It’s no news that Coppolo basses are obsessive to myself and many other player / collectors in the world. Here comes something less popular. The Alleva Coppolo 81009, the Old Fashioned Electric bass 5, the OG telecaster style precision bass, in 5 string form.
Background:
To be honest, my ear is tunned to the 60s style Precision, being a half-ass player that plays for money sometimes, there’s really no way I can bring a bass with 1 single coil pickup to a gig .. but hey .. there’s someone named Sting who is doing pretty well appearantely with his Fender tele bass ..
This is Jimm’s presentation of the OG telecasters style bass from the 50s named in 81009.
Specs:
- Alder body
- 1 piece Maple neck and fingerboard with skunk stripe
- Oil finish
- AC homebrew 50s style pickup with cloth wires
- controls are: Vol / Tone
- Brass Hipshot vintage bent plate bridge w/ 18mm string spacing
- Hipshot tuners
- 8.6lbs
Playability:
Typical AC greatness, a well balanced bass with straight neck, mid-low action and a solid low B string. Very responsive and buttery hands on feeling. The maple/alder combination plus the breathable oil finish makes it very open but the low fidelity combination makes the bass forgiving to the plucking hand and easy to dig in.
Sound:
Cloth wire tele style single pickup makes this the lowest fidelity in the bass product line. Single coil noise almost all the way in my cave. 250k ohm volume and tone pot with 022uF ceramic disk tone cap offers a narrow, dark tone range. The single coil hum disappears when rolling the tone down to 70% then we’re in business. Lots of usable sound throughout the whole tone pot range, full of thatmaple/alder raw-ness and punch that can go wild all day . It has a very distinct sound when compare to the split coil precision pickups where things sounded more quiet and delicate. It’s full of attitude and characters
Thoughts
This is probably the least popular bass of Jimmy’s , and took me a bit more longer to learn to appreciate the bass. Not really the first choice when it comes to Coppolo basses, but this one definitely has lots of soul to it . Not really recommended for working musicians due to its low fidelity and tone limitation compare to other offerings . But it definitely has its on voice for all the story tellers out there.
Gallery:
Video:
Bass strung with black diamond nickle roundwond in light gauge, and please forgive my rusty playing ...