[Gia plays guitar]
Josh: Hey. I'm Josh for BassBuzz and if you're
looking for a beginner bass and you don't
wanna go crazy researching all of the many
options, you're in the right place. Me and
two other pro bass players are gonna zero
in on seven of the most popular options in
this series. Let you know what sucked and
what was totally awesome and hopefully by
the end of this series, you'll know which
bass you want and you'll be ready to start
rocking as soon as possible. In the first
review, we're gonna check out this EpiphoneTobias
Toby Deluxe IV and find out if it lives up
to the Michael Tobias name.
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We're gonna jump right into the blindfold
tests of this bass with my reviewers Ben and
Gio. If you wanna know more about the methodology
we used for selecting and reviewing these
basses, check out the full piece at bassbuzz.com.
All right. I'm here with my buddy Ben Burley.
He's gonna help us review all our basses.
He's been a buddy of mine for years. Great
bass player and I'm excited to have you here.
Ben: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited
to get my hands on all this new gear and tell
you what I think.
Josh: All right. Let's get that blindfold
on.
[Ben plays guitar]
Okay. So, I got Ben blindfolded and the first
thing we're gonna look at is just playability.
So, just kinda play around and I just want
you to see, like how does the neck feel, how
comfortable do you feel, like changing -- crossing
strings and string spacing and upper fret
access, just kinda tour around the instrument.
See how it feels.
Ben: [Plays guitar] Nice to navigate. The
neck feels comfortable. The lower position
itself actually feels like a nice little grip
to it.
Josh: Hmm.
Ben: [Plays guitar] Moving from one set of
strings to the next is very comfortable. It
doesn't feel very wide.
Josh: Mm-hm. Playability for me on this bass
was really good. I agreed with Ben and Gia's
feelings on this. I particularly love the
two-octave neck and that you can actually
[plays guitar] reach those top frets. So,
the cutaway here is at a pretty good spot.
[Plays guitar] So, I can actually get up there
and do chords and stuff which is hard when
the cutaway comes out too far. So, bonus points
for that, for sure, like Ben and Gia said,
the neck's a little bit thicker than we all
seem to like, but definitely a great neck
for this price range.
[Gia plays guitar]
Josh: all right I'm here with my buddy Gia
Benedetti who --
Gia: Hi, Josh.
Josh: Hi, Gia. Gio was my local bass hero
when I was a teenager, playing in a band called
Toast Machine, doing some really awesome bass
and drum duo stuff and now he's touring nationally
and internationally with the brothers Comatose,
playing upright and singing.
Gia: Yeah. Very different from Toast Machine,
but it is a heck of a lot of fun and yeah,
we're all over the place. So, come see us.
Come say hi. [Plays guitar] I'm not impressed
by the pickup.
Ben: [Plays guitar] It's just a little punky,
you know, feeling so is one of those things
I'd say that, you know, a pick would definitely
lend some tightness and some spike to it.
Josh: Mm-hm.
Ben: [Plays guitar] But in general, not a
bad brock tone, for sure.
Josh: Mm-hm.
Ben: [Plays guitar] I'd say the bridge pickup
in this situation sighs a little thin which
is a characteristic of the bridge pickup itself,
but nice and tight. [Plays guitar] Gotta say,
I actually really like it. A lot of times,
when I hear a bass boost, I feel like it becomes
overwhelming, but you know, [plays guitar]
there's all this talk of loose and sag seems
to actually be a pretty tight bass tone to
it. [Plays guitar] So, you got a nice big
fat tone. [Plays guitar] You know, that definitely
carries a pretty big push which is nice. I
appreciate actually, [plays guitar] like I
was talking about tight or loose, it does
seem to have a nice tight feel to it even
in that big --
Josh: Yeah that face boost is in a nice spot.
Ben: Mm-hm. The bass boost is really working
[plays guitar]. I like it.
Gia: [Plays guitar] Overall tone thoughts
are, we were playing it, acoustically, before
and I like the sound of it, acoustically.
Josh: Mm-hm.
Gia: Better than what we're finding through
the pickups even with the adjustments.
Josh: Yeah.
Gia: I feel like it's just -- it comes out
pretty thin.
Josh: Mm-hm.
Gia: And it comes out -- I don't know. I'm
not able to hear the sound that I wanna hear
out of it.
Ben: Not bad versatility by any means, but
I would say probably leans more towards the
Rock tones.
Josh: Mm-hm.
Ben: The jazzier tones. You might need a little
bit of help from that bass push just cause
the bridge pickup did seem a little on the
thin side.
Josh: Yeah.
Ben: But that bass boost is definitely something
that I'm liking. So, I'd say, you know, if
you needed to use that to compensate for,
stylistically, you know, that wouldn't be
a bad bass to have.
Josh: Tone is where this bass really suffered
in the ratings. All three of us really felt
it was lacking in a lot of the tones we looked
for in our bass playing, like round vintage-y
Soul tones or a nice punchy Funk tone. The
only thing I feel we could really get out
of this bass is really [plays guitar] aggressive
kinda rock sound. It's just the natural sound
of this bass with the pickups balanced and
the tone kind in the middle [plays guitar],
is really growly and aggressive. So, if you
only play Rock music, this might be an option,
but for anything else we really didn't get
what we were looking for out of the electronics.
Comfort. You've been sitting with the bass
for a little while, how does it feel, like
weight wise, balance wise, just overall?
Ben: Yeah. Weight wise, it's amazing. I mean
it's a very very light bass. Comfortable.
Gia: The weight of the bass is a suspicious
weight, like it feels cheap which I always
am a suspect of, like when it feels this light,
I'm like uh-oh, something ain't right.
Josh: Hmm.
Gia: So, it's not heavy enough for me to,
like really trust it.
Josh: Hmm.
Gia: But it's really comfortable, like as
far as the balance is great. The neck is very
comfortable and the body -- the body feels
good. It's not getting in my way and I like
-- I got my two little places for my thumb.
Josh: In terms of just physical comfort stuff
which is just probably the least important
rating out of the four categories we rated,
this instrument is fine. The headstock's not
too heavy, so it doesn't dip down like this,
like some basses do. The body weight is actually
a little bit lighter than I would expect looking
at the size of it, which is alright. So, it's
just kind of middle-of-the-road fine in terms
of the physical comfort stuff.
[Ben plays guitar]
Josh: All right. Last thing, let's try out
some different techniques on this bass. Let's
try some slapping and see how that feels.
Ben: Hmm. [Plays guitar] I think both positions
were nice. First position, I liked a little
bit more. It had a little more robust tone
to it.
Josh: Mm-hm.
Ben: A combination of slapping, having some
treble, just from the technique with the bass
tone. Very nice.
Gia: Yeah, yeah. [Plays guitar] Dude, this
is like, this is the sound.
Josh: Wow.
Gia: The heavy metal bass, like --
Josh: Yeah.
Gia: -- aggressive punk sound. [Plays guitar]
Dude, I think this is a pick bass.
Josh: Yeah. Wow.
Gia: I like it. [Plays guitar] It's an aggressive
sounding bass.
Josh: Right.
Gia: It's got that like high mid and high
sound.
Josh: So, the pick and slap tones are fine,
again, just for the aggressive rock sounds
not for a nice funky slap sound or like a
muted vintage pick tone or something. I actually
noticed a really big issue for slap. For me,
the way I slap, I tend to be touching the
bridge with my forearm a little bit and I
use that for muting sometimes, but it's also
just where my arm gravitates. The way this
bridge is shaped, I found it really unpleasant
to have that digging into my forearm, especially
because there's a little imperfection in the
metal right here that's a little bit sharp.
So, I just find it impossible to slap on this
bass, comfortably. I have to adjust my technique,
so that I don't grind my arm on that sharp
part of the bridge. So, this bridge design
to me does not work for my slap technique.
So, I gave it a much lower rating here than
Ben and Gio did because they didn't experience
that. All right. Now is the exciting part
of the show where we remove the blindfold
and show him what he's been playing.
Gia: Woo.
Josh: Insert applause track. It's the Tobias.
[Plays guitar] Cool.
Ben: Wow. Okay. Cool. You know, it's definitely
a nice bass.
Josh: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.
Josh: Cool.
Ben: Stylistically and looks.
Josh: Overall, this bass got a pretty medium
rating from all of us and I actually enjoyed
playing it, acoustically more than I liked
playing it plugged in which to me indicates
that most of what we didn't like about it
was these pickups. We just didn't get the
sounds we wanted. So, unless you play aggressive
Rock stuff almost exclusively, I would keep
watching in this series and look for some
better options. But there are some great things
about this bass. The 24-fret neck. It's got
some good aggressive tones and of all the
basses with an active bass boost that we tried
in this series, I think this was all of our
favorite. It had a nice focused punchy sound
for a bass boost knob, while some of the other
ones sound kind of boomy. So, that's the verdict
on the Toby Deluxe IV. I don't think it really
lived up to the Tobias name. I've played some
real custom Michael Tobias basses and they're
exquisite beautiful instruments and this just
feels like a cheap bass. So, it's not the
worst bass you could go for, but I would keep
watching and look at some better options in
this series.
If you're watching this on YouTube, I highly
recommend that you go check out the full piece
on bassbuzz.com. There's a lot more info about
tech specs and construction quality for each
bass, as well as more details about our review
methodology and some other various notes about
the basses that didn't fit into the videos.
So, I'll see you in the next review.
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