Sandberg California TT-4 Super Light Active/Passive Bass, 3-Tone Sunburst

What's lighter than light? Super light!

Music Store Live is proud to offer up this TT-4 from our friends at Sandberg. They use a paulownia body so the end result is a bass that is beautifully balanced, but yet only weighs 6 lbs! This is the solution for all the bass players out there that need to be mindful of how heavy their instrument is. You can rock for hours and hours and you'll barely even feel it. For these they use a Norwegian maple neck instead of Canadian maple and ultra light hardware. The result is a surprisingly even balance and lack of neck dive to help combat some of the typical issues with overly light basses. Sandberg have solved that issue!

As well as being effortless to play, this Sandberg TT-4 comes loaded with some powerful and thoroughly kickass electronics. Sandberg's black label pickups are wonderfully vintage-sounding when run passive. Add in the Sandberg 2-band preamp to get modern active jazz bass tones as well, great for rock and funk applications. This reviewer personally owns a passive TT-4 and absolutely loves it to pieces! The preamp adds some nice versatility. This is a brilliant adaptation of a tried and true design. 

The paulownia wood is sometimes also called empress and is growing in popularity. It's a softer wood and has similar tonal properties to swamp ash while carrying a fraction of the weight. It has a very clear and articulate sound with a snappy attack. We've seen a few other manufacturers experiment with this wood and the results were great. Sprinkle in the special Sandberg touch and we were sure these instruments would be nothing short of a grand slam when they first shared their plans with us to build these. We put in an order for a few and we're seeing the first ones roll through the shop now. We're confident these will be game-changers. You no longer need a heavy bass to get a heavy tone.

A simple 2-band boost/cut EQ allows you to tweak your sound on the fly without ever having to turn around and fiddle with your amp knobs. From round and thumpy, to bright and poppy, there really aren't too many tones that you can't achieve with this combination of pickups. It's a killer j-style design! In passive mode, the treble EQ knob serves as a passive tone knob where the center detent is the equivalent of having the tone knob 100% open and you can cut from there. This is one of our favorite "hidden" features of this bass as it really does make for an instrument that offers just as much usefulness in active mode as it does in passive. Add to that the expert craftsmanship that all Sandberg basses share and you've got a true winner here!

Sandberg basses have instantly become shop favorites here and every single one that we get just continues to impress. This bass weighs barely over 6 lbs, looks awesome, plays like a dream, and sounds fantastic. It leaves nothing to be desired (other than maybe wishing for more hours in the day so you could play it more).