Stagg XB300-GBK"Heavy Metal" Electric Bass Guitar

Stagg is a belgian company that manufactures their budget-oriented products in China, which range from cymbals to ukeleles, banjos, guitars and basses, small amps and all kinds of accessories.Not sure if this model is still in production, as I bought it at a very reasonable price in a little music shop and the guy told me it had been hanging there since they had started biz and I had been the first fella to ask about it. Let's face it, its bold looks are very unconventional since this axe is inspired on an ESP model with exactly the same frontal pointy edges with a rounder ¨waist¨ and rear shapes which gives it a sexy look. It's on the heavy side for a bass guitar, in the neighborhood of 4 kg; noticeably heavier than say, a Cort or Ibanez. The strings are nice and seem to last forever. Its headstock is smallish and triangularly shaped, with generic but effective Gotho-like non-locking tuners. A widow head would have been much more preferrable and style-matching. The bridge is the simplest available which I find appealing since I'm not the endless adjusting/tweaker kind of guy but more of the set-and-forget kind. It has low action and so far I have found some buzzing frets, though the amp doesn't pick the buzz, just the notes.It has 2 passive mikes, a double-coil type humbucker close to the bridge and a single-coil at the middle, with a 3-way toggle switch that allows selection of either one or both mikes at a time. It only has one volume and one tone control for both mikes; a no-brainer.It is built like a tank, very solid, thick alder body with rosewood fretboard and bolt-on, slim, hard maple neck. It came in a cardboard box with just a cheap 3-meter cable.This guitar has a very horror-punkish kind of sound, suitable only for extreme metal, punk or goth styles, which I love, but can simulate a ¨normal¨ sound by selecting the single-coil mike only and negating all the treble with the tone control.Cons:1.The sound; you either love or hate it. Dirty and trebley and a little distorted. I love it.2.The frets; most of them were a little wider than the actual fretboard, and had tiny jagged edges that would not cut you but were unpleasant to feel. The guy at the store machined them manually for me at no cost and they were perfect after all. On other models the problem wasn't present. Not a deal-breaker but something attributable to inconsistent production.3. Balance; it head-dives like crazy. Unconventional shapes with rear-located strap buttons, esp. those who are not levelled with fret 12 all exhibit a certain degree of this quirk . I relocated the button to the heel of the neck and minimized the problem almost to nothing. A wide, raw leather strap took care of the remains of it.The single-coil mike. I could have done so much better with a second humbucker instead of this one; it picks hum from everything from a poorly isolated/grounded electrical wiring to tv sets, transformers, etc. Not horrible but a tad annoying and certainly not as bad as my Fender Musicmaster from 30 years ago.Happy with it; won't upgrade to a better one till I have caught up with my playing of 30 years ago (I'm 50 and back into playing).CONCLUSION : A nice and attractive euro-styled product with an unique body shape but for 200 bucks you can get the infinitely better GSR200 4 Ibanez from this very same website or even the similarly/radically-styled BC Rich Warlock (this one is comfier to play while sitting than the Warlock).