like the old Danos, but, truth be known, is better quality.

The Korean manufacturer is good - the neck is solid and stable, the woods are quite high quality. The fret ends are not well-dressed, but you can fix that with some emery cloth. You have to pull the neck off to adjust the truss

rod, but once it is dialed in, you can fine-tune the action with tiny adjustments of the two bridge height screws.

The one-piece rosewood popsickle stick bridge can be moved with your fingers while the strings are tuned to pitch, and with a guitar tuner, the intonation can be set dead on. The bridge seems to contribute a woodiness to the tone.

Once intonated, the setup stays in place pretty well.

The body is two slabs of 1/8 inch masonite sandwiching a sawn-out plywood framework, with additional plywood blocks under the bridge, neck joint and tailpiece. The result is a LIGHT bass, with very low mass. When you pluck a string, the whole thing jumps. It's the opposite of the usual high-end, neck-through, exotic and dense tonewood approach. And it sounds great - sort of crude and brute, and retro. The only time the resonant quality can cause problems is at extreme volumes, where bass rumble and feedback can crop up if you don't thin the tone at the amp. The small double cutaways let you play up high with no problems, and the body, with its gaudy sparkle paint and sweeping seal-shaped pickguard, really looks tres cool.

The tuners are slightly beefed-up versions of Kluson style guitar tuners, with inadequate guitar-sized knobs. If you want them to work smoothly without

binding or breaking, they must be lubricated with 3-in-1 oil or something similar. Also, tuning is more precise with lubrication of the aluminum nut. My usual thing for that, powdered graphite lock lubricant, works fine. The tuners have small-diameter holes for the strings; many standard 34" sets won't

fit.

The .050 - .105 OEM strings are tapered at the tuner end. They sound good though, and are cheap. (The tuners' mounting holes could easily be widened and Gotoh-type tuners installed, but some neck-heaviness would result. (Not gonna do it… wouldn't be prudent…)

The neck pickup has a deep, tubby bottom for blues and R&B and for situations where you want an upright sound, but with both pickups and tones full on the DC has a fairly bright pop sound.

So, what is so neat about this bass? First, it's made so cheaply and efficiently and adequately, and in that sense it is "a better mousetrap". It is strong and carefully built where it needs to be, and cheap stuff where it doesn't matter.

Second, it is so light and comfortable that you could literally play six sets a night and never feel a twinge in your shoulder. You can dance and jump

around with the DC Bass and it goes right with you.

It plays very well; all fingering is comfortable. It has a distinctive but useful sound.

It looks great. It's retro and simple and charming. You get compliments and comments on this bass. It's interesting looking.

Finally, it is just such a simple thing. It lacks complexity big time. Yet, you can set it up to play about as well as a $3000 bass. I've got good basses

- Warwick, Modulus, Fender, Carvin - and I really love the little DC Bass. That says it all.

Construction	90%
Appearance	100%
Playability	90%
Sound	85%
Value	95%
Overall	90%