Eastwood basses ?????

[mike 110]

Anybody have any experience of these , I really like the look of the Newport Bass ...

[Cat Burrito]

I own both an EEB-1 and a Flying V. Both are really good instruments and I am not feeling the need to add "for the money". Tonally the sound great, they are well made and look cool. I like the vibe of the company and a lot of their range appeals.

The only downside is that away from the big hitters like Fender, there is not much resale value if you decide to sell them on.

[Bassassin]

The other school of thought is that Eastwood are overpriced dodgy knock-off merchants.

[borntohang]

Great guys and we've been using their stuff for about a year now: Map Bass, Airline 3P and Rivolta Mondata in the band. We do have a casual non-endorsement relationship with them so feel free to take this whole post with salt to taste, but I'm happy with the quality on all the stuff we got and none of it was special order or anything. Wouldn't be using or defending it otherwise.

General thoughts on the Map Bass are that it's incredibly heavy but also possibly the deepest bass I've ever played. Get a lot of other players asking if I'm using a sub octave or something but it's just a very strong fundamental and a lot of output and low end. In fact there's so much low end that I struggled a bit to start with but after lowering the pickups it's now got a nice vintage growl to it. Still very high output and I have to severely rein the gain in on my pedals to keep it clean.

We went up to the demo day they did last year with most of the range in and I was impressed with all the higher end stuff. Lot of nice decorative touches across the range that you wouldn't find on a Fender of similar price but the lower stuff definitely felt like it could do with a setup. They're very interesting guitars and get a lot of attention - lots of other players and audience members asking what they are.

[mike 110]

I like the look of the Newport and have a bit of gas for a short scale again ..I did have an SG Bass and really liked the neck humbucker sound ....

[JohnDaBass]

15 hours ago, mike 110 said:

I like the look of the Newport and have a bit of gas for a short scale again ..I did have an SG Bass and really liked the neck humbucker sound ....

+1

They really do look the part. 

[Cosmo Valdemar]

I've never played one but I love the look of them. In particular the Newport and the Saturn.

The Ampeg-inspired bass would be a winner but the lack of scroll headstock is a bit disappointing. I imagine it would cost a lot to produce though.

[knirirr]

19 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

 

The Ampeg-inspired bass would be a winner but the lack of scroll headstock is a bit disappointing. I imagine it would cost a lot to produce though.

Also, from what I can tell the Eastwood one has a solid body and the Ampegs were hollow or semi-hollow (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken).

I asked Eastwood a couple of times for some more information on this bass, esp. details of what markers are on the neck, but they never got back to me so I bought something else.

[BigRedX]

On the whole Eastwood are pretty poor with supplying information. Even on their web chat, when I was looking at their various Bass VIs much of what I was told contradicted what was on the site.

[Happy Jack]

On 22/04/2019 at 10:33, JohnDaBass said:

+1

They really do look the past. 

Fixed.

 

[stewblack]

They do look great don't they? The EEB in particular 

 

[BigRedX]

7 hours ago, stewblack said:

They do look great don't they? The EEB in particular 

But most of the time they are only superficially like the instruments they are supposed to be copying. The Japanese in the 70s were more accurate.

This is the problem I have with Eastwood. If you want a decently made modern instrument that looks vaguely like something out of the ordinary from the 60s and 70s they do a pretty good job. However since they are mostly made with standard Gibson and Fender style parts you end up with an instrument that is essentially a standard Gibson or Fender with a different body shape, and none of the features that gave the original instrument Eastwood are trying to copy its real character.

[borntohang]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

But most of the time they are only superficially like the instruments they are supposed to be copying. The Japanese in the 70s were more accurate.

This is the problem I have with Eastwood. If you want a decently made modern instrument that looks vaguely like something out of the ordinary from the 60s and 70s they do a pretty good job. However since they are mostly made with standard Gibson and Fender style parts you end up with an instrument that is essentially a standard Gibson or Fender with a different body shape, and none of the features that gave the original instrument Eastwood are trying to copy its real character.

Hard to argue otherwise, but I think they're mostly limited by the availability of OEM hardware. If they were wanting to get original reproductions of some of the more niche stuff then the cost would skyrocket at the kind of run numbers they do.

I will say the pickups they use on the Airline guitars are superb - humbucker covers but they're actually some kind of single-coil underneath with a real bite and punch to them. A lot louder than my P90s and I wouldn't have guessed they were single-coils in my '59 at all until I spoke to them at the open day. I don't think they sell them individually or I'd have them in a few more of my other guitars!

[basshead56]

I like the few I have tried.

 

I would sell my soul for an Eastwood Rocket Bass

[NancyJohnson]

A while back I started a thread about trying to get Eastwood Custom to build us a Basschat bass...only design criteria was to avoid the usuals (P/J etc) or lifting designs from currently available models available new elsewhere; the ethic was to create something sparkly/odd/different.

Eastwood were pretty accommodating; good comms, low build numbers, reasonable pricing etc., but needless to say the chance of doing something original went out the window as members saw this as more of an opportunity to obtain a cheap Serek copy with loads of mods, rather than entering into the spirit of the project and getting behind something that say, looked like it could have been on an episode of The Jetsons, which is pretty much what Eastwood do.

[Bassassin]

That's a bit unfair, @NancyJohnson - there were various different suggestions, many of which were exactly the sort of thing that Eastwood knock off make, and the Serek-alike was pretty much killed off on page 1:

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/328839-eastwood-custom-basschat-edition-bass/

I still like the idea, and in theory might be up for it - it's inevitably going to be  hard to find a consensus though. Clearly one bassist's Nobbly Ned isn't going to be another's Hagstrom Coronado. Or Maton Ibis.

[pintspiller]

I tried a couple of guitars a number of years ago and thought they were cheap rubbish. Perhaps if they, or the dealer, had actually set them up, it would have been a different story.

They deffo look cool, but I won't be trying any of their basses if they are anything like those guitars.

[NancyJohnson]

On 29/04/2019 at 13:46, Bassassin said:

That's a bit unfair, @NancyJohnson - there were various different suggestions, many of which were exactly the sort of thing that Eastwood knock off make, and the Serek-alike was pretty much killed off on page 1:

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/328839-eastwood-custom-basschat-edition-bass/

I still like the idea, and in theory might be up for it - it's inevitably going to be  hard to find a consensus though. Clearly one bassist's Nobbly Ned isn't going to be another's Hagstrom Coronado. Or Maton Ibis.

I just had a read-through of that thread; I dunno, you try and propose something that might be fun and it just saddens me re-reading it how pointless an idea it was.

We could collectively have done something fun with the concept, but reading back at some of the replies just gets my heckles up and I wonder why I bothered.  Eastwood were well on board too.

[bartelby]

8 hours ago, pintspiller said:

I tried a couple of guitars a number of years ago and thought they were cheap rubbish. Perhaps if they, or the dealer, had actually set them up, it would have been a different story.

They deffo look cool, but I won't be trying any of their basses if they are anything like those guitars.

The Warren Ellis series stuff is meant to be very good. Niche market, but good products.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

12 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I just had a read-through of that thread; I dunno, you try and propose something that might be fun and it just saddens me re-reading it how pointless an idea it was.

We could collectively have done something fun with the concept, but reading back at some of the replies just gets my heckles up and I wonder why I bothered.  Eastwood were well on board too.

I don't remember the thread coming to a definite end - has it been scrapped? I thought there were some nice ideas being thrown around. 

[NancyJohnson]

5 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I don't remember the thread coming to a definite end - has it been scrapped? I thought there were some nice ideas being thrown around. 

I just lost the will to live, to be honest.