Here's a once over of my new Saint bass by Ashdown.
Quick, and odd, back story to this. Ashdown showed this bass on their Facebook photos of their Christmas open weekend. It was stated as being a prototype of a new short scale for release in April. The prototypes used for that weekend were for sale through Reverb for the very good price of £299, compared to the usual pricing of their basses at around £850.
Trigger pulled.
The bass I received is definitely the one in their Facebook picture as there are a few tell tale things which together are too much of a coincidence to be another bass. This one is 34" scale, not a shorty.
Now I must stress that the advert didn't specify a scale length, I just put the facebook comments by Mark Gooday together with the Reverb listing. We'll see if the new release in April is shortscale or not.
This would appear to be a standard 'The Saint' bass in a new colour.
No problem, I like 34".🙂
I must also stress that this was sold as a prototype bass so any issues I've found can't really be held against Ashdown, but if it was used as a demo at their open day I'd have thought they'd want their best on display and this one looks like it was rushed to be finished. And like I say, I'm convinced this is the bass as there are tell tale marks on it that are also on the one pictured at the open day.
So the bass. It's a bass of two halves, good and bad, and hopefully the bad is down to being a prototype/demo.
The colour is fantastic, metallic shell pink, kind of a pearlescent silver shimmer to it in the light and a nice amount of sparkle, really nice. As is the finish itself.
The neck is also lovely. Smooth satin roasted maple neck and fretboard. 40mm nut which is cut and fitted nicely, no sharp edges. Slim neck profile and well finished frets, again no sharp edges. It plays really well. The neck pocket is nice and tight although the paint edges there could be better, but I am being fussy.
Headstock logo looks great under the lacquer.
Now the not quite so good, the pickguard is fairly rough around the edges, the curves are a bit like a 50 pence piece, but I'll whip it off and smooth them out.
I'm assuming the cavities are shielded with the black carbon paint as I can see it all around the edge of the control cavity cover, again just needs a tidy up.
The control pots are loose, particularly the bridge PU one, just winds itself up on the wires inside, but it has been used by allsorts at the open day, but still. The tuner ferrules aren't pressed in properly, particularly the D which is sticking out 3 or 4mm. Again is it's a prototype/demo but they don't just slide out over a few days.
The proper Saints have Hipshot Ultralite tuners but mine is fairly generic open gear Fender-a-likes, quite possibly Wilkinson as the bridge is Wilkinson as well, quite possibly the pickups too.
The pickups are fairly bland, nothing really wrong with them but nothing outstanding.
The tone control is terrible, all your adjustment is in the first 5% of the sweep, after that it's just wide open, may as well be an on/off switch, volumes seem better but they're spinning on their fixings so it's hard to tell.
So overall, I do like it, I don't mind sorting a few niggles, which is all they are. The actual bass itself is great, just the putting it together seems rushed. But, I like it for the price I paid. If I'd paid full price I be bitterly disappointed.
But again I must stress this may not be representative of a proper one, who knows? I do know though, I'd have had my best example at an open day, not this one.
With an hour or twos work this will be a lovely bass but I'm not sure it's any better quality than a good Harley Benton. It's an odd one really as I'm not a sure who they're aimed at. I love Ashdown amps but I'm confused by their basses.
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