Brice Ghost bass and GFS tone circuit mini-review

[Shocker]

So I bought one of those ghost basses when Rondo had 'em availible, and it arrived last Saturday. The Brice is a copy of the Gibson explorer bass, all black, originally came with a 2volume and 1 tone controls.

 

I took it to LA with me over the weekend and played with a friend, and really liked the tone from it. Very smooth, with nice growl when I tweaked the upper mids. I am not sure how heavy the output is (probably fairly low), but a new set of pickups would change that. The pickups are soapbar style humbuckers and are very quiet.

 

The build quality? You know how these things are built. Very solid, set neck, great action. Plastic nut I'll probably replace. The bridge, though, seems very solid. I was surprised. I didn't take it out, but it is much more substantial than I thought it'd be. The saddles I may replace, but that's obviously a lot cheaper than replacing the whole bridge. The tuners are pretty nice and smooth, no-named brand, though.

 

I got this to be a project (though a playing) bass. I decided on GFS's new tone circuit, which gives you a very simple Treble/Mid/Bass control. In a guitar, you can use the fourth pot, the gain pot, to either be an on-board distortion circuit, or, as I used it here, in low impedance mode as a volume pot. To round it all out, I installed a low impedance (50k) blend pot as a pickup selector.

 

It sounds very good for my purposes, and the tone circuit works like a charm. Each pot for the circuit has a center detent so that you can flat 'em all, and tweak at the amp, or tweak the amp and dial in additional gain on whatever frequency on the bass. I like it very much - in combination with the humbuckers and the low impedance circuitry, everything is dead quiet.

 

The GFS circuit was $60, I believe, with an additional $7 pot. The bass itself was $159. All in all a very good deal.

 

 

//S

[Texas Noise Factory]

looks really nice man! now, that's a great deal!

 

post some samples if you can!!!!

[Shocker]

Thanks. I'll see about posting a clip. I usually play bass behind someone or practice scales/arpeggios, etc. (some stuff from songs). What should I play in a clip?

 

//S

[narcolepticbass]

I gigged with mine tonight. It's output is a little weaker than my Grabber, but man, it's got a low, meaty growl reminiscent of a Warwick. I was expecting mud from having the neck pup so close to the neck, but it grunts.

[Shocker]

Originally posted by narcolepticbass I gigged with mine tonight. It's output is a little weaker than my Grabber, but man, it's got a low, meaty growl reminiscent of a Warwick. I was expecting mud from having the neck pup so close to the neck, but it grunts.

Don't forget that it looks friggin' badass too. What kind of music do you play?

 

//S

[narcolepticbass]

We play pop/hard rock. Some songs are kinda ballady, some are borderline metal. It's what happens when everyone's got a wide range of influences, lol. Check out our Myspace site at http://www.myspace.com/parallex to hear our newest recordings.

 

if you do a clip, you should put the intro bassline of "The Distance" by Live in it. It's a killer bassline. or "Pain Lies on the Riverside"

[Shocker]

Originally posted by narcolepticbass We play pop/hard rock. Some songs are kinda ballady, some are borderline metal. It's what happens when everyone's got a wide range of influences, lol. Check out our Myspace site at http://www.myspace.com/parallex to hear our newest recordings. if you do a clip, you should put the intro bassline of "The Distance" by Live in it. It's a killer bassline. or "Pain Lies on the Riverside"

Very nice clips. I enjoyed 'em. Question- The Distance, are you talking about the Cake song or a Live song? If its's the latter, I've never heard it before.

 

I "learned" the bass part to The Trooper last night on a whim; fun song to play. I kind of regularly rotate between stuff like Tool's Schism, The Strokes' Trying Your Luck, or Seven Mary Three's Cumbersome. I am trying to tighten up my playing.

 

As I'm typing this, I'm listening to your 3rd song on Myspace, and loving your bass tone. What did you use to record that?

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, the same day this bass came in, this did too:

 

And I've been playing this bass far far more.

 

 

//S

[narcolepticbass]

Originally posted by Shocker Very nice clips. I enjoyed 'em. Question- The Distance, are you talking about the Cake song or a Live song? If its's the latter, I've never heard it before.

Thanks! glad you liked the tunes.

I meant the Live version. It's on "The Distance to Here". Pretty catchy grooving bassline.

 

As I'm typing this, I'm listening to your 3rd song on Myspace, and loving your bass tone. What did you use to record that?

I recorded "Get Out of Me"(and also "Summer" and "Not Tonight") in the studio with my "El Nino" bass(Fender and Allparts parts with Bartolini electronics assembled by Nino Valenti http://www.valentibasses.com)

That went into my SABDDI and then into the board.

 

The version of "What's Real" that's on there is a demo that we recorded in my guitarist's bedroom using a drum machine since we couldn't record drums. It's going to be recorded in the studio for our second album.