Mini Reviews (Fender, Shecter, Variax)

[krazy_olie]

My bass is being serviced at the moment and I had nothing to do today so I've been out trying basses and thought I'd post my brief thoughts on them.

1) Fender Jaguar Bass (MIJ)

First thing you notice is how lovely the neck is. It's really glossy and has a dark look to it. It plays amazingly, and sounds like a super jazz bass should do. The controls give a lot of versatility and in active mode you can get some quite powerful sounds. My only gripe with them is that you can actually turn both pickups off, although you could argue that's it's a "mute" feature, it just seems like a design flaw to me. It had a great finger style and slap tone. The construction quality was great and I can't really fault it. The fact that it was well setup in the shop might have had something to do with me liking it to be honest.
For a bit over £600 it's a lovely bass.

2) Fender Aerodyne Classic Precision Bass Special (flamed maple top, MIJ)

Although it does look very nice with the flamed maple top I wasn't very impressed by this one, it just seemed a bit average to me. It didn't feel too great (although that probably has a lot to do with the lack of setup). I can't say the tone was anything to rave about, maybe some better pickups would help it out, but I just wasn't getting anything I particularly liked out of it. A bit of a pity as I had high expectations, maybe the basswood doesn't work so well for it, especially at the price it's sold at.

3) Schecter 004 (Sort of Rickenbacker copy)

There's a picture on the Schecter website [url="http://media.schecterguitars.com/imgs/004_nat.jpg"]http://media.schecterguitars.com/imgs/004_nat.jpg[/url] . First thing I noticed was how lovely the headstock looked. the rest of the bass looks good too, binding on the neck and a natural finish which could have done with just a tad more gloss. It felt good, nice medium-slim neck, comfortable to hold. Fretboard felt really flat which put me off a tad. Nice punchy sounding pickups which give a good range of modern tones. Reasonably priced at under £500, one to have a look at.

4) Line 6 Variax 5-String

I can't really comment on the playability too much as I'm a 4-stringer but it felt quite good, maybe not as good as other basses that cost this much, but felt reasonably good to play. i was not bowled over by the tones here, it's a bit too much of a compromise. None of the settings sounded like a £700+ instrument, the jazz bass tones were quite good and the rest seemed just OK to me. The only use I could see for this is a covers band, anything else you'd be better off buying a higher quality instrument. To be fair though I was playing this one through a Line 6 amp which didn't seem to great.

5) Fender Aerodyne (black export model)

This one played much nicer than the P-bass model but still though it was a bit overpriced for a bass that doesn't have particuarly high quality components. If you're going to have a passive P/J bass you really need a high quality J pickup, these ones on the standard aerodynes seem a bit weak. Probably worth noting that in Japan these are one of the cheapest models you can get, yet they charge a lot for them over here. You can order one from Japan for about the price of a high street MIM jazz.

I give the bass guy at the Bristol Sound Control guy a big thumbs up.

Edited June 7, 2007 by krazy_olie