I got this bass mostly out of curiosity. I mean, how is it even possible to sell a decent bass at this price? I wasn't expecting much to be honest.
First impressions were poor. The bass was extremely poorly set up. It had by far the worst setup I have ever encountered in my 25 years as a bass player. The action was sky high (over 1cm at the 12th fret) even though the truss rod was tightened too hard, creating a slight back bow.
Both pots were completely loose. When I turned the knobs the pots followed, obviously at the risk of breaking connections/wires inside the bass. The jack input was also loose. After a relatively short period of use one of the pots even failed completely and had to be replaced.
The pickup height was set incorrectly. Both coils were set completely flat rather than angled to follow the fretboard radius as they should on a P-bass. The routing for the pickup is also slightly too deep, making it difficult to raise the pickup to a normal height because the screws aren't long enough (and they are actually standard Fender size, unlike practically anything else on this bass).
The stock strings are the worst bass strings I've ever tried. And this is not just a matter of personal preference. These strings do not have the magnetic properties to create an acceptable output signal. I changed to a set of cheap Rotosound Rotobass and the output got about ten times louder. If you get this bass, get rid of the stock strings ASAP. They are complete and utter garbage! They shouldn't even be called strings but pieces of scrap metal. How Thomann can sell this junk is beyond me.
The tuning machines feel like they've got gravel in them. One of them had so much play in the mechanism that if I tuned down and then back up again I had to do 2-3 turns before it starts responding. It more or less failed shortly after. Currently the bass is not functional because of this and it doesn't seem worth the cost to buy new tuners for this cheap, poor quality instrument.
The pickguard is not precisely cut. It is too tight around the neck heel and because of this it's bulging slightly upwards. It has cut into the finish on the side of the neck and the black layer of the pickguard has also discolored the finish there. The pickguard is also very thin, cheap quality that bulges outwards when unplugging the jack. When it eventually breaks (and it will) you can't even use a standard Fender replacement because they are not the same size.
The screws securing the bridge weren't tightened properly. This caused a very tiny gap between the bridge and the body. Hardly noticable if it hadn't created a weird sympathetic ringing at some notes. Fastening the screws solved this problem but the screws were the cheapest kind, made of soft metal. I just barely managed to fasten then without stripping the heads. I hope I will never need to touch these screws again because that will be the end of them.
I really tried to make this bass work. I changed the strings, loosened the truss rod (almost half a turn), lowered the bridge saddles, adjusted the intonation, fastened the pots, adjusted the pickup height, replaced the faulty pot. The action still wasn't nearly as low as I'd like though and the saddles couldn't go any lower.
I ended up having to shim the neck a LOT to get acceptable action (it's still not as low as Fender spec though). The poorly cut pickguard turned out to be a problem when removing the neck to shim it. The finish around the neck pocket chipped because of this.
After all this work the bass still had some fretbuzz so I had to do some minor fret levelling to make it ok. Now the bass plays ok but all the low quality part still lets it down.
Also be aware that the neck is extremely chunky. It's no wider than a standard "modern" P-bass but a LOT thicker front to back. The fingerboard profile is quite flat. I'm guessing around 12". I'm not a big fan of flatter fingerboards on chunky necks but that's just my personal preference. Still, I think it's a bit strange that Thomann choose such a chunky neck for an instrument in this price range. It's not suitable for small hands so not a great choice for children.
The pickup is just a cheap ceramic type. It's not particularly great but it does the job. Practically anything would be an upgrade.
I honestly can not recommend this bass for anyone (except possibly if you're just looking for a cheap piece of junk to practise fret jobs, etc.). The craftsmanship and setup is horrible. The quality of the parts is very poor and the parts aren't even standard Fender sizes so modding/upgrading will require a lot more effort than it's worth.
I would rather throw my money out the window than buy this bass again. If they had at least used standard Fender dimensions I might have given it two stars as an ultra cheap mod project but this is just a complete waste of time and money.
