Recently I bought my first 6-stringer - Brice HXB-406 with bubinga finish. First of all - this is very decent bass for $310 (with S&H). Two-trussrod neck is very nice and comfortable, electronics is not too loud, but sounds great. Hardware is perfect and guitar stays in tune all the time. Well, you have to expect bass for this price. I mean - stock strings are crap and setup wasn’t perfect. But I think this is all complaints. New Labella strings are on the way, and 1/4 turn for both trussrods solved all my complaints about setup.

The sound… Great sustain and whole-range sound - this is what HXB-406 is. B-string sounds great and not floppy, thanks to 35″ scale. The only one sound I cannot get - P-bass one. But I solve this problem with Korg PX4B or Hartke Bass Attack. I didn’t try to tweak it on amp yet, because I don’t have one - I’m using PA or amp on rehearsal studio - still looking for great one.

About scale and transition. Well, I used to play Yamaha RXB170 (great inexpensive bass too) 4-string with 34″ scale. One week is almost passed and I feel that transition is over (about 12 hours of practice total). Well, some stretches are still not perfect, but at all - I’m ready for today rehearsal with my new toy The weight of Brice is a little bit more than my Yamaha, but I cannot complaint about it with my 5″ wide leather strap (I wrote already about them) and my 6′8″ and 300lb

Also be careful with strings selection. You need “Super Long” or “Extra Long” one. 35″ scale plus strings-thru-body makes all “Long” 6-strings sets unusable, but you can found wide selection of strings on JustStrings.com. I didn’t received my LaBella one, but I can confirm that DAddario “Long” doesn’t fit.

So, it sounds great, it plays great and it looks great. Here is myself with just unpacked Brice.

You can purchase Brice and SX basses on RondoMusic.net. Click on “Bass Guitars” and select “6 string” on the top. Handling was less than 24 hours. Shipping was lighting fast. UPS estimated 7 days, but I’ve got my bass 4 days earlier :). Bass was double-boxed, had tuning wrenches and was carefully packed. Great seller.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 12:35 pm and is filed under basses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.