Sandberg Forty Eight Victor Brandt 5 Signature Bass, 5-String, Hardcore Aged Black

Player’s Perspective

Music Store Live is proud to be an official Sandberg dealer! Made over in Europe, with the finest German engineering, the Forty Eight bass will slap a smile on your face that you just can’t shake. This one, in particular, is the signature version of the Forty Eight that Sandberg made for Victor Brandt and this one’s definitely a rock machine through and through.

As well as being effortless to play, this Sandberg Forty Eight comes loaded with some powerful and thoroughly kickass electronics. Instead of Sandberg’s typical 2-band EQ that straddles the line between vintage and modern, this one has the 3-band Black Label pre-amp that definitely helps pump some solid output from your bass. It’s active/passive and you can use the treble knob, when in passive mode, as a traditional tone knob (we really love this “hidden” feature of the Sandberg preamps). So you really end up with an immensely versatile array of tones to choose from. It’s a rocker’s dream, for sure. It sounds and looks the part.

A reverse split-P pickup in the neck and a single-coil by the bridge give this a modern take on a fairly traditional pickup configuration. The p/j has become a classic in the bass community. But we love how Sandberg likes to take that P pickup and flip it around. You end up with a tighter, punchier, and more focused tone on the 2 lowest bass strings while having a slightly fuller and rounder sound out of the D and G treble strings. The resulting tone is one that will sit perfectly in a mix, no matter how many other instruments are playing along with you, and will never be muddy or indistinct. The single-coil in the bridge adds just enough bite and growl to the tone without making things nasally. Add to that, the zero fret which eliminates that disparity between the way your fretted and open strings sound, and you truly have a bass with even response across all strings and all notes.

It doesn’t get much more rock n’ roll than this one! Another clear example of why Sandberg basses are such favorites here at the shop.