Cort Curbow 4 Bass Guitar

Review of the Cort Curbow 4 Bass Guitar by The Man in the Jar You hear a lot about "Wow ...

Review of the Cort Curbow 4 Bass Guitar by The Man in the Jar

You hear a lot about "Wow factor" in a world seemingly stuffed full of superlatives. But when I opened the box on this bass I couldn't help it. I said "Wow!"

Features of the Cort Curbow 4 Bass Guitar

Tuners - The large unbranded sealed tuners have large black wing-nut knobs that make for fast, accurate and easy tuning.

Headstock - The Cort has a really distinctive serrated scalpel-style headstock, it's like nothing else I've seen and really suits the style of the guitar.

Nut - The black graphite nut abuts the fretboard and is accurately cut.

Neck - The slim three-piece maple neck is a joy to hold and play. It narrows seductively towards the nut from the slim flatness of its heel-end profile. Behind the nut the makers have left a strengthening wedge of maple which acts as a sexy little buffer as you dive down to hit the low notes. It's a bolt-on neck, but quite unlike any I've ever seen before. The area between the end of the fretboard and single pickup is actually still the neck, finished to blend in with body. Subsequently the neck is held on by five screws arranged at some distance from one another down the back of the body.

Fretboard - The fretboard is superb and makes this bass instantly appealing. It's made from ebanol, which is a black shiny synthetic replacement for ebony. As a playing surface it is sublime - smooth to the touch and beautiful to look at, plus it's a gas to see your fingers reflected in the fretboard. The fretboard offers 25 full frets with two further partial frets for the bass strings at the sculpted body end.

Frets - Large, highly polished, round-profile frets complete a luxurious playing surface.

Action - Really good from the box. I could play with ease anywhere on the seemingly endless fretboard.

Body - The comfortably contoured Luthite body is almost of travel guitar dimensions, which forces the bridge to be located at the extreme limit of the body and requires the upper horn to be exaggerated to bring the bass into balance on the strap. It looks fantastic and feels fantastic when standing. But the truncated lower horn doesn't quite securely anchor the guitar on your thigh when playing in the seated position. This problem is easily solved by using an adjustable guitar strap, tightened for seated playing. The slight neck-heavy tendency caused by the smaller than standard body can be controlled by using a leather strap with a rough inner face.

Bridge - The simple oblong combined bridge and tailpiece features slot retainers for the ball-ends making for quick string changes. Each string sits on a very chunky block saddle that is individually adjustable for intonation and string height.

Pickups - There's a single Bartolini pickup which I'm assuming is single-coil.

Controls - The active controls feature Master Volume, Treble, Mid and Bass. There's also a microswitch to toggle from standard active operation to a special "slap" eq setting that bypasses the three onboard eq controls. The overall gain from the instrument and the depth of the slap eq can be adjusted by two recessed screw pots on the back, where the battery compartment can also be found.

Strap-buttons - Two medium-sized strap buttons are provided, one on the elongated upper horn and one on the base of the body.

Output Jack - Set in the lower edge of the body.

Finish - The Mystic Ice Crazer finish of the review model was excellent throughout.

Sound of the Cort Curbow 4 Bass Guitar

Many purists will contend that a non-wood body can never sound as good as its natural competitors. The Curbow disproves that in my opinion. The Luthite body and the single pickup deliver a good basic Fender-type sound when the onboard eq is set flat (all on centre-indent). It's the power of the onboard eq to shape that basic voice which makes the Curbow stand out. I was soon moving from high treble funky cut-through to a low-end brooding Burnel-esque growl simply using the three onboard cut and boosts. Flicking the slap switch creates a boosted treble tone that pops like mad-thing. Click on the link for some Cort Curbow 4 sound samples.
Beware if recording, the treble boost and the slap setting do come with a noticeable background hiss.

Overall Impressions of the Cort Curbow 4 Bass Guitar

I'm very taken with the Curbow 4 and there's the high probability that one will find its way into my guitar room to fill the vacant position of All Round Bass. I would've preferred to see the slap switch positioned a bit further away from the strings to prevent the possibility of accidental switching, but that and the noisy full-on treble boost are the only mild criticisms I can make of this excellent piece of musical equipment. At less than £300 it's a complete steal.

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