An Amazing Bass

I've recently came into possession of a Bacchus Handmade Venus 4 (specifically a 3 tone sunburst model).

This bass looks like a jazz bass with a thinner and more ergonomic body, but it has a completely different character to a typical Fender jb. Ergonomically it is thus much better than vintage-style jazz basses. It is also relatively light, coming in at just 3.99 kg (thanks to the light-weight Ash body). The neck profile is less round compared to most jazz basses and is very fast and really comfortable. The two pieces of ash, that the body is made out of are matched perfectly, to the point where it is almost impossible to tell that it's not a single piece of ash. The two halfs are also different in their density and resonant frequency, such that the bass part resonates at lower frequencies, while the treble half resonates well at higher frequencies.

All hardware on this instrument is top notch! The 2-piece bridge simplifies setup (similarly to how an Alembic/Warwick 2-piece bridge makes changing strings and setting up intonation easier. Although, this bridge isn't 3-dimensional, meaning that you can't adjust the string spacing). Most basses of the Handmade line come with Gotoh tuners, with more recent models stocked lightweight tuners. My bass came with Gotoh GB11W tuners, which are on the heavier side. These are exquisite smooth tuners which stay in tune really well. Even with heavier tuners this bass is still perfectly balanced and doesn't suffer from the ubiquitous jazz bass neck-dive problem.

The pickups are Bacchus in-house pickups. I'm not sure what their spec is - visually they look like typical passive jazz pickups. The impedance is clearly fairly low, as the output of each pickup is weaker than average. They are however pretty much noise-free. This suggests that the pickups are somewhat under-wound and/or use pole pieces that don't increase impedance as much as typical Alnico V magnets. All Venus series basses are active and come with a 2-band preamp that Bacchus labels "SuperBOMB" in their catalogue. It is nearly completely noiseless (although boosting the high-end to the max still adds noticeable noise); the two shelf preamp is designed well - the Q-s of both low and high shelves are not too narrow, but are also not too wide, to make them hard to use and the center frequencies are chosen well too. The maximum cut/boost is within reason (my guess it's about +-10db for both shelves).

Venus 4 has an extremely clear modern sound, with tons of sparkly high-end and a strong punchy low-end to back it up. The body resonates extremely well, and each note fills out the entire audible frequency spectrum almost completely (especially with relatively fresh strings). The sound is extremely clear, with the harmonic series of each note played being audible all the way up to ~17K and a well-defined fundamental that dominates all other sonic content. Ofcourse with older strings the sound mellows out significantly, but the overall voice of the instrument remains the same.
The broad sonic range of the instrument gives you a lot of options to sculpt pretty much any sound for a specific mix, making it very versatile and flexible. It's also worth noting that this instrument has a sharper and punchier than average attack (even among bolt-on basses). This makes it really satisfying to play percussive lines and play with the dynamics. While the bass sounds really clean and clear, it doesn't sound sterile like some active basses - it has a sound of its own with a distinct and beautiful colour which is unique.

Overall its one of the best basses I've ever played, and it is an utter joy to play it! While you might initially mistake it for a Fender clone - it is anything but that. With its full modern sound, I can really only compare it to Dingwall and Wal basses.

P.S. I should note that Justin Chancellor's bright bass sound (which is what might come to mind based on the context of this review) isn't exactly typical for Wal basses. In my opinion its the clarity, percussiveness, unique sonic colour and excellent preamp electronics that liken this Bacchus bass to Wal basses.

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