Well, my dream bass turned up in my hands today. What a complete stunner.
It's a Pedulla Rapture 4 string, maple neck, Bartolini Jazz pickups and preamp, with hipshot D tuner on the E.
I'll try and avoid using too many positive superlative adjectives in this wee review but it'll be mighty hard, if not impossible.
Here's the gist of it, for the TL;DR fellas; this is by far the best bass I've ever played.
This has spot-on action for my style of playing, and the neck is just so fast that it makes me a better player.
Here's what I did to test the tone out. I set up my Ashdown ABM 500 with a flat eq and then actually switched the eq off. All I had in terms of tone shaping was the on-board Bartolini preamp. Something I must mention about the active controls is that it's very easy to find a good tone. I'm not sure what frequencies they've chosen but they work extremely well. The two tone controls, bass and treble, give you the right amount of boost without going over board and the same with cutting. The bass could be boosted to get a big fat tone without being boomy, and the treble boosted brought clarity and zing without sounding harsh or clanky. I found that I really had no reason to turn on the EQ controls on the amp as I could get the tonal changes I wanted straight from the preamp. That ends up that I could find myself in the enviable position of being able to use the amp to EQ to the room rather than try and find a tone I like and then look after the room EQ.
The tone of the bass is of course quite Jazz-like considering the pickups. It's a bit more growly on the back and bit fatter on the front pickup however, which is nice. Some have referred to it as a Jazz on steroids and I can see what they're getting at. Lots of punch if you want it, but also a deep fat tone if you want. I like the blend just a touch towards the front pickup for a deep, punchy tone.
I love the color scheme, and I love the maple neck. I was a little worried that the truss rod screw would be a bit munted but no, it was perfectly fine, so I'm very relieved.
It has fairly dead roundwounds on it currently, so I'm fairly excited about putting a set of D'Addario Chromes flatwounds on it, which should make it even tastier.
Very happy with this, and it puts my Warwick Streamer LX to shame.
both basses are wicked. Nice score!
I assume I am not waiting for a formal invitation but I am not entirely sure of where I am going