OLP is a brand that delivers the look and feel of the big names at a considerably lower price, designed for musicians who can’t yet afford the hefty price tags of certain top-tier instruments. OLP products are made under license from the original manufacturers, following every construction detail of the original, with an unbeatable final look.
Approaches for the Bassist on a Tight Budget
When you’re looking for a bass that delivers an attractive look and, more importantly, a desirable sound, the natural tendency is to seek out construction in premium tonewoods, active circuitry and a perfectly balanced response across the strings (including the fifth). The problem with that route, as you can guess, is the price. It’s practically impossible to find a bass with select woods and active electronics at a “reasonable” price for a limited budget.
After trying great basses such as Vigier or Music Man (the results Fernandes achieved with the Gravity series are also noteworthy), it’s hard to find an instrument that can deliver even a remotely similar sound at a moderate price. Among those I’ve tried, and in recognition of Yamaha’s efforts with its affordable active basses, I’ll mention them too as a close option for solving our “problem.”
Well, at this point, remembering that we can’t spend more than €600 (just to give an example that defines our search), we conclude that American-made and “handcrafted” instruments have to be ruled out, since there’s no attainable option. That leaves us with machine-built instruments, possibly of Korean origin, among other options...
Although some say the instrument isn’t what matters, since creativity and work ethic are, and considering the reality that there have to be products within everyone’s reach, I must stress that a good instrument, whatever people say, sounds better, makes certain techniques easier and generally makes our playing more satisfying. So I conclude that we should make the effort to find, within our own budget, the best possible instrument (in tuning, tone, intonation and so on).
OLP MM3 by Music Man: A 5-String Alternative
Following this line of reasoning, let’s suppose we’ve already decided to look for an instrument under €600 and sacrifice the active circuit. That brings us to OLP as an interesting option.
Look, Construction and Finish
I think few bassists aren’t charmed by the Music Man Stingray, and with this OLP in hand we have an unbeatable finish on an accurate replica of that instrument. The look is therefore completely satisfying, even more so in the natural finish, which I personally find very attractive.
The woods used are quite acceptable for the price, including maple for the neck and rosewood for the fretboard.
Feel and Tuning
Something risky on moderately priced instruments (and especially on basses) is intonation and feel. Given the thickness of their strings, basses are stiff, with high action and (depending on the case) little sensitivity (especially without a preamp), which makes it considerably harder to play certain passages, get certain tones and so on...
In this area, following its perfect aesthetic showing, the OLP convinced us again. You can sense the original manufacturer’s guidelines: the strings sit close to the neck (no buzzing), it has a smooth feel, produces harmonics with relative ease and, in short, offers quite comfortable playability.
Tuning and intonation (at least so far) are quite faithful and accurate. That’s three of the decisive elements covered: looks, tuning and feel.
The Sound
If the sound had been exquisite, the making of high-priced basses would be ruined, because with this OLP we would have been 100% satisfied. Running the bass completely flat, we get a response that is (to my taste) a little odd in EQ terms, lacking lows and mids. The preamp is missed, too, since the output is a bit weak even with its pots all the way up.
How Do We Fix It?
We ran the bass’s output jack through our mixing desk (we could have done it through an amp, an EQ pedal and so on...). We changed the response by raising our channel’s gain considerably, boosting the lows, tweaking the mids and adding a touch of highs. Then we played with the bass’s own tone pots and voilà!
The sound we finally got comes fairly close to a satisfying result, missing only (after the EQ described) more note definition, since pushing the lows made it hard to give the notes a certain nuance and clarity.
Conclusions
The combination of possibilities in this bass has won us over: its moderate price justifies the shortcomings we found (in the sound), and these can be corrected, bringing the final sonic result to something entirely acceptable. It would have been hard to fix if the feel were poor, because it would be uncomfortable to play, but considering its unbeatable looks, its excellent string setup and its good price, it’s well worth spending a little time with the EQs to get a manageable bass tone and having saved “a bundle.”
One last note: the fifth string (as on many, many basses) has somewhat “wild” tendencies, with a shrill low-end response compared to the rest (the fourth and third), especially when we had pushed the EQ beforehand. Even so, with a touch of compression and a little care when playing it, we achieved a correct balance that is very acceptable for the price the distributor/manufacturer asks. An interesting option.
