Ltd B-208SM 8-string bass

[Max Normal]

Review model purchased August 2021 for £428.00

 

Fit and finish 4/5

Tone 4/5

Playability 5/5

Value for money 5/5

 

Introduction

 

Multicourse 8-string basses are a relatively rare beast and tend to attract a premium price for something you might not use every day, so you might be tempted to go for one of the lower priced offerings, but with perhaps some trepidation as to quality.

To add insult, comprehensive reviews for any of the multi-course basses that are on offer tend to be relatively non-existent, and those that are out there tend to dwell on the novelty of having 8 strings rather than the usefulness as an instrument for the specific bass being reviewed. I intend to put that right for at least one possible solution to your 8-string needs (or wants), introducing the Ltd B-208SM.

For those not in the know, Ltd are a lower-cost far-eastern subsidiary of ESP guitars, a company perhaps best known for producing higher-end pointy guitars aimed at the rock and metal market. Think Sterling to Musicman, Tribute to G&L or Squier to Fender (although comparing this to a Squier in terms of quality might be a little unfair to Ltd).

The bass being reviewed was purchased for £428.00 including UK VAT, with a fast and fantastically hassle-free post-Brexit transaction from Thomann in Germany, who handle payment of VAT, shipping and clearance without you having to do a thing, so it feels just like it did when we were still in the EU.  However, you’ll see these for sale for as much as £699.00 in the UK.

 

 

First impressions

 

It’s a good-looking bass which follows “modern” design cues. The body is made from 3 pieces of ash which are fairly well matched for grain and colour. The rear of the bass has a very modest tummy cut which still manages to take away the majority of discomfort but may not accommodate the larger beer belly quite so well as a Fender contour body. The body has a Gibson-esque carved top, which also serves as a modest forearm contour, and is finished off with a rather stunning spalted maple laminate which also has a fair bit of flame to it.

It has a Fender-style body shape, but is a little smaller than a standard Fender, with a lower cut-out well shaped to accommodate access to the highest frets on the 24 fret neck, and an upper bout which extends to above the 13^th fret to provide a comfortable playing position while minimising neck dive by sensible forward placement of the strap button.

The neck joint is set deep into the body and is firmly secured with six bolts set into individual ferrules rather than a traditional neck plate, and the body has a nice, rounded contour where the neck meets the body.

The neck itself is of 5-piece construction, made from maple with two attractive skunk stripes of jotoba that extend to the top of the headstock. The fretboard is also jotaba, which is a dense hardwood with properties reportedly somewhere between rosewood and ebony. Mine has an extremely tight grain and could easily be mistaken for ebony.  The fretboard jotoba is almost black as opposed to the reddish-brown skunk stripes, so there is some question as to whether it has been dyed, or if this is a natural variation in the colour of the wood.

The headstock is quite small considering that this is an 8-string bass, which can only be beneficial when countering neck dive that is always going to be a problem when you have so many tuners to deal with. The headstock is provided with another piece of spalted maple laminate to match the body.

Everything is finished off with a very thin satin finish which resembles an oil finish.

Although the body is a little smaller than a Fender, it feels quite satisfyingly solid and chunky and with fairly hard edges, not unlike a Les Paul. This is not a lightweight bass by any means, but this is perhaps needed to offset neck dive due to the weight of extra hardware at the headstock end. Mine weighs in at 4.4 kg.

The bass arrived with the action set high, the strings slack and the intonation not adjusted properly at all. The neck relief was set perfectly out of the box and did not change significantly when I tuned the bass up, so there is obviously a pretty heavy duty trussrod arrangement going on in there. After an hour or two of tweaking, I managed to get the bass playing very well with perfect intonation on all the strings and a nice low action.

Fit and finish is generally good, perhaps what you would expect from a slightly higher-end bass. The neck and bridge are perfectly aligned, the routing is neat and tidy.

However, there are a couple of very small niggles: You could get a cigarette paper down the front of the neck pocket either side of the neck, and one of the neck joint bolt ferrules is sitting slightly proud (about 0.5mm). Also, the area where the heel of the neck transitions into the neck profile could have been a little tidier.

 

 

Hardware

 

All of the hardware is finished with a kind of smoked gunmetal chrome which I rather like.

The hardware seems to be of pretty decent quality, with Gotoh-style enclosed bass and guitar tuners being used for the bass and octave strings respectively. The tuning feels smooth and accurate and tuning stability is excellent – none of the problems that I had with my old 12-string acoustic guitar at all, you can tune this up once at the start of a playing session, and you are good to go.  The side-mounted jack socket has a very satisfying and secure clunk when plugging in.

The bridge is a tune-o-matic style with individual saddles that allow intonation adjustment for each string, and this is something that you definitely DO need, and which should put this bass above some other offerings in a similar price range in your wishlist like the Hagstrom H8-II which does not. However, setting the intonation is a right pain with the intonation screws located in front of the bridge, so your screwdriver is hampered by the bridge pickup. Patience, a long narrow screwdriver of the correct size and something to protect the finish in case of slips is essential. Luckily, this is not something that you will need to repeat too often.

The bridge does not have individual saddle height adjustment for either the bass strings or the octave strings, however, the bridge saddles follow the 400mm radius of the neck, so if everything is setup properly this should not be a problem. Indeed, out of the box, I adjusted the action to 2.25 mm on the E string at the 12^th fret before any significant fret buzzing occurred, which should be low enough for most people.

The bridge and tailpiece are both cast metal, possibly aluminium, and look to be of decent quality. The height adjustment screws are plated the same as the rest of the hardware and feel hard and resistant to damage from a screwdriver, with a nice smooth action. The bridge is not affixed to the surface of the body like a normal tune-o-matic, it slots into a routing to allow lower action, which is very neat and so tight to the bridge as to be almost invisible.

I have read people expressing concern about a lack of individual height adjustment for the octave strings. This is NOT an issue on any 8-string bass that I can think of. As the bass strings have a larger diameter than the octave strings, your fingers will always come into contact with these first, so having a lower action for the octave strings is irrelevant unless you wish to use a highly modified setup and technique. In fact, in my opinion this would make the bass harder to play as you would struggle to feel the location of the octave strings when you fingered a note, not to mention more complicated to set up.

 

 

In use

 

The neck has a fast “Thin U” shaped profile which feels neither particularly thick nor thin to me. It’s certainly easy to play and not a “table leg” considering the extra tension that it has to deal with. Like the body, it’s finished off with what feels like a very thin satin lacquer or oil, nothing at all like the thick, sticky poly finishes you get on many budget far eastern guitars, giving an overall feel of quality to the instrument.

The frets are nicely dressed and there are no sharp edges or raised frets, which was an extremely welcome surprise in this price range. This is easily equal to something coming out of an expensive USA factory, and I found myself having to make no adjustments at all to the fretwork.

The fretboard has a shallow 400 mm radius which would seem suitable for a bass with multiple courses of strings.  Nut width is 45 mm, which is just a little more than a precision bass, and which makes the neck feel easy to play. It feels like the sweet spot between being so wide as to be cumbersome, and so narrow as to have problems fouling adjacent string courses which might be a problem on the Warwick Rockbass 8-string for example, which has a more Jazz-like nut width.  String spacing is a standard 18 mm from centre to centre of each course at the bridge.

There are two 4” EMG-style 5-string soap-bar pickups with the words “ESP designed” printed on them, while most real ESP basses would actually be found wearing EMGs.

For electronics, the bass is equipped with larger volume and blend knobs, and three smaller knobs to adjust the onboard 3-band active EQ, which is reversed in order – bass, middle, treble. All the knobs have a smooth action with a little turning resistance, and feel of high quality, like you’d expect from CTS for example. All of the knobs bar the volume also have a centre detent. The preamp is nice and quiet with no noticeable hiss.

There is no active/passive switching or mid sweep, so this is a simple setup to use, but you will need to bring a spare battery to gigs – and a screwdriver…. the battery cover is screwed on, which seems a poor decision considering the availability of modern clip-on battery covers.

In use, I found the pickups and preamp to be of low output, not much more than my Fralin-equipped passive jazz bass. The preamp is very practical in its range of adjustment, and it’s hard to find an unusable tone setting.

I have read comments where people, who perhaps confuse output with tone, have complained about the pickup/preamp combination, but I disagree. It reminds me somewhat of the low output transparent sound that you find on MEC equipped Warwick basses, which to me seems like a good choice where you have to differentiate between the bass and octave strings. The sound also manages to avoid being too jangly or treble biased, you can easily dial in enough bass to remind you that this is indeed a bass guitar.  I’m not aware of the precise range of the all-important mid-frequencies that have been chosen, but there is a nice clear hi-fi modern tone which avoids sounding overtly coloured by the preamp or at all honky or muddy.

Pickups and tone are of course highly subjective, but to put it into perspective, I have a set of 4” EMG-X pickups and an EMG preamp that I could drop straight into this bass, but I will not be doing so.

There is a little neck dive when sitting, and you find yourself naturally applying slight downwards pressure with your right forearm to counter this. However, I didn’t really notice this at all after a few minutes playing, so it’s not really a problem.  Standing using a 7 cm wide suede strap, there is no neck dive at all.

Overall, this bass sings nicely both with fingers and a pick, and it’s insanely fun to play – I can’t put it down and I’m finding a lot of inspiration in it. Not only do you get that nice clear octave sound when fingering notes, but you can strum it and play broken chords to great effect too.

 

 

Conclusion

 

This is my first Ltd bass, and I’m surprised that they don’t get more love on the forums.

Although this bass has been manufactured in Indonesia, it has clearly been very carefully designed by ESP to fulfil its function, and it does that very well. The fit, finish and playability are on the whole what you’d expect from a more expensive bass.

Add to that the additional provision of durable specialist hardware required for a usable 8-string bass, and this begins to put other “budget” offerings such as G&L Tribute, Sterling and Squier to shame.

I bought this bass because I needed it, and I will be taking it on the road with confidence. I also frequently modify my basses so that I can get the tone and playability that I need. Not so this bass, it will remain in its standard configuration.

Most players only play multi-course basses for a few songs in the set at least, or perhaps as something fun to play at home. In this case, I have to ask you, do you need anything more? Unless you intend to use an 8-string as your main instrument, or have cash to spare, I heartily recommend this one. It’s a usable instrument and in my opinion, very good value for money.

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Max Normal

[Witch Hazel]

10 minutes ago, Max Normal said:

This is my first Ltd bass, and I’m surprised that they don’t get more love on the forums.

 

i recently bought an Ltd B-205SM FL (5-string fretless), which, aside from the bridge, seems to be nearly identical in construction to yours, and i've been quite happy with it.  i'm not sure why they don't get talked about as much as other "budget" makes. 

 

i ended up shimming the neck slightly to lower the action, and there are some minor things i think could be improved - the battery compartment could be easier to access, the pickup output really is very low, and the bass is on the heavier side - but overall it seems like a good instrument for the price.

[Newfoundfreedom]

I've got the B-206SM.

 

It weighs about the same as a church, but I love it! 

 

Really slim neck and super easy to play for a 6er. 

[Max Normal]

19 hours ago, Witch Hazel said:

 

i recently bought an Ltd B-205SM FL (5-string fretless), which, aside from the bridge, seems to be nearly identical in construction to yours, and i've been quite happy with it.  i'm not sure why they don't get talked about as much as other "budget" makes. 

 

i ended up shimming the neck slightly to lower the action, and there are some minor things i think could be improved - the battery compartment could be easier to access, the pickup output really is very low, and the bass is on the heavier side - but overall it seems like a good instrument for the price.

The pre-amp does seem to affect the volume quite a lot. It's not ideal, but I find that you can get some boost by setting all 3 EQ knobs slightly higher than the centre detent.

[Richard R]

Thanks for posting such a comprehensive review.  I've never heard of an eight-string bass, or heard one.  When would you use one, and  are you able to post any sound clips?

[Bunion]

I had one years ago can’t even remember the brand, odd shaped thing a bit like an explorer. 
loved it but didn’t get that much use for it apart from a cover of Jeremy by Pearl Jam. 
Although Jeff ament used a 12 string the 8 gave a damn good impression. 
 

A 12 string bass gives this song it’s meat and potatoes as well as performing the opening bars 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Bunion

[Max Normal]

12 hours ago, Richard R said:

Thanks for posting such a comprehensive review.  I've never heard of an eight-string bass, or heard one.  When would you use one, and  are you able to post any sound clips?

Hi Richard,

 

I'll try and get round to it, but my guitarist has my recording equipment at the moment.  When would you use one? In a power trio situation usually. For example, John Paul Jones used one on the album "Presence". Examples would be the driving rhythm behind "Nobody's Fault But Mine" or "Achilles Last Stand".

 

12 string basses are hard to come by, but as Bunion mentions, those wanting to affordably cover Jeff Ament's 12-string lines in songs such as "Jeremy" which incorporate octaved basslines and bass chords can do a passable job.

 

For any octaved-up basslines, an 8-string will always arguably do a better job than an octave pedal, because there are no tracking issues, no problems with recognising low register notes and no lag, so there are applications here in jazz and funk settings too.

 

Apart from all that, they are just fun. They fill in your sound when you need to and don't have a rhythm guitarist, and playing simple chords sounds amazing.

 

I play in a Led Zep tribute act, so that's why I have one.

 

Cheers

Mark

Edited November 1, 2021 by Max Normal

[pete.young]

Thanks Mark for an excellent and very detailed review.

[Richard R]

Thanks Mark, 

 

Now I shall have to try to find one to play and experiment with. 🙃