Hot Wire DreamFlame 5-String
Review by Dirk Groll
Can you dearly love a classic like the Fender Jazz Bass and still improve on
it? Unquestionably, Hot Wire CEO Bert Gerecht is a lover of classic Fender basses,
taking the timeless design as a basis for his own creations, showing that this
subject still can be varied in a fresh and creative way.
Most important is keeping the construction´s bassic qualities and developing
it further, instead of merely using its distinctive outline. But with the Hot
Wire Bass enthusiasts you are on the safe side, as our review bass undoubtably
proves. The sonic features of the "good old" models from the sixties
are focussed here, even with this bass and its additional low B string.
Construction
As this bass is called "DreamFlame", it has an exceptionally nice
flame pattern on the one piece neck which has a glued-on fingerboard of the
same pattern. The 21. Fret enables you to play the high E on the G-String. The
trussrod can be accessed from the headstock.
More dream woods are used on the body, with an exceptional nice bookmatched
piece of Figured Maple on the swamp ash body. Care for details can be seen on
the back where the routings for electronics and batteries are covered with wooden
lids of the same grain pattern.
The wonderful appearance of the woods is enhanced by a brilliant higloss finish.
For the neck, a satin finish was chosen. The workmanship is immaculate.
Generations of Fender-players can´t be wrong, so open Schaller tuners
are used on this bass. In order to fit them all in one row, the smaller BML
type is used. Going for sustain, the Hot Wire team has fit a BadAss bridge,
with Schaller security locks holding the strap.
The Hot Wire pickups feature the jazz-format, but we have handwound specials
here that offer the typical sound of the old jazz single coils, but without
the nasty hum when used in single mode. To achive this, the passive pickups
are made with two stacked high impedance coils. 13 polepieces make sure every
string is always picked up evenly.
To get the well-known Vintage sounds out of the DreamFlame, the user finds the
familiar passive circuitry with two volume pots and one tone pot. By pushing
the first volume pot, an active twoband (by Hardy Kurandt) is activated, giving
you active bass, treble, and a variable parametric midrange. This is powered
by two 9Volt batteries to ensure that even extreme signal peaks are processed
without distortion. The power consumption is about 3.6 mA which means you have
about 150 hrs of battery life.
Handling
This fivestring is a no-compromise bass and offers a grown-up string spacing
of 20 mm at the bridge. This is great for playing dynamics meaning you don´t
have to hold back even with more powerful playing attack – the DreamFlame
5 plays very naturally. Definitely the normally pretty narrow jazz bass 4 string
dimensions can´t be realized with a 5 string, but the neck, which has
been carefully widened at the nut feels great to the left hand and invites the
player to explore the fingerboard extensively. The emphasis on playability is
here – quite different from many high end basses – rather favorable
for the firmer playing style. Where a modern slim neck feels comforable when
gently stroked, the Hot Wire neck rather has been optimized for earthy bass
work. Not quite made for those tender digits, but a perfect fit for a seasoned
player.
On the strap, the bass does not show more top-heavy tendencies as the typical
4 string after the Fender model, so we have no problem here.
Sound
Playing the bass acoustically, the Hot Wire already sounds very Fender-like.
The silky and woody tone attack is surprising, as a much more solid bridge is
used here and the sandwich body construction should sound harder as with a normal
solid body bass. But here, the softer neck wood compensates for the tone becoming
too-hard: the modern high end look actually makes for a vintage sound.
The pickups deliver the warm wood sound without any unwanted noise and get very
close to the old single coils. It´s not that easy to compare between the
4 string vintage bass and this 5 string, but it´s going in the right direction.
Quite possibly the hard and nasal sounds here are a bit reserved in favour of
a more definite tone – but not all old Fenders sounded the same. The ash
body versions had a fundamental punch, with the lighter alder body basses putting
the emphasis rather on a concise, nasal tone. As you can imagine, the DreamFlame
is more on the punchy ash side, featuring the highs with amazingly good-naturedness.
Hardy Kurandt´s active tone controls are built for sublte changes, with
the controls going from concise mids to filigree brilliant highs. Those who
were missing the characteristical nasal colors in the round passive tone can
dial them in now in a very convincing way. Surprisingly enough, the active EQ
does not emphasize modern hifi tones but rather harmonically completes the bandwidth
of strong characteristic vintage sounds.
Resume
Without doubt the DreamFlame 5 is an eye catcher with its exceptionally nice
woods, but don´t be fooled by the modern looks with the fat bridge and
many pots: sound-wise, the noble Hot Wire is not a souped-up Hifi bass, but
rather you can count on an authentic vintage sound reaction. Last not least
the possibilities of the active control help shaping those characteristic nasal
jazz tones. In terms of playability this Hot wire is a bass for the working
bassist, displaying its strong points especially when being played firmly.
Originally written by
Dirk Groll for Gitarre&Bass Magazine, Cologne, Germany
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