First Take PR

Geschrieben von Dirk Groll, 1. Januar 2017 | (Translated from German: http://www.gitarrebass.de Gitarre & Bass Magazine)

Rapid fusion action on a stately Fivestring, with a further extended range: Bunny Brunel’s signature model from LTD brings some top performances together.

The Quilted Maple blanket with stylish transparent varnish ensures the appropriate eye-catching appearance. The BB1005 is available in Black Aqua, Burnt Orange and See Through Black Sunburst; Except for the bundled models, a Fretless is also available. According to its name, this instrument is equipped for all styles.

Big Player

First, the blue testbass presents itself as a powerful instrument with a large body and an elongated head plate, total length 119 cm. The Longscale neck is made of maple and straight, the side-glued corpus wings consist of alder, with the whole front of the bodysuit with a beautiful cloudy top.

On the wide ebony fingerboard is plenty of space for a clean finger, which at the same time means that the Brunel Fivestring is not necessarily the most comfortable player for short fingers. At the flat neck profile it should not lie, however, the string position can be set very low without frills.

The solid hipshot bridge is a solid, so that the strings can be inserted from the rear through the body or can be attached conventionally from the front. The semi-finished precision tuners also come from the same manufacturer, the tuner for the low-frequency H-string being equipped with an extender lever that lowers the thickest string to the A as required.

The electrical equipment, which comes completely from Aguilar, provides for a sound versatility. In the bridge position sits a 5M-humbucker with fat Alnico magnets, at the neck also an Alnico-equipped J-Pickup. This is, of course, not a simple single coil, but a two-coil hum-Canceling design, so that all the pickup mixes that can be recalled at the crossover are free of hum. For further sound variation is a three-band active EQ on board, the center band of which can be switched by pull switch between 400 and 800 Hz.

Much of everything

Due to the flat neck / body transition, the 24th position is also completely unobstructed, and the BB1005 is also perfectly balanced due to the long corpus spine and without any approach from the top of the belt. The weight of approx. 4.2 kg is not exaggerated for a grown five and ensures that the body is calm and stable to the body.

The Brunel-Fivestring with its continuous neck, the massive neck and the optional string guide from the front, is the result of a lush sustain development and swinging pleasure arke maple ensures that the sound does not get too soft and soothing, but precisely and directly starts, Which is also important for fast-paced fusion carnivals.

Even the extender for the H-string is really usable. Actually one would only have to see under the deep H undefined booby, but actually the Brunel Fivestring also a cleanly defined A is effected. A certain surprise is provided by the electric touch, where the fat Alnico humbucker produces a rather airy and bony sound.

This is clearly due to the relatively high-pitched placement, where there are fewer bass components in the string amplitude. Convincingly, the 5M humbucker brings a clear, tidy sound with offensive growl. The narrow J-Pickup in the neck position is responsible for real bass depth and thickness, and the splitcoil fulfills this role with balanced broadband and a fine shot of offensive Alnico presence. The fact that its pole pieces protrude somewhat from the cap according to the handlebuck, could, in the case of a misdirected slap, lead to clattering noise when the strings hit the magnets.

The active OBP3 sound control is gaining power, resulting in different results in the different frequency bands. For the basses, for example, the excessively radical cuts are wasteful, because practically nobody really uses such dry settings. In the middle, the drastic effect is much more practical, especially since the switchable center frequency can still shift the striking nose, which makes the bundled testbass sound almost like a fretless.

On the other hand, extreme radical attenuations can be adjusted if an extratrocke radio sound or a soft, soft restraint is required. In the case of the height controller, the strong effect does not occur at all because it acts at quite high frequencies; This results in the detection of fine-metallic brilliance tips, but not hard and sharp presences.

Alternatives

Five-string electric basses with healthy equipment are already available in the most favorable price categories. But mostly these are vintage designs with screw neck, modern styled models with continuous neck construction are already scarce – and it goes directly into higher price categories. To this extent, the signature five-string strings, equipped with brand-name features, do not represent the mainstream. Ibanez, however, also builds similarly elaborate Neck-thru models, which are offered at attractive prices because of the more favorable production in Indonesia.

Summary

Bunny Brunel’s Signature model has a lot to offer: plenty of space for the fingers on the wide fretboard, a lot of bridge mass and a lot of sustain for lush swinging pleasure, a lot of tone with 24 freely accessible fret plus H string extender and many variations due to the rich Electric equipment – you get a lot of bass for the money, and the higher price class for a Korean LTD model should not be more astonishing.

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