Best Choice Products Acoustic Electric Bass Guitar Review

★★★★★★★★★★

“What a great Bass for the price! I was apprehensive at first about this guitar, but I figured "what the hell" for the cost. I lucked out because there were no major defects. There was some glue on the fretboard, but it was easily fixed with some 000 steel wool. The frets were surprisingly well-finished with no sharp edges.The factory strings were trash, so I quickly replaced them with Ernie Ball Earthwood strings, and man, this thing sings now! The intonation was a bit off, and the neck needed a truss rod adjustment (as with almost every guitar bought online), but don't be afraid of that—it’s super easy to do if you just ask an AI for instructions. The neck is a little thick, but it’s very playable. It’s the perfect "living room" bass that I don't have to worry about the pets knocking over. I love this thing!”

★★★★★★★★★★

“I'm a professional guitarist with a home recording studio who often finds that my self-recorded songs could use some additional bottom end, especially when I record solo demos to present to my cello partner. Of course, once my partner and I agree that a piece is best played as a duo, the cello takes care of the bottom. However, I sometimes record other musicians and produce their demo tracks. Again, while I usually serve as the session guitarist / fretted instrument sideman for these recordings, I have often thought I should have a bass guitar to round out my recording arsenal and add some clear bottom to these home recordings.I've been working on a project where that was exactly the case. I was going to borrow a bass from a student when I found this guitar. I figured for less than $100 I can experiment a bit by running the bass directly through the board and get some sonic feedback as to whether a bass addition works on a recording or not without breaking the bank. Either way, I figured it MIGHT be a handy piece of recording "equipment".Boy, was I right! For this specific purpose this bass guitar fits that bill perfectly! Oh sure, the fit and finish is not perfect and it's unplugged tone is not great and is certainly not loud enough. But, recording directly through a board sounds fantastic. I am both shocked and pleased.To be clear, I am NOT a bass player and thus I would never use this thing as a piece of performance gear. And if I were a bass player, I'd probably looking for other options. But, as said, as a piece of recording gear this instrument would be hard to beat for the price.With these specific caveats, buy with confidence.UPDATE: Continuing to experiment with this bass in a "direct to recording board" way, I notice a significant hum. I put a Baggs Venue in the chain so that I could use a balanced XLR into the board and the hum remains. I think it's a grounding issue. I can greatly reduce the hum by knocking back the gain quite a bit and then restoring the volume in post. I'll keep updating as I experiment further.Final update:I'm saying good goodbye to this one. I never did find the source of the hum but suspect it's a ground shield problem. I could probably work around it but my original thought was to keep things very simple and simple means direct-to-board recording. This, I cannot do. We're it not for that reason, I would be rating the bass highly for its size and scale length, its easy-ish action, etc. Instead it's on its way to a player that doesn't have my specific requirements.”

★★★★★★★★★★

“For the price point and for what you you get, it’s really not bad overall. The sound unamped is decent. It’s much louder amped. I am going to try a better set of strings to see if unamped sound is any better. The instrument looks nice, I bought the sunburst finish. Neck has a pretty good feel to it. I did tweak the truss rod to my liking, easy enough to do. The only area where it falls the most short for me is the tuning posts, they seem a bit cheap and the bass seems to have a bit of difficulty staying in tune.UPDATE: I changed the strings with a set of Ernie Ball acoustic bass strings, definitely sounds a little better. A little more tweaking of the neck! The tuning post seems to be ok after all so I am changing my original 3 star review to 4 stars, you can't beat it for the price”

★★★★★★★★★★

“IMPORTANT!! THIS BASS IS 30" FROM BRIDGE TO NUT. This was an important bit of info that I could NOT find reading about it. I scanned the reviews, and I thought I saw "short scale" somewhere, but this info needs to be in the description! As luck would have it, short scale is what I wanted. I've got a 35" scale 5 string and I cannot play it, it's too long. This one is great! Happy, happy, happy.Bass lessons this year for my 11 year-old, and I was wanting something inexpensive. This thing popped up, and being acoustic, it's something that can be used without running up my electric bill.I'm glad I took the chance!I just unboxed it a few minutes ago, and it only needed tuning. The action is actually pretty darn good as is. I might fiddle with it a bit, but I didn't receive a truss rod adjustment tool. May not need it. The neck is straight! Unexpectedly good. The strings are probably going to be replaced, but for learnin' they're fine.Finish: Pretty good! Mine has tiny, minute scratches, so little I don't care. Other than that, there is a tiny blemish on the sound hole. I'm pleased, esp. for the low low dollars. I haven't done a detailed examination of the neck, but I didn't see anything obviously bad, finish-wise. Only one strap button, as mentioned by numerous other reviewers.Sound: pretty good acoustically. I've not played acoustic basses very much at all, so I don't have a lot to compare to. I would say the E and A strings are just a hair quieter than the D and G, but that goes with the bass territory. Those frequencies are harder to discern than the higher frequencies. I wouldn't say it's loud by any stretch, but it is nowhere near as dead or quiet as I expected it to be! Thumbs up on that. Also, being a short scale, I expect the lower notes to get a bit rubbery or dead-ish relatively. Just gotta thump 'em a bit more, I suppose.So we get it plugged in... just wow! I'm truly shocked at the sound. I started with everything flat, experimented with each EQ slider (amp EQ flat). I settled for just a bit of low boost, mid cut, and high boost with the volume about half-way or just a bit more, this thing sounds GREAT! I can't wait to try some better strings on it. The low end is big and fat.Overall, it is NOT an expensive bass, and I didn't expect it to be. But for under $100, this is a steal. If I'd bought a "name brand" for $250 or more, I'd be giving this perhaps less stars, but this is an unbelievable value. If it gets busted, I'm buying another one. In a heartbeat.”

★★★★★★★★★★

“This is such a bargain. It sounds great and quality is excellent. I replaced the strings with Ernie Ball strings and it made it so much better. Thanks for the tip. I love it. I can sit on my couch and practice. My 79$ bass with $20 strings sounds like and 600$ acoustic bass. I am so happy. I love this company who made the guitar. Thank you.”