Dean
So you think there's no such thing as a budget 5 string? And you're sure 35" scales and EMG pickups are purely the domain of big-bucks basses? Well, think again, friends. Dean - best known for pointy heavy-metal guitars and ads featuring scantily clad models - has come out shooting with its Edge series of basses. The bedrock Edge model 5-string rings in at an eye-popping $449. That's right - a 5 for under $500!
Right out of the case, our Edge 5 turned heads. Everyone who picked it up marveled at its comfy styling, friendly action and serious construction. Common manufacturing glitches that plague instruments in this price range - loose neck/body joints, dubious hardware, crappy fretwork - were all but absent from our tester. We also dug the Dean's dramatic "transparent red" finish, and we fell hard for that wide-oval neck. Thin and inviting, it sports plenty of heft down low for white-knuckle grooving. The one trade-off for the Edge 5's narrow neck is some fairly tight string spacing, although several staffers said this didn't bother them at all. Up high, the Edge's low profile, asymmetrical, four bolt neck joint offers easy access to all of the upper frets. There was some fret lifting throughout the two-octave rosewood fingerboard on our test bass, but not enough to hamper playability. Another construction niggle: The master tone and bridge volume knobs were not a bit sticky, although the rest of the Dean's hardware (enclosed Grover tuners and fully adjustable bridge) was encouragingly solid.
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A comfortable lower horn further enhances playability. And that 35" scale might just be the single most impressive feature. It really punches up the Dean's acoustic tone, from open strings to the 24th fret, and from the B string up to G. About that B string: While it may not hang with the best of the best from our Ultimate 5-String Shootout (January '97), it sports impressive girth and punch, especially considering the Edge's low price.
We plugged our Edge 5 into three amp systems: a 200-watt Eden 2x10 combo, a 120-watt 1x12 Hartke KickBack combo, and our sound lab's high-end test rig. While these setups are quite different, we found the Dean sounded consistent throughout. The Edge's smooth lows are a definite plus. With the front pickup soloed and the tone control between 10 and 12 o'clock, the Dean gives enough warmth for jazzy walkin' or R&B struttin'. And the tone rolled almost all the way off, we dug the seriously deep reggae thump. Even down in the depths, though, the Edge stayed out of the mud, maintaining considerable clarity and definition as we worked our way down to the B string.
The Dean's nasally mids and metallic highs are another story. Soloing the rear pickup and cranking the master tone produces some truly grating top end. Fortunately, this is easily tamed by blending in a healthy does of that warm sounding front pickup. By mixing the two - but letting the treble pickup dominate - we got some killer modern rock tones. Rockers, take note; aggressive flatpicking really brings these snarling sound to life. We couldn't coax convincing slap tones out of our Edge 5, and the proximity of the neck pickup to the end of the fingerboard (much of the reason for that pickup's warm sound) leaves little room for thumbwork.
More than any other species of electric bass, the increasingly popular 5-string seems to be saddled with an "I just can't afford one" stigma. Certainly, there are a bunch of high-priced 5's out there, and we think many of them are worth the cash. But we also believe going deep shouldn't mean going hungry - so our hats off to the folks at Dean. If you're one of those bassists looking to go all the way down to B without breaking the bank, the new Dean might be just the Edge you need.