This might be long! Some new Kiesels in the stable…
After deciding to leave my current band I’ve started auditioning for new bands and decided showing up to an audition with a headless 6 potentially makes the wrong statement for some situations. One band I’m auditioning for plays classic soul and I need to work on and memorize an hours’ worth of material. A j-bass makes sense and I started thinking about getting one. But I’ve just never bonded with Fender instruments.
On a whim I decided to check out the Kiesel builder and a bare bones J was going to be close to $2k with no idea how much it would weigh and a few months wait. I checked the in-stock page and there was exactly what I wanted:
-J bass 5 string
-Roasted maple neck
-Offset Staggered luminlay dots
-Only 8 pounds!
With no other options it was about $1850 in the builder. But this one had a bunch of upgrades that I didn’t necessarily need but sure looked good:
-Flamed roasted maple neck
-Flamed roasted maple fingerboard
-Metallic white finish
With those options the bass would spec out a dab over $3k… but it was discounted to $1900… so it was like getting the bling for free. The 8 pound weight was the golden ticket, and the offset luminlay dots were kind of a necessity. I use a black light attached to my iPad to get my glasses to glow and the offset dots keep glowing as well - and being on the edge of the fretboard I can see them easily. At this point it’s become a must-have. So after about an hour’s thought I grabbed it!
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I got the bass last week and have spent maybe 6-8 hours practicing on it. I keep telling my wife it’s an amazing bass “for what it is” and she keeps asking what I mean by that. Well, I don’t really like Fender basses. Considering that’s what this is trying to do, it does it perfectly, but I prefer the soapbar pickups, and mid-sweeps on my Osiris and Vader. Surprisingly, after playing only 6’s for the last 2-3 years I’m loving the 5, and the 19mm spacing is a non-issue.
But even though I’m not in love with the preamp, or the single coil pickups, it achieves exactly what I needed it to do - be different from my headless basses in looks and tone, and it definitely delivers. At first glance it looks like a Sadowsky, but no one will ever mistake it for a headless. So overall, I’m loving it.
I still have 6 gigs with my old band and this just isn’t the bass for that gig. I use the 6th string on a few songs, the tone of the headless basses cut better, and that band tunes down a half step and I have no plan to detune this one. So I’m happy to have this new bass but definitely see a reason to keep a few 6’s around.
… But I was so happy with the J-bass that I put an order in for another bass!
Originally I was thinking about a Thanos. I never really considered one before because I always play 6’s and they don’t make a 6 string Thanos. But once I got this J-bass I realized having a couple of 5’s just makes sense. And the Thanos is the perfect compromise between my Vader and Osiris, and the J-bass. It looks like a J-bass so it passes the “you-gotta-have-a-Fender” look but without the headstock. And I sure do love (and prefer) headless basses.
With the current sale I was able to get it at just about $2k and I only needed to put down 20%. I should have the $ for the balance from gigs by the time it shows up.
Worth noting, I went with the humbuckers instead of the single coils in the J-bass. I figure I prefer that on my other two basses, so now I get the J-bass style but with beefier pickups.
What I wish it had though was the same preamp from my Vader and Osiris. While talking to Chris at Kiesel I mentioned that and he said there is a $15 option that adds the stacked mid-sweep knob and moves the active/passive pull switch to the volume. Sounds like a perfect solution! So I went for it. I also discovered stock the Thanos comes with black hardware (knobs, plate, strap buttons) even though the builder makes them chrome. I prefer the chrome look and he said it could easily be swapped for chrome so that’s what I did. Here’s a mock-up:
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So what started as an experiment in a J-bass has turned into 2 new 5-string Kiesels. I have a gorgeous 6 string Icon I never gig with that I swore I’d never sell - but I think it’s time to move it along to help finance these new ones. It’s nice to be back to some 5’s!
Thanks for getting this far!
