If you liked the semi-hollow Epiphone basses of yesteryear, you will enjoy this bass. An update of an earlier Gibson design, the Jack Casady Bass features a low impedance pick-up that has a great sound for today's rock musician. I was impressed with the overall workmanship in the finish, finding no flaws. The pick-up was clear of any noticeable hum, and gives the guitar that roundwound growl, even with the tone control all the way down. The neck was superb, with a P-Bass type spacing, and no dead spots could be detected. Also, the strings were balanced in volume, with a very clear G-string. If you liked the older hollow bodies of the sixties, but the 30-inch scaled necks were not to your liking, this bass comes with a standard 34-inch scale. The hardshell case is well worth the extra money but a gigbag would be nice. The only fault I could find is that the bass was neck-heavy and slightly unbalanced due to the large headstock and tuners. Maybe Epiphone will deal with this with lighter tuning gears in the future. Being a larger bass, it is also a little unwieldy for me (being small in stature)to play, but I usually use it to record with anyway, when I'm sitting. The bass records quite well, especially with a tube amp, but its direct sound is quite nice.

I have owned this bass since it was introduced, and it is a solid bass. It is a bit top heavy, and the action can be a bit tricky to set, if you find you need to adjust it. However, it has a good tone, it's solid,and very playable. The "EQ" selector switch gives you a good wide range of bottom to choose from. Sounds good direct or mic'd. Nice "semi-acoustic" overtones. Seems more like a Gibson than an Epiphone... If that makes any sense.

The Epi JC hollow bass is a capable general purpose bass. OK, I don't consider thumb hammering or metal/distortion to be general use of a bass, but the point is it's a very versatile, dependable instrument with a big voice that you really can't get from solid body basses. I've got 2 other hollow f-hole magnetic PU basses, but both are 30" scale, and the 34" scale of the JC has a good growl while the shorter scale basses have more of a "thump-whunk" string sound. The triple coil tap is part of the personality of this bass. Whatever is your definition of "passive PU tone", the JC most likely delivers on it. The tone knob does not have a huge effect but is usable, and combined with the triple coil tap most players can find the tone they want. Another ingredient in cooking up tone is that this is a true hollow body, not a twin chamber semi-hollow. This means the whole top [clear of the edges] is unattached to anything, no big "neck-thru" keel block glued to both back and top. Of course the lack of a heavy keel block combines with the large head and tuning pegs to produce a top heavy off-balanced ax. Such is the price of tone it seems. The neck is "set", neither bolt-on nor neck-thru. This means you can't shim the neck joint to get your favorite setup angle, but I find it very playable as-is. So, it's not light, it's off-balance, it needed some tool-kit style tinkering, and it can't be field serviced if the pots, wiring, or jack do what pots, wiring, and jacks will sooner later do on most any ax. Oh, and it's big, hard to find a gigbag for it. And actually, the gold paint is not very attractive as guitar colors go. I suppose for some players the name on the head is the ugliest part of the finish. But when you play it all these shortcomings just melt away. All its non-cosmetic shortcomings are just the nature of hollow-bodied 34" basses, and need of filing a nut or bridge is common personal setup chore. I'm rating it a "5" but that is a 5 for its genre: hollow-bodied bass NOT custom built at several thousand dollars. Compared to cost- no-object fantasy, it's still a "4" because tone is just about everything, as long as an ax is playable and stays in tune. This ax does stay in tune; and although it is off-balance, the action, neck shape, etc provide an otherwise quite comfortable playing experience.

This is an excellent bass for a fingerpicker, which is how a bass guitar should be played! It has a great sound, different from the traditional solid body bass. I like it better, it has more of a natural bass tone, sort of like an acoustic bass. It is my main axe. I would suggest to the reader to purchase one before they quit making 'em.

...I first heard his bass at a very intimate acoustic Tuna gig; the guitar, amp system, room acoustics and, of course, Jack made for the finest Tuna show I've seen (actually, both shows--they were at a little Ozark resort for a weekend). This was summer of '05. I bought one from Fur Peace Ranch in December, '05 and the only "fault" I found was the strings (I prefer polished RW's smoother than the "stock" strings) so I replaced 'em.