5 reviews for Solo SBBK-10 DIY Headless Electric Bass Guitar Kit

1. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Sy (verified buyer) – February 17, 2019

   Hi,

   I just finished this kit and I’m very happy with it. At the end I got a bass that is very accurate. The neck and the frets was perfect and also the body. Don’t use the strings who is come with the kit, they are not good at all. I had to shim the neck to get a proper strings height. If I compare this kit with my Squier J-Bass, I got a better playability with my SBBK-10. The pickup sond is right but lower than my JBass.

   A suggestion to Solo, That will be great if you can open a forum to share the information between Solo and us and keep everyone up to date. As I can see there is an evolution with your kits, and to have a forum, we will be able to find the right information quickly.

   The shematique for the electronique was right and not right depending which document you use. The pickup had extra wires and for a person like me who it’s is first time, I waste a lot of time to find out the right pinout because the documents were not well done. And it’s took time to have the information from Solo because the tech was sick. ( 1 week 1/2). So it’s another reason why I think a forum can be good.

   At the end, like I said, I’m very happy with this kit and I’m looking to build a guitar from Solo very, very soon. You can see pictures of it on my instagram @stlouissyl

   And excuse my bad English.

   Sy

2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   yyz_ttr – February 26, 2019

   I have to say that this kit builds one really good instrument. Like the previous reviewer, I had to shim the the neck to get the bridge saddles to engage the strings and provide some adjustability. The bridge also need to be moved 1/8 inch further out to allow the saddles to accept a good intonation and also allow the string ball end to be removed from the tensioner block without unlocking the saddles at every string change. Once these minor issues were worked out…the bass plays great! The stock pickups are passable but I had a bad pot out of the box. The quality of work was really good save the neck heel being cut too low and bridge position being too close to the neck (all of which are very correctable problems). I like the fact it is a full scale length bass that can use standard single ball end strings (most Steinys need double balls which limits your string choice). Lube the bridge tensioners with a high film lube like lubriplate to make string tuning workable. The saddles are free floating and are locked into place by a allen screw on the top side of the bridge…it works but is not the easiest thing to setup. Since you manually have to push the saddles back and forth to set intonation you have to make sure the neighboring saddles don’t get moved from where they are set. A pair of small flatblade screwdrivers with a bit of electrical tape (to keep from scratching the powder coat on the bridge) to pry with seemed to work fine. I cut the sealer off of the neck and I’m thinking that I’m going to leave it that way. The neck was flat out of the box and did not require a great deal of relief adjustment….but because of the design…was the easiest, most accessible, truss rod adjustment I have ever seen! It fits into a regular six-string gig bag. The ash top looks nice enough that I think it will be a while before I attempt to finish it. I am impressed with the kit and building was a joy. The finished product exceeds the quality of some of my factory built jobs.

   Guy

3. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Scott Christianson (verified buyer) – May 16, 2020

   Update; Solo had responded to me but it went to spam. So they did in fact respond. they were quick to send out a matched set of pick ups. unfortunately the wiring issue is exactly the same on the new ones 🙁 . I’ll just push ahead and see what happens.

4. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Jo-Anne Park (verified buyer) – March 12, 2024

   A fairly easy kit to build. Nice looking wood. I finished it with Tru Oil. Looks great. It’s a heavy bass, all concentrated at the bottom but has a solid feel. The strap pins are perfectly located for its weight distribution. The neck is wide and flat, and l-o-n-g. Quite fast. Very usable above the 12th fret, all the way to the 24th. String spacing is about 2 1/8″ at the bridge. The fret work is excellent. It had a slight backbow which went straight under tension (with light gauge strings). The trussrod is just snug so cannot be dialed off for any relief. Would be better with heavier strings, I guess. The pickups are quite good. Very balanced output between strings. A few issues needed attention. The neck needed shimming. The holes for the strings through the ‘head’ were not big enough for even a light gauge set and had to be drilled out. The routing for the pickups in the body needed to be filed more square-cornered to accept these pickups. The predrilled bridge holes were offset a little causing the strings to be off-centre on the neck (needed to filled and redrilled 1/8″ toward the control side.) The pickups are suspended by little springs that will make you tear your hair out. The electronics are low end but work well. Mostly pre wired, only the pickups and jack needed to be soldered. The biggest issue with it is the “Overlord of Music” bridge/tuner ass’y. I have another one of these from another project so can compare them. The one with this kit uses two short springs per tuner, while the one I had previously uses one big spring. The two springs bind against each other causing an awful feeling as you tune the strings, like everything is stripping inside. They should be swapped out. Two of the pieces that hold the ball end of the string were not drilled accurately where the thumb screw enters, causing binding when turned. They needed to be flipped over for better sliding. My original one was drilled properly so this may be a quality control issue that surfaces randomly. There is a lot of friction in there as it is, so this can make it worse. The mech needs lubing. In conclusion, for the price, this is an excellent bass, but expect a bit of work getting it right. I’m loving the feel, how solid it is. The action is great. I like the full scale 24 fret neck in a guitar sized package. I like the clean lines.

5. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Ezekiel Laya-Araque (verified buyer) – January 19, 2025

   Amazing build. Came in a completely clean box, perfectly sculpted, amazing all around.