It’s hard to ignore the fact that the Custom 35 is the same shape as early Sadowski 5’s. It’s not a clone, mind you, but the influence is clear. So is the finish: Translucent-red polyester protects the 35’s big swamp ash body. The grain really jumps out thanks to a black pre-stain that’s sanded down to expose the grain. The bass feels substantial in your lap-the extra weight from the ABM brass bridge helps balance. (So do the Hipshot Ultra-lite tuners.)

Like Fender, Lull favors flatsawn maple for necks, and he beefs them up with graphite rods inlayed next to the truss rod. Pau ferro, an African hardwood, is his choice for the fingerboard. This wood has a warm acoustic snap to it, and it’s a good choice for those players looking for a sound somewhere between maple and ebony. The bass is easy to play due to a special neck contour that has a slightly flattened area just above the middle of the neck’s back. This removes a little meat from the neck underneath your thumb, a blessing on a 5-string. The neck has a polyester finish, but it’s sanded down to a satiny feel. The Dunlop fret wire has the width of jumbos, but it tapers at the top for more precise intonation. Lull earns extra points for the nut’s perfect string heights and profile. (But you should expect perfection on a bass in this price range.)

Two custom-wound Basslines J-style pickups cancel hum thanks to their stacked humbucker design, although they can also be run in single-coil mode by pulling up on the bridge volume control. (We like the time-tested volume/volume configuration, as it usually sounds a bit bigger than circuits with a blend pot.) Pulling up on the neck volume control puts the bass in passive mode, and should the battery fail, the pop-up compartment makes replacement simple. EQ? Yep-the Bartolini NTMB has three bands with a selectable midrange frequency point, which can be handy for adding depth to the B string.

We had fun experimenting with the coil-tap switch. Humbucking mode delivers the quite, hum-free performance you’d expect, but we preferred the growl, depth, and openness of single-coil mode. (You just have to live with the noise.) Overall, the Lull 5 sounds very refined in humbucking mode- the Bartolini NTMB preamp has a lot to do with it’s even output (although one tester described it as slightly compressed). Through various Demeter, Hafler, MESA/Boogie, Ampeg, or Eden components, the Custom 5 has a dark growl with both pickups on, and the midrange switch adds various shades of cut.

Does the scale length’s extra inch improve the sound? Definitely. Tension-wise, the B string has a feel much better than Lull’s 34" –scale 5, and the entire bass feels more robust. However, some of us liked the B string and some didn’t. It responds better, but the C-to-E range sounds a bit choked – and there’s a lot of weird overtones, too. We also experienced some fret buzz on the B when digging in – even with the double-expanding rod set so there wasn’t any backbow. Raise the saddle, you say? Because Lull uses GHS Super Steel strings with an exposed-core B, the ABM saddle is about as high as it will go. We were surprised to find a few slightly high frets on the test bass, as Lull’s fretwork in normally a thing of beauty. (And besides this observation, it is.) The buzzing was only on the B, though. ( Mike Lull’s Roger Gee says, "We are still searching for a string manufacturer that makes a 35" scale taperwound B. We chose the GHS exposed core set because they are readily available. We hope to have taper-wound strings on future instruments.")