New Gear: Luna Tattoo Electric Bass (short scale)

-->

In my last post, I mentioned how difficult December was for my family after my father’s major surgery and 25-day hospital stay. Music was one of the main things that helped us through that time. My dad received a Gold Tone travel-sized 5-string banjo from us and I ended up with two new basses: an Ibanez Parlor A/E bass and a Luna short scale Tattoo electric bass.

Luna is primarily known for their ukuleles (or that’s always the impression I’ve had), so when I saw that they offered a short scale electric bass, I was interested to see how a primarily acoustic instrument company would produce an electric bass guitar. The Luna Tattoo bass actually comes in two options: short scale and long scale—but since I collect short scale basses, I wasn’t interested in the long scale version, although I saw several reviews for this version on Youtube.

Musician’s Friend was having a sale on the short scale version of the Luna Tattoo electric bass, so I snagged one for $175 (regular price $199) and informed my husband that I had found my Christmas present from him.

The first thing I noticed about this bass when it arrived was its weight. For a short scale, it seemed really heavy. I knew it had a mahogany body, but dang, short scales are supposed to be lighter, right? Most of my other short scales (with exception to the Fender Rascal) are much lighter than the long scale basses I own or have owned in the past.

As far as pickups go, this bass has a vintage style p-bass split-coil configuration with a volume and tone knob—nice and simple. 

The pearloid inlays are cool—shaped like the phases of the moon—a surprising detail for a $199 bass. And, the laser-etched tribal tattoo design looks great—although it’s not a design I would normally be attracted to.

The neck is comfortable and fairly fast. The sides of the frets could use a little shaping, but they aren't so bad that it's painful to play. I've had higher-end Fender basses that needed fretwork, so I can't complain too much about that subject.

Sound-wise, this bass puts out warm, fat tones (thanks to that heavy mahogany body) with just enough brightness from the round wound strings that came on it. I may change the strings to flat wounds in the future, but for now, I'm content. 

Check out the FULL SPECS of this bass on Luna’s website.

I feel like I should make a point to note that up until a year or two ago, I was a firm believer in only buying instruments that were in the mid-higher price range (anything over $500)—mostly because of the reputation cheaper instruments tend to have (“you get what you pay for” and all that).

I only started going out on a limb with these short scale basses because they’re so much harder to find than your average long scale instruments… so, I probably won’t be buying cheaper long scale basses—but I’m totally open to buying cheaper short scales—if only to collect them.