Not you everyday acoustic bass. This is truly a prodigious instrument.
With a maple hollow body and solid spruce top, the acoustic character and resonance of this instrument is evident from the time you pluck the first note. Everything in this bass is conceived with the purpose of offering a bass that covers a lot of ground, and sits right between a double bass and an acoustic fretless bass guitar. The result is a bass that, depending on the string choice and your playing technique, can yield a variety of spectacular results.
The maple neck has quite a flat shape to it, making it really comfortable. The ebony fingerboard comes with lines and dots on the side, but is clean at the front. When you play it, it is easy to play in tune thanks to the fret lines on the side, and the fact that the front has no lines or dots means that it looks as elegant as a double bass.
For the electronics, Godin chose the clever RMC system, consisting of 5 individual piezo saddles that are then connected to the great RMC preamp, allowing them to be used as acoustic transducers, but also as MIDI pickups. Using the 13 pin DIN output, you can access to a world of synth guitar and MIDI converters (Axon, Roland, Yamaha, etc.) and play any sound from your bass. This does not mean you have to play piano from your bass (you can if you like that sort of thing though), but adding a MIDI preset and combining it with the natural sound from the bass is a really exciting experience.
To sum up: a great semiacoustic bass, a great fretless 5, and an amazing tool thanks to the MIDI access, all in a bass that is very easy to play, sounds great and even looks cool. Could you ask for more?
With heavy padded gigbag.
