Hello everyone!
I'll introduce myself. My name is Jan Dobaczewski. I'm a 22 year old student from Poland. Quite some time ago, i was looking for a new bass. Remembering how many bad expiriences i had with various guitars and basses in the past, i decided to go an extra mile and buy something of higher quality. After long time thinking about choosing my new bass, i almost bought a Spector Rebop 5 string. I was just 1 store trip away from buying it. But i decided to have a look on US ebay to see if i can snag something cool there for the price i would pay here in Poland. And there it was, the Epic. I was mesmerised and i knew it was a chance to get something really special! And so i did. After a long hassle with ebay, paypal, customs and postal services i got it. I still remember how me and my buddy who gave me a ride were opening the box on top the trunk of the car in bright sunny day. I was extremely happy! Not to mention the countless hours i spent playing it afterwards...
But here's a sour note to this whole story. With time i grew more and more dissapointed with the bass. First impressions were great but later on there things that urked me a lot. Not sure why i didn't notice it at the start... I started to feel that the bass is extremely hard to play. Action was really high, strings were stiff and lifeless (yes, it might be just them going dead, but hear me out). I was at the brink of selling it and trying to recover what i payed for it, with no hope for getting back a hefty sum i left at the customs. That's the thing, i'm very obsessive over small things and it can bring a man to stupid things. Luckily i decided not to do such a thing and investigate what was the reason for the bad playability, and a recent fret buzz on 12-14th fret on D-G string (more on that later). And i found it. I was going to buy a new set of strings and made extensive research about string tension and such and found out that the d'addario strings installed on epic were for lower tunings! No wonder why they felt stiff and lifeless, they were so fight tension that i couldn't set up the bass properly not to mention play it. I downtuned the whole thing do DGCF and it was like a new life given to the bass! Every note sounded way better then before, despite the fact that strings feel now like loose rubber bands. The dealer from whom i've bought the Epic must have not known that those 105-50 weren't for standard tuning, i suppose... That's my guess at least.
As of now, i'm more determined to restore this bass to it's proper glory by all means necessary. And i'll need your help, since even though i was for a long time dissatisfied with the Epic, i loved it's sound. I'll describe what is going on in the troubleshooting section soon, and hopefully we can work it all out
For now, enough of my badly written ramblings. I will post Pictures of the bass itself soon enough, maybe with the face behind forum id, who knows...
Cheers,
Jan Dobaczewski
