Lace Helix

[BigRedX]

Here's a Weird and Wonderful review.

Having tried and been impressed by the Lace Helix prototypes at the LGS last year and then seen the new models in the TB NAMM thread, I jumped at the chance to acquire one of the new fretless 5-strings when it came up on eBay a few weeks ago. After a bit of a mix-up with the shipping and then the long wait for USPS and ParcelForce to do their thing, I finally got this last week and have been waiting for some decent light in order to get some good photographs.



The shape is very comfortable and unlike some posters on TalkBass I had no balance problems with mine at all either seated or on the strap. 34" scale length with about 22 'frets'. Upper register access could have been a little better, but unlike a Fender P or J I have no problem reaching the octave D on the G-string.





What you don't really see it any of the photos on the Lace web site is the amazing countouring on the body, both on the front and the back. I've only seen this kind on body sculpting where the neck and body join on some Atlansia basses where it's simply functional to give the fingerboard/neck enough depth to act as a thumb rest. On this bass it's part of the design reflecting the shark's fin shape of the upper cutaway. Functional and pleasing to look at too. Helix basses are available with bolt-on necks or neck through. I like the look of the bolt-on slightly better, but the 5-string fretless is only available in neck through and the natural finish of this one looks right.

Pickups are two Lace Alumitones. These are very interesting pickups both in concept and design. Instead of lots of wire wrapped around the magnetic poles, the Alumitones 'windings' are the chromed part of the pickup which pass just three times under the strings around two magnets - the darker areas. Basically what you can see is all of the pickup as it's completely hollow with just a small secondary hum-cancelling coil underneath. There's more details about the construction of the Alumitone pickups available [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI8sMJVjHrY"]here[/url]. The sound is very open and clean with more clarity and detail in the bass than most other pickup designs. Interestingly the pickups seem to be quite fussy about the inputs they are connected to. Plugged directly into an amp or my Bass Pod the output is a little down in comparison, however the pickups are not very happy driving some pedals or the line-level inputs on my mixer and the Helix sounds very quiet in these situations compared with all my other basses. Originally I wondered if there was a problem with the passive controls, but even connecting one of the pickups directly to the output jack made no difference to the output levels.



Controls are volume, volume and tone. Unusual knobs... I'm not sure whether I totally like the look with the natural finish of the body - they do look good on the solid colour bodies. However there's no denying that ergonomically they're very easy to use as they're big and grippy so mid song adjustments are much simpler. Also they all do something useful and in particular the two volume controls are very smooth for a passive bass.
Not so ergonomic is the bridge. I've noticed a trend with bridge designs recently that are over-complicated and although this one is suitably massive and well made offering lots of adjustment possibilities, actually making those adjustments is far too difficult. For those of you looking for the output jack, it's a Strat-type socket mounted on the control cavity cover at the back. For me that's not a problem - it did take a little while to get used to the angle that the plug need to be at in order to plug it in, but for someone of more generous body proportions it may not be the ideal location.

The neck is a little narrower than normal, 9mm string spacing at the nut and 18mm at the bridge. The shape is good and it's nicely sculpted into the body with an almost heel-less joint. However the edges of the fingerboard could have done with being rolled. They are quite noticeably sharp which is a pity since the rest of the neck feels very good. Not so good is the finish around the nut and at the body end of the fingerboard it's a bit more scruffy than it should be. Also not so good is the dot markings on the fingerboard side which are in the fretted positions between where the frets would be rather than on the fret positions as they should be for a fretless bass.



The bass comes with a rather funky looking gig bag shaped to fit the body and with a nifty touch that I've not seen before - a velcro strap that goes around the neck to hold the bass in position as you open the bag. It was also supplied with an allen key for the truss rod, but not one for the bridge screws and what is probably the most horrible moulded jack lead I've come across for some time.

I like the quirky sculpted shape. It balances well and is light and comfortable on the strap. The neck feels good apart from the unrolled fingerboard edges. The sound of the Alumitone pickups is clean and detailed and the passive controls give useful changes to the tone.

I'm not so impressed with the slightly low output and the fact that this bass does not seem to be particularly happy driving anything other than a standard amp/pre-amp input. There's the sloppy finishing around the nut and at the body end of the fingerboard. Lace really need to cut the nut slots deeper and to change the dot positions on the fretless models.

As supplied it needs a proper set-up which I'll be doing when I re-string it as I'm planning to have this one tuned E-C rather than the more traditional B-G as supplied. The B string is actually pretty good, but I don't really need it for my fretless lines and for me a high C will be much more useful. I'll probably at the same time take the sharpness off the fingerboard edges and if I can find a simple way of doing it move the side dots so that they are on the 'fretlines' where they should be.

Overall at a list price of $999.99 it's good but not really exceptional value. However this one (which was new) cost £360 including shipping and customs and at that price for something a bit different I can't really complain.

[BigJim]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='215082' date='Jun 8 2008, 08:29 PM']Here's a Weird and Wonderful review.

Having tried and been impressed by the Lace Helix prototypes at the LGS last year and then seen the new models in the TB NAMM thread, I jumped at the chance to acquire one of the new fretless 5-strings when it came up on eBay a few weeks ago. After a bit of a mix-up with the shipping and then the long wait for USPS and ParcelForce to do their thing, I finally got this last week and have been waiting for some decent light in order to get some good photographs.



The shape is very comfortable and unlike some posters on TalkBass I had no balance problems with mine at all either seated or on the strap. 34" scale length with about 22 'frets'. Upper register access could have been a little better, but unlike a Fender P or J I have no problem reaching the octave D on the G-string.





What you don't really see it any of the photos on the Lace web site is the amazing countouring on the body, both on the front and the back. I've only seen this kind on body sculpting where the neck and body join on some Atlansia basses where it's simply functional to give the fingerboard/neck enough depth to act as a thumb rest. On this bass it's part of the design reflecting the shark's fin shape of the upper cutaway. Functional and pleasing to look at too. Helix basses are available with bolt-on necks or neck through. I like the look of the bolt-on slightly better, but the 5-string fretless is only available in neck through and the natural finish of this one looks right.

Pickups are two Lace Alumitones. These are very interesting pickups both in concept and design. Instead of lots of wire wrapped around the magnetic poles, the Alumitones 'windings' are the chromed part of the pickup which pass just three times under the strings around two magnets - the darker areas. Basically what you can see is all of the pickup as it's completely hollow with just a small secondary hum-cancelling coil underneath. There's more details about the construction of the Alumitone pickups available [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI8sMJVjHrY"]here[/url]. The sound is very open and clean with more clarity and detail in the bass than most other pickup designs. Interestingly the pickups seem to be quite fussy about the inputs they are connected to. Plugged directly into an amp or my Bass Pod the output is a little down in comparison, however the pickups are not very happy driving some pedals or the line-level inputs on my mixer and the Helix sounds very quiet in these situations compared with all my other basses. Originally I wondered if there was a problem with the passive controls, but even connecting one of the pickups directly to the output jack made no difference to the output levels.



Controls are volume, volume and tone. Unusual knobs... I'm not sure whether I totally like the look with the natural finish of the body - they do look good on the solid colour bodies. However there's no denying that ergonomically they're very easy to use as they're big and grippy so mid song adjustments are much simpler. Also they all do something useful and in particular the two volume controls are very smooth for a passive bass.
Not so ergonomic is the bridge. I've noticed a trend with bridge designs recently that are over-complicated and although this one is suitably massive and well made offering lots of adjustment possibilities, actually making those adjustments is far too difficult. For those of you looking for the output jack, it's a Strat-type socket mounted on the control cavity cover at the back. For me that's not a problem - it did take a little while to get used to the angle that the plug need to be at in order to plug it in, but for someone of more generous body proportions it may not be the ideal location.

The neck is a little narrower than normal, 9mm string spacing at the nut and 18mm at the bridge. The shape is good and it's nicely sculpted into the body with an almost heel-less joint. However the edges of the fingerboard could have done with being rolled. They are quite noticeably sharp which is a pity since the rest of the neck feels very good. Not so good is the finish around the nut and at the body end of the fingerboard it's a bit more scruffy than it should be. Also not so good is the dot markings on the fingerboard side which are in the fretted positions between where the frets would be rather than on the fret positions as they should be for a fretless bass.



The bass comes with a rather funky looking gig bag shaped to fit the body and with a nifty touch that I've not seen before - a velcro strap that goes around the neck to hold the bass in position as you open the bag. It was also supplied with an allen key for the truss rod, but not one for the bridge screws and what is probably the most horrible moulded jack lead I've come across for some time.

I like the quirky sculpted shape. It balances well and is light and comfortable on the strap. The neck feels good apart from the unrolled fingerboard edges. The sound of the Alumitone pickups is clean and detailed and the passive controls give useful changes to the tone.

I'm not so impressed with the slightly low output and the fact that this bass does not seem to be particularly happy driving anything other than a standard amp/pre-amp input. There's the sloppy finishing around the nut and at the body end of the fingerboard. Lace really need to cut the nut slots deeper and to change the dot positions on the fretless models.

As supplied it needs a proper set-up which I'll be doing when I re-string it as I'm planning to have this one tuned E-C rather than the more traditional B-G as supplied. The B string is actually pretty good, but I don't really need it for my fretless lines and for me a high C will be much more useful. I'll probably at the same time take the sharpness off the fingerboard edges and if I can find a simple way of doing it move the side dots so that they are on the 'fretlines' where they should be.

Overall at a list price of $999.99 it's good but not really exceptional value. However this one (which was new) cost £360 including shipping and customs and at that price for something a bit different I can't really complain.[/quote]


I own serial no1 and a matching white fretless 5. These are truly impeccable basses and are available through me!!!