Review Time: Gibson Midtown Signature Bass

I promised myself to post at least once a month, but a delightful bout of constant illness last month put a swift end to that. So, to make up for it, I'm writing a review (something I secretly enjoy and occasionally post on review websites. Yes I am one of those.) on a bass. And to be honest, it's a startlingly handsome one. Ladies and gentleman, the Gibson Midtown Signature Bass in Bullion Gold.

Oddly enticing looking thing, isn't it? It pricked my attention partly due to the way it looks, and partly because I had never seen one before. To me, it looks like the result of a fumble between an Epiphone Jack Casady and a Gibbo EB-3 at a Hot Tuna gig. Here are the mugshots of the parents, to help with pinpointing its genealogy.

So it's got its father's hips, and a slimmer lower horn and electronics courtesy of its mother. So it's going to be a boomer; big dubby tones, smooth and creamy, with a certain hollowness to the sound that has the strange ability to fill a large room with brown-note inducing bottom end. Usually the thing I hate. And in the Gibson Midtown, its business as usual, except I don't quite hate it.

It booms. It really booms. Planting all the strings through the big neck humbucker, you get that famous earthquake inducing bottom. But in all honesty, its not dominating. It's more subtle than that. It's like an EB-3 that's gone to finishing school and no longer wipes its nose on the curtains. I mean, it still spills wine over the furniture and burps mid-meal, but the belch is followed by a quick and polite apology, and a reverential clearing of the throat. It compliments, as opposed to shouts. It creates a wave that jangly, Weller-esque tones can float on, and carry themselves into ears rather soothingly. For a big old Boomer, its got some finesse.

That said, and I feel this may be a little uncalled for or due to my own negligence of the EQ, there was a tiny bit of muddiness on the lowest notes. But again, that is part of the Boomer's character; if I wanted utmost clarity, I should've tried something a bit more modern. I played it through a nice little Ampeg Fliptop/Portaflex rig, which was excellent, and really complimented the character of the Midtown.

There's a delightfully simple set up to the electronics on the Midtown; one volume knob, one tone, and a three-way pick-up selector. Cranking the tone knob to the darker side of things, the neck pickup develops a bit of character, and shows its heritage. Keeping it clean provides a perfect bed for clean guitar tones to waft over.

Flicking the selector to the middle position, we see the introduction of the bridge pick-up in the sound. It's a small humbucker, held a bit closer to the strings and gives an overall clang to the sound. Personally, I think it's redundant in a bass like this. The deep, dubby tones produced by the neck pick-up are crashed over by snappy, yappy pinches that highlight just how longer your fingernails are that day. It doesn't detract from any of the bottom end, but adds a metallic clank that isn't needed in this context. Think of the neck pick-up as a big old St. Bernard; big, dignified, a bit slobbery, but full of love. Place atop its back a little, annoyed Yorkshire Terrier, yapping away at the very thought of its own existence. That Yorkshire Terrier is the bridge pick-up, and it doesn't make for a particularly inviting package.

I flicked the selector down, silencing the St. Bernard, and gave the yappy thing a chance to redeem itself. It does a good impression of Jaco Pastorius, but nothing more. On a bass like this, it is about as much use as Yahoo Answers; it provides no solution, nothing productive and adds nothing of any benefit to the sound.

Onto the feel of thing. Nicely balanced and fantastically finished, it is a thing of beauty. I can't remember the exact price, but I feel it was just under £1300, say £1268 or so. To be completely honest, I was surprised at how little this was for the quality. The colour, much lighter in person than in the picture above, carries with it a bizarre finish; visible brush strokes up the neck did make me ponder on quality, but the lacquer and fitment of everything suggests that this is part of the handmade character. It's a sturdy beast, not delicate in the slightest.

I read a lot on the Gibson website about the unique construction; their new way of building the Midtown, yadda yadda yadda. I hate sales rhetoric because I am very often drawn in and take the bait. Frankly, the way this thing was designed carries no impact with me. All I can say is it's a fantastic bass for the old-school deep reggae beats, a finely cut accompaniment for laid-back tunes, and with a bit of fuzz, could even carry off some of the more docile heavy tones, a la Jack Bruce. The quality is top notch, and it looks fantastic.

Please, Gibson. Get rid of the bridge pick-up, bring the price down by a hundred quid or so and we have an absolute future classic that could happily be used week in, week out for the next 30 years. Just don't expect to fire machine gun triplets at Mark King on it though; she's a Boomer, and always will be.