Dean Edge 4 Bass Guitar Review – Style On a Budget

Body And Neck:
Electronics:
Hardware:
Sound:
Value:

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Dean is usually the brand you turn to when you are looking for an affordable instrument that performs fairly well. With that said, their presence in more expensive segments of the market is significant. Not a lot of people look at Dean when they have a more flexible budget to work with, which is a shame really since there are some pretty awesome models to be found.

One such instrument is Dean Edge 4. This bass guitar brings a nicely balanced combination of quality, price, and performance which is why it's on our list of best models in the $500 price range.

Body & Neck

The body and body shape of Dean Edge 4 are nothing out of the ordinary. You are looking at a standard altered Fender style body shape made of basswood. This guitar comes in black color, which also happens to be the dominant color of the entire package. The neck is a bolt-on mahogany piece with a standard rosewood fretboard and abalone dot inlays. It's a C profile design, and it's fairly fast.

Hardware

When it comes to hardware, we are looking at a relatively standard setup. The bridge is a die-cast vintage style piece that comes with four fully adjustable saddles. If you look at the headstock, you will see a set of die cast tuning machines, which do a good job at holding both the intonation and the tuning of this bass. The hardware comes in all black, which is a major aesthetic element of the entire guitar.

Electronics

Once we reach the electronics, things get a lot more interesting and a lot better quickly. Instead of installing one of their in-house designs, Dean has decided to outfit the Edge 4 with a set of proper EMGs. The models in question are two EMG 35 P4 pups which come with a Master Volume control, Tone blend control and a three band EQ. This setup is not only hot, but it delivers the type of performance you would expect from EMG. Needless to say, Edge 4 is packing a lot of heat.

Sound

When you plug yourself into an amp, the first thing you are going to notice is the amount of output you have at your fingertips. Dean Edge 4 definitely has what it takes to cut through the mix no matter how saturated it is. Those EMG pups come with an already familiar range, which allows you to cover a multitude of music genres without feeling or sounding out of place. They are not as expressive as we would like them to be, however that's mostly us searching for some non-crucial finesse.

Conclusion

When you get a great bass guitar that also features a set of active pickups from a brand such as EMG, not much can really go wrong. Dean Edge 4 delivers on all front and meets the criteria necessary to put shoulder to shoulder with bases even one class higher than its own. For this kind of money, you won't find a large number of models that can compete.

For more info about the Dean Edge 4, click here.
For more Bass Guitars under $500, click here.