MTD 635-24 mango top
MTD 635-24 flamed ash body, figured mango top, flamed ash neck/ birdseye maple fingerboard, matching peg head veneer and truss rod cover, MTD “the World” logo, MTD custom hardshell case. Weight: 10 lbs 5 oz. List $7625.
This is a remarkable 635. Clear, warm, even, powerful, solid but with excellent transient response, excellent frequency balance (aggressive but still with a “curious” sweetness in the high end), and very, very “alive” are descriptives that come to mind.
It’s figured mango top is both beautiful and functional in adding to the sonic flavorings, and tailoring the dynamic and timbreal balance of its ash body and neck. Its body and neck are built from ABT’s select stock of flamed ash adding an extra touch of beauty and elegance to this fine instrument. From first pluck one realizes that this instrument is truly alive.
Sonically, this bass has a very defined and open response from its low range to its highest. Its low “B” is strong, true and balanced in volume, and timbre. It has excellent sonority, power, and focus of the “body of the note” which translates into an instrument that has plenty of structure, and “backbone” to stand very well in the busiest of mixes. There is plenty of dynamic response, and punch without approaching “hollowness” or lacking weight and substance.
Notes focus with immediacy, clarity and excellence of articulation.
Slapping yields the quintessential MTD quickness, openness, and sparkle without losing any strength or mass of the note. Its string tension, fretwork, and neck/fingerboard setup allow for extremely low action, and facilitating nano speed playing.
This wonderful instrument is inherently in the center range of the voicing continuum, but towards a lighter tonal shading rather than darker. This should be construed not as being more towards bright, or shrill, but possessing more of a clearer, open, and dynamic tonality RATHER THAN A darker or more occluded by too much growl.
In fact, its sonic properties reflect its ash like aggressiveness but not overtly so, and with just enough aggressiveness in the upper mids imparted by its maple fingerboard and ash neck and body. It yields a nice “dryness”, and cut thru slap tonality… a la “Marcus”, et al. The mango really tempers frequency response in a wonderful manner imparting exceptional roundness to the bottom without detracting from its firmness and authority. The mango adds pleasing evenness and contributes nice tempering to the mids, and softening what might typically be (for ash body/ ash neck/ maple fingerboard instruments) dominating highs that approach shrillness or harshness. This instrument is “magical” in this regard, and this player (read “I”) was greatly impressed by (read “fell in love with” its aliveness, tonal balance, and remarkable versatility.
