This is a Sandberg VM-4 bass and it is the German company's take on a traditional P Bass but with an added Music Man style unit at the bridge.

We love the approach of blending a vintage sounding and looking bass with modern appointments, better playability and low weight. If that's what you are looking for, this could be the bass you need.

The alder body is finished in Goldtop so it looks amazing. We dig the

It is really lightweight at just 3.7kg but it's also very well balanced.

We love the neck dimensions: 39mm nut and 19mm string spacing at the bridge. The body is slightly smaller than usual which makes it very comfortable but still familiar. The rosewood fingerboard comes with cool Abalone Dot Inlays and

Thw Sandberg Split Coil pickup is really powerful and vintage sounding. The humbucker unit at the bridge makes for a nice contrast as it really sounds like a real Stingray bass so you get two very distinct tones here. The good news is that both pickups blend beautifully, which is not always the case. This means you get a real P Bass sound, real Music Man Stingray sound and a modern but really balanced sound when you blend them together. And of course you can use Ida Nielsen's trick and and blend both pickups but move the Balance slightly towards the Split Coil which gives a monster sound. We love it.

. The preamp is Active-Passive so you get 2 band EQ in Active mode and Passive Tone in that mode. This is really cool because the sound is quite distinct in both modes. Passive is really vintage sound with a nice midrange bite as you'd expect from an old P Bass. But if you switch to Active mode (even with the EQ set flat), there's more bite and power and the sound is a bit more modern and aggressive.

To sum up, a classic looking and sounding bass with modern appointments for maximum comfort. Best of both worlds, really.

Amazing value for money

100% made in Germany

Gigbag included