Bass Player magazine in their October 2011 issue (the one with Flea on the cover) has a nice two-page review of the USA California Series solidbody uBass. The articles appears as part of the magazine’s “SoundRoom” section. The article is not on their web site yet.
By the way, I wonder who’s been on more covers of Bass Player, Flea or Geddy Lee.
The article has a nice shot of the Natural solidbody uBass as an illustration. The article lists the uBass’s “Pros” as: “Small body, big bottom.” The “Cons” listed are: “None.” Overall, it’s a positive piece about the solidbody. Has there ever been a negative thing said about these babies by anybody?
One thing that had me scratching my head though was this passage:
Like the hollowbody U-Bass, the Solid Body comes equipped with a custom Shadow piezoelectric pickup with individual elements for each string. But while the hollowbody model’s electronics are powered by a single 9V battery, the Solid Body features a unique Mi-Si Align active preamp that is battery free.
The hollowbody (or acoustic) uBass models have passive electronics and do not use a battery. At least my Mahogany and Double H models are battery free. I’m not sure what acoustic uBass Bass Player was talking about, but as far as I know, the acoustic models don’t use a battery–9 volt or otherwise. And if they do, it’s not evident and probably lasts forever because there’s no way to change it.
Hi, I think you are right, the ubass is a pasive instrument. However, I´d like to point out there´s a shadow preamp system, that might work…
http://www.shadow-electronics.com/viewpro.html?id=75
There are three diferent units, I haven´t tried any of them in my ubass, but I´m tempted…