Cort Elrick Josh Paul 5 string

[Bigwan]

Has anyone here ever tried a Cort Josh Paul sig? Based on an Elrick design. I've never seen one in the UK. Anyone know where I could find one?

[Gwilym]

[quote name='Bigwan' post='46412' date='Aug 16 2007, 01:24 PM']Has anyone here ever tried a Cort Josh Paul sig? Based on an Elrick design. I've never seen one in the UK. Anyone know where I could find one?[/quote]

hi Bigwan
I played one, maybe a couple of years ago now. It was a five string version in the shade of absinthe green. It was in a guitar shop in Bangor, North Wales (doubt it's still there!). I was quite surprised to see it, as I didn't think at the time that they were available over here either. I had serious GAS for an Elrick at the time (which subsided before I did anything drastic), so it was nice to try it out just to get a taste
From memory here's what I thought about it:
i) Fit and finish appeared to be good.
ii) In true guitar shop fashion, it was very averagely set up, and fairly dead strings.
iii) The pups (EMG Hz I think?) and electronics weren't great, and I'm sure the bass would benefit greatly from an upgrade.
iv) At £750, it probably was over-priced, and I'm sure you would get better value for money at that price elsewhere. Especially given what you can pick up for £750 second hand. In fact importing it new from the US would have been cheaper.
v) Tone wise, I thought it wasn't as "modern" as the looks might have suggested, or as I expected.
vi) It was green. (I much prefer the natural ones).

Not a glowing review perhaps, but it can't have been too bad cos I spent about 20mins playing it. If it had been a dog, it would have been back on the stand quicker than you could say "Cort Elrick Josh Paul 5 string".

If I saw one cheap-ish I'd certainly consider it, even if it was just to try it out over a long period, cos I still really like the Elick look, but wouldn't want to splash out on the real thing. I did consider getting one from the US for a time, as you could pick them up new on ebay for around the $500 mark, but ultimately my GAS wasn't strong enough to see it through.

Hope that helps a little bit
cheers
G

[Bigwan]

Cheers G. I was always confused why there weren't more of these basses around, especially considering the impact the Curbow version made - they seem to be everywhere!

There a JP5 on Talkbass at the minute for $600. I'll maybe think about it...