One of the newest basses in the line from Cort is the Artisan A5 Plus FMMH.

I have to be honest, I haven’t really heard much about Cort basses, either good or bad, with the exception that they are played by bass extraordinaire Jeff Berlin, (Jeff has a signature bass with Cort) and I haven’t played one… until now.

The Cort Artisan A5 Plus FMMH is absolutely stunning with the beautiful craftsmanship, playability, and range of its tonal palate. While being skeptical at first, which I cannot give a reason for, other than not being familiar with the Cort line, all skepticism is now GONE! The bass setup was perfect from the factory with no changes needed. It just feels that good and sounds that good as well.

The Artisan A5 is of ‘neck-through’ construction, with a figured maple top on a mahogany body, with the 5-piece neck being constructed of maple and wedge. A truly great combination of tone woods that are brought to life with the Bartolini MK1-5/F and MK1-5/R Split Coil pickups and the Bartolini MK-1 EQ with controls for volume, balance, highs, mids, and lows. There is a toggle switch, which allows you to turn off the EQ, being able to choose between active and passive modes. The 24-fret rosewood neck is 34” scale and has abalone dots with black circles off-center between the E and A strings, and side dots as well.

The bridge is the Hipshot Trans Tone bridge, which consists of steel saddles that gives plenty of sustain. The saddles also lock for the intonation. The tuners are Hipshot Licensed Ultralite with a 20:1 gear ratio. All of the hardware is platinum color and the controls for volume, balance, bass, mid, and treble also have 3 rubber grommets on each control; not only does this look cool, it does help when adjusting the controls.

The strings can be installed through body or bridge, and are the D’addario EXL170-5SL with gauges .045-.130.

The Cort Artisan A5 Plus FMMH is available with a natural finish or with a black cherry finish.

This bass is definitely going to be added to my collection as one of my main basses! Check out the Cort Artisan A5 Plus FMMH at a music retailer near you or online at www.cortguitars.com/en