Epiphone Allen Woody Rumblekat Artist Series Review

Fun and Beautiful

This reasonably priced bass is fun to play and sounds great! Articulate notes are clean and clear. Adjust equalizer on your amp for great tones.

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Excellent shorty at this price

This is a fun, easy playing bass. The gold hardware is a nice touch. I was skeptical about the mini-humbuckers at first, but they have a powerful growl, especially when playing with a pick. I'd even say the tone is clearer than my Gibson SG bass at a fraction of the cost.

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What's Not To Love About This Bass?

Kudos to Sweetwater for their "We'll let you know when it arrives" option on their website. As soon as I was notified that the Rumblekat was back in stock I ordered one, and I'm glad I did. They didn't stay in stock very long. I love this bass. I always have to do a little tweaking to the setup of any bass or guitar I buy to fit my preferences, but the guitar arrived in perfect… read more condition. I put flatwounds on the Rumblekat, and it sounds a plays great, and it looks great too. It has quickly become one of my favorite bass guitars. Thank you, Jed Elliott for being a great sales engineer. Sweetwater has a customer for life.

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This is a Great Bass for the Money

I don't like writing reviews, but in this case I felt compelled to do so. I just bought this bass from Sweetwater and I've had it for three days. IMHO: I think that this is a well made bass guitar instrument and for $... it is a great bargain. The bass came to me in flawless cosmetic condition. The guitar's finish and finish and fit of the binding, hardware, frets and all other… read more attributes is near perfect. Beautiful headstock. With a high quality fret rocker I checked all frets from the bass to center to treble sides of the neck. I could not find even one high or low fret, amazing that it came from the Epiphone factory this way.The bass did require a setup as the guitar as shipped to me deviated from the Epiphone manual's specifications somewhat, which I completed. The intonation of the E string was off and the string needed to be lengthened at the bridge significantly, getting very close to the back of the bridge, but it came in alright (not unusual, many guitars seem to have this attribute). I set the string action following Epiphone's recommendation to G@ 1st fret: somewhat I measured the neck relief at the 6th fret on the E string with a quality feeler gauge using a capo on the first fret and holding down the E string at the last fret. The neck relief came in at 0.012", which is where it was set by Epiphone at their factory. This is very good in my opinion and I did not touch it. The bass plays extremely well, very fast, easily fretted with zero string buzz on all strings and all frets. Epiphone offers no specification for neck relief that I could find anywhere on the internet. On a 34" long scale bass, such as my Fender jazz bass, neck relief is measured at the 8th fret on the E string. The Rumblekat is a 30" short scale bass, so I chose to measure the neck relief at the 6th fret since this about the mid point of the neck between the nut and the flair of the neck where it is joins to the body (the truss rod approximate adjustable length of the neck).I own two other basses, a 4 string 1967 Fender Jazz Bass and a 5 string 2000 vintage ESP B205 Ltd. The Jazz Bass's neck is a little out of whack and needs work. It is somewhat difficult to play requiring significant hand strength, but sounds fantastic with the Thomastik flat wounds that I have on it... a Motown/Stax Soul Machine Killer of a bass. The ESP plays easily for a long scale bass and sounds great. But the Rumblekat far surpasses either of these basses for ease of playability. The Rumblekat has a unique sound all its own and is different from the other two basses... it does indeed "rumble". I love the sound of the Rumblekat. I can easily see why this bass could become my favorite... maybe because it's new. Time will tell.A final word... for anyone thinking that these Epiphone guitars, made in China, are inferior low quality instruments I think you are mistaken. It's hard for me to imagine how instruments made elsewhere could be superior to the quality of this Epiphone Rumblekat in all aspects.One final, final note... I'm reading a lot on the Web that the bridge used on the Rumblekat and other Epi and Gibson basses isn't getting much love. I find nothing wrong with this 3 point bridge. Yes, it is different than many traditional bass bridges, but if you are careful in the adjustment of the 3 point bridge it does get the job done.

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WHAT AN AWESOME BASS !!!

The Epiphone Allen Woody Bass for me is hands down the best bass I have ever owned ! The tones from this thing are really quite astounding. Though it may appear as a more vintage style bass it is very versatile. It has one of the sweetest neck profiles I have ever played. This bass is worth every penny and then some. You will be very happy if you decide to purchase one of these.

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