Lace Helix

[ricksterphil]

This is an unusual one

Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252885976382

[Bassassin]

I have the through-neck version:

[sharedmedia=core:attachments:46079]

Not for traditionalists and very marmite. I find it extremely well-balanced and it's very light. The Lace pickups are practically noiseless (which is the idea) but the downside is that the output's very low. The neck on mine's a bit of a baseball bat too - P width and very chunky - I tend to prefer J type dimensions and if mine was a bit slimmer I'd probably use it more.

Description is a bit disingenuous - it's not a "hand-made prototype" (mine's Chinese & No 0008!) and the list price for the bolt-neck single pup version is [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lace-Helix-4-String-Bass-Guitar-in-Black-or-Blue-with-an-Alumitone-Bass-Pickup-/292073390172"]around £500[/url], not a grand. Still a cool bass & would be OK for the £300 start price.

[leroydiamond]

Had one. Total rubish bass IMO.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='leroydiamond' timestamp='1493416825' post='3288269']
Had one. Total rubish bass IMO.
[/quote]

In what way? Genuinely interested, mine is, like I said, certainly marmite, but not rubish (sic) in any way. It's well constructed, plays nicely (although I did have to give it a proper setup) and sounds pretty decent when you give it some welly.

Obviously it looks weird - but you must have liked the aesthetics or you wouldn't have had one in the first place, surely!

[leroydiamond]

Nothing to do with the aesthetics. Some years back, I needed a light bass due to a shoulder problem and pulled the trigger on a 4 string one of these.
The Neck was a total baseball bat. I contacted Lace to ask about the thinking behind the neck dimensions. Well it turned out that Lace were using the exact same neck dimensions for both their 4 and 5 string basses. I reckon that must be a first in bass guitar design.
The neck on mine was very unstable and correct intonation impossible. Could not get the action as low as I needed and fret buzz was an issue even with the action set relatively high.
So in my case the instrument was unplayable. I have been through quite a number of basses through the years, but this model stands out as easily the worst IME

[Bassassin]

Ta for the response. The neck on mine's a fatty, alright but just feels like a chunky P neck, measures 42mm at the nut. Maybe using the same neck for 4 & 5 versions only applies to bolt-necks - BigRedX's fretless 5 is way wider than mine:

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/21194-lace-helix/"]http://basschat.co.u...194-lace-helix/[/url]

MIne did take a fair amount of work to make it play the way I wanted - if I'd paid list price for it (£799 at the time) I would've been pretty hacked off at the standard of setup & some of the finishing. As it was I got mine for about £200 off a guy who didn't actually play, he'd just wanted a cool-looking "guitar" for his flat!