to see that the bridge allows stringing through the body for higher tension feel or through the bridge itself for a slightly looser feel or for those looking to use flat wound strings that tend to break when strung through the body. The general standard of fit and finish is high, the one thing that sets this guitar apart is that it has been very well set-up. I was surprised at just how well this thing played straight out of the box. Action was fairly low and didn’t buzz unless you really knocked
seven shades of funk out of it! The intonation was also spot-on; with a well cut top nut and the Street Bass therefore scores big points here! If there was one aspect that disappointed slightly was that the neck pocket was a little big leaving a tiny (less than 1mm) gap on the bass side of the neck. However, this in no way affects the performance of the bass and does nothing to reduce structural integrity. It should probably be taken as a compliment that for a bass at this price this is the only criticism that I could come up with!
The mighty Flea Played acoustically, the Street Bass sounds very lively and certainly
louder than any other solid body bass I had to hand. It normally follows that a bass that performs well acoustically normally does the business when plugged in and the Street Bass is no exception. Through an amp the Street Bass exhibits a
similar upfront, bright sound. The simple control layout is probably advantageous to most players and has allowed Fleabass to make the most of itself rather than adding more pickups, extra controls and their attendant complexity. For the beginner, the Street Bass’s simple set up allows the new player to hit the ground running without struggling with the controls to get a good sound. The sensible placement of the single humbucking pickup itself also reflects some thought has gone into this bass because the pickup’s location also provides an excellently positioned thumb rest! The passive tone control does what you’d expect, gently rolling off the upper frequencies and tonally, this bass sounds more than a little along Music Man lines by virtue of a bright and slightly toppy sound that lends itself perfectly to finger style funk and slapping techniques, which is entirely appropriate taking into account the Flea connection. However, don’t think this Fleabass is a one trick pony: A very modern rock sound is available to players that like to use a pick whilst those who are looking for something more mellow will probably find the Street Bass is also very responsive to where you play the string, ergo playing towards the neck gives a much deeper tone for anyone venturing into Jazz, Dub or old school R&B. As I previously mentioned there is only one pickup and no fancy electronics to help you shape your sound but with the Street Bass this actually feels like a positive. This bass has plenty of natural dynamic range that encourages the player to experiment with different sounds, playing positions and techniques to achieve their desired sound. PM
SHOULD I BUY ONE?
It should be obvious by now that we really like the Street Bass. Personally speaking, when I first started playing I would have killed for a bass like this. One of the problems when you first start out is that you wouldn’t know a badly set-up instrument from a good one, even if it fell on you! It’s only later as you improve that you begin to appreciate the differences between a bad instrument and a good one As a novice, getting your hands on a bass like this that you can rely on (even if you don’t realise at the time) is an absolute boon. However, more experienced players out there shouldn’t write the Street Bass off as only suitable for beginners. It really is a great quality instrument and even if it wasn’t going to be my main bass I’d certainly have no qualms about gigging it and using it on a regular basis. Flea would appear to have put his reputation on the line with the Street Bass project but having now played one I can see why he did it. He really doesn’t have anything to worry about!
pickup427
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