Nice! I was just curious if there actually was any reviews of these things out, at all, and what others say about them. Personally, I bought a Gear4Music Chicago Select after some research for cheap options as I already had a nice (and more expensive) Ibanez and an ancient Fender P/J-something before that. I was pleasantly surprised about... everything, really. Sure, sure, there are some minor finishing issues, but you have to _look_ for them, and the fret ends etc. were surprisingly well done, good ergonomics, and so on! Some of these "in house brands" seem to be really rather good, at least on their "higher end" instruments, and it makes little sense to pay tons of cash just for a brand name (like something from the Fender corporation or Gibson corporation) these days. Even if I wanna swap the potentiometers and/or pickups, I'll be well off compared to the big brand names. (The difference between Chicago and Chicago Select is roasted maple neck and individual bridges.)
I live a mile down the road from Gear4Music so it *is* the local Bricks and Mortar shop for me. One downside of their success is that Joseph Banks, the oldest music shop in the country, closed down forever a couple of months ago. I felt the least Gear4Music could do is buy out the Banks' name and move part of their store-front operation down to Lendal, to provide a sort of comtinuity. Sadly that didn't happen. Still G4M don't have absolutely everything, so I took a trip to Steve James music in Saltburn to get the excellent JustPro Kinsman battery amp, which is better than the battery amps G4M have available, and at a reasonable price point.
Thanx for the review! There's not a lot of reviews on Gear4Music stuff :( But I was surprised u mentioned fret-wear! I've never heard anyone report that on any new instrument! But sometimes instruments come from the factory with scratched frets... I suppose that was not the case with u? How long did u play the bass for this wear to manifest?
I'm not sure exactly how long it took before signs of fretware started to show, but I'd say it was definitely in the order of tens of hours rather than hundreds. I was quite surprised, especially as I don't consider myself as heaving a particularly heavy touch with my fretting hand
Nice! I was just curious if there actually was any reviews of these things out, at all, and what others say about them. Personally, I bought a Gear4Music Chicago Select after some research for cheap options as I already had a nice (and more expensive) Ibanez and an ancient Fender P/J-something before that. I was pleasantly surprised about... everything, really. Sure, sure, there are some minor finishing issues, but you have to _look_ for them, and the fret ends etc. were surprisingly well done, good ergonomics, and so on! Some of these "in house brands" seem to be really rather good, at least on their "higher end" instruments, and it makes little sense to pay tons of cash just for a brand name (like something from the Fender corporation or Gibson corporation) these days. Even if I wanna swap the potentiometers and/or pickups, I'll be well off compared to the big brand names.
(The difference between Chicago and Chicago Select is roasted maple neck and individual bridges.)
I live a mile down the road from Gear4Music so it *is* the local Bricks and Mortar shop for me. One downside of their success is that Joseph Banks, the oldest music shop in the country, closed down forever a couple of months ago. I felt the least Gear4Music could do is buy out the Banks' name and move part of their store-front operation down to Lendal, to provide a sort of comtinuity. Sadly that didn't happen. Still G4M don't have absolutely everything, so I took a trip to Steve James music in Saltburn to get the excellent JustPro Kinsman battery amp, which is better than the battery amps G4M have available, and at a reasonable price point.
Thanx for the review! There's not a lot of reviews on Gear4Music stuff :(
But I was surprised u mentioned fret-wear! I've never heard anyone report that on any new instrument! But sometimes instruments come from the factory with scratched frets... I suppose that was not the case with u? How long did u play the bass for this wear to manifest?
I'm not sure exactly how long it took before signs of fretware started to show, but I'd say it was definitely in the order of tens of hours rather than hundreds. I was quite surprised, especially as I don't consider myself as heaving a particularly heavy touch with my fretting hand