Guild Starfire II Bass Natural

J'ai beaucoup hésité pour savoir quel modèle de demi caisse j'allais choisir.
Entre Guild, Fender, Gretsch ou Hagström le choix dans cette gamme de prix ne manque pas.
J'ai pris la Guild pour les bonnes critiques qu'elle a et pour le style de musique que je joue, du Rock fin 60's début 70's et je suis un gros fan de l'Airplane.

Utilisée déjà pour un concert, elle a ravi tout le monde par son loock et par son son.
Et moi en plus par son poids plume.
La Guild est très belle. Le bois est magnifique et les chromes bien brillant.
La prise en main est très facile, son manche fin médium/short scale est un régal.
Le son est facilement réglable avec les deux micros et ses potards de réglage.
Le potentiomètre de volume général permet en plus d'avoir un son soit clean limite contrebasse soit bien Rock quand on le pousse (je joue sur un Bassman de 66).
L'absence de repose pouce ne nuit en rien au jeu au doigts. L'avant bras trouve naturellement sa place sur la tranche de la caisse.

Contrairement à la seule critique en Français sur Thomann, je ne trouve pas les micros trop faibles : pas besoin de les descendre pour diminuer l'attaque (je vais même remonter un peu les plots des deux aigus que je ne trouve pas bien réglés) mais mon autre basse, une Vantage VP710 B pour ceux qui connaissent, possède une attaque de fou !

Deux points négatifs cependant :
- l'absence de plaque de protection autour de l?entrée jack (attention à bien viser),
- les pontets en palissandre qui m?ont l'air bien fragile. D'ailleurs, ma corde de sol est trop basse faute à l'entaille pas bien placée et se retrouve presque sur le rebord du manche et parfois "dérape". On voit sur le site de Guild que les pontets sont vendus sans l'entaille donc le réglage a été mal fait en usine pour cette corde. Je pense dans un premier temps faire un deuxième entaille en V un peu plus haut sur le pontet, on verra par la suite.

Mis à part ces deux points, j'en suis pleinement satisfait et pas loin de mettre un 5 étoiles partout !

First, let me start by saying that the stock strings hit the bottom of my rubbish bin after about 5 minutes of playing. I'm not even sure what they were, probably D'Addario XLs or something similar. Not that they're bad. They're just not my taste and DEFINITELY not on a Starfire. For me Starfire means Pyramid Gold and the "San Francisco sound" of the 60s (think Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane).

This mean that everything I write about the TONE of this bass is based on the tone I get with Pyramid Golds installed. I think this is fair because 95% of people who buy a Starfire will probably want THAT tone anyway. In fact, I think these basses should have been shipped with Pyramid Golds as they are so strongly associated with THAT sound.

Anyway...

Pros:

-Very good build quality. Anyone who still thinks a bass needs to be built in the US to be great should check out these basses. This one is manufactured in Korea and everything is top notch. Fit and finish is almost boutique quality. The fretwork is superb. Everything just oozes quality.

-The hardware is good quality. Solid, firm tuners with a very comfortable ratio. The bridge has received some criticism for being difficult to intonate but I had no such problems with the Pyramid Golds (the bass was perfectly intonated with the stock strings too).

-The factory setup was decent. The neck relief was perfect so I didn't have to touch the truss rod at all. The nut was cut perfectly but the bridge was set a bit high which gave the bass a slightly high action for my taste (and I'm very much "medium" when it comes to action so it's not like I wanted it super-low). Whenever the action is high from the factory I always worry if there will be fretbuzz when I lower the strings. Like if they're trying to hide something. No such problems here. This bass is 100% buzz free at a comfortable low action. Like I said: Excellent fretwork!

-The tone. Or should I say TONE! Yep, this bass nails the classic Starfire tone. I absolutely love it. The pickups are simply amazing and I have not experienced any unusual noise issues. The pots work great, no problems whatsoever.

-Accessories. Well, it's nice to get a case, especially for a bass of this non-standard shape/size. To be honest I would expect a case at this price but that doesn't always seem to be the case(!) these days. It's a nice quality case too. Definitely not something I would use for air travel but more than good enough for throwing into the back of a van. There's no case candy included though (well there's the hex keys for adjustment...).

Cons:

If I had to say something negative about this bass it would be that the mahogany top on mine didn't look quite as nice as on Guild's official pics. Mine didn't have nearly as pronounced mahogany patterns/stripes on the top. But it still looks gorgeous so it's not a big deal to me.

I'm giving this bass top ratings! To be honest it is a bit of a niche bass. Probably not the first bass you'll need to buy but if you're looking for a classic hollowbody at a decent price I can highly recommend this Guild. And if you're looking for THAT San Francisco tone there's really no other option. Just remember to order some Pyramid Golds too because the stock strings won't get you there.

This is a very well made bass, quite sturdy for a hollow body, and full of quirky design points.

The Guild bi-sonic pickups have a strong and characterful output, and given their placement, cover very different sounds. The pole pieces are individually adjustable, making string-to-string balance easy to achieve. The neck pickup is very warm but still able to have some top end bite. The bridge pickup is very cutting without sounding thin, and is able to be very prominent in the mix when required. The 3-way pickup toggle switch combined with volume & tone controls for each pickup makes a huge combination of sounds available. Having a master volume to control all this is a useful touch.

The bridge is in keeping with the 60?s origin of the bass, down to the rosewood saddles?it all works surprisingly well, as well as looking very cool.

Everything about this bass feels just right - it is clear that there is some heritage behind it all. The bass is good for most styles, though probably not really for metal or slapping. It came supplied with roundwound strings - they sounded OK, but to really bring out the character of the bass, I swapped these out for Pyramid Gold flatwounds. One thing to note is that although this is a short-scale bass, medium scale strings will be needed, due to the afterlength required behind the saddles.

In the flesh, this Guild is a truly gorgeous bass to look at & to play. Being a hollowbody, the headstock dive is present but less noticeable than on some solid bodied basses.
I have several basses, but this Guild gets played out on a regular basis, and is always fun - a definite keeper.