Kramer Review: Alien

History:

Purchase: Bought used, online, somewhere around $400 a while ago, exact amount uncertain.

What I Like About This Kramer Alien: Has the Kramer aluminum neck with the tone and low maintenance that go with that. Fast, easy to play 30" scale neck. Stays in tune almost forever. Never need to adjust for seasons or strings. Headless design but uses regular strings [non-berger]. Very compact, cool passive tone, plus a switch that even bypasses both pots [direct lead from PUs]. Looks very crazy.

What I Do NOT Like About The Kramer Alien: Looks very crazy. Finish on back of neck tend to crack because of wood to metal joints under finish [not a huge problem, though].

Kramer Alien Quality Rating: Cast alloy aluminum neck with wood insets for tone and comfort. Has a rosewood fretboard unlike any other Kramer metal neck bass [all others have composite fretboards]. Body wood is unknown but it has stood up well [not overly easy to dent]. Headless design for normal strings uses normal tuners on back edge of body. Original pegs and tuner keys were rather small so I swapped them out for Sperzel locking tuning pegs. "Doubled-J" humbucker in MusicMan spot, knobs V+T, plus minitoggle to bypass pots [direct feed from PU].

Review Summary: Killer sound from a durable simple low maintenance package. Compact and easy to take anywhere. Like a MM StingRay with 1/3 the weight and size removed. Good hang balance. Very player friendly.

Rating of this Kramer product: 4

This Kramer Alien Bass Guitars Review Submitted By: Golem

Review Date: 2005-03-22