HeadlessBassist

“So you think there’s a market for basses that look like snot, then?” - Lord Edmund BassAdder.

The Vester Chow Mein was infinitely better, IMO.

The Jazz Bass' natural scooped sound [with everything dimed] often needs a little help - if you set your bass & treble on the amp to about 2 o'clock, that always helps. Also, passive Jazz pickups sound best when set closer to the strings. (6-7mm for neck pickup & 3-4mm for bridge pickup.) I'll be interested to hear your findings if you do end up swapping the pickups.

Ditto. I had a spalted maple topped one brand new from Andertons a few years ago and similarly, couldn't get along with the neck. Too thick fingers-thumb for me. But lovely basses. Congrats, Rexel.

That's a great looking bass, Delbert. Hopefully it has that P-punch that fills out the sound which we all enjoy. I know I'm enjoying coming back to the Precision for the first time in about 7 years with the American Professional Classic. What happened with the Warmouth-Status Jazz? How did it fail on the gig?

I'd also look at the Fender Pure Vintage 66 pickups. I've bought a couple of sets now and they're excellent.

Well I've resurrected my old Precision preset on the RH750 and that little bit of added shove from the on-board compressor gives the Precision a very convincing punch. Initial thoughts have been confirmed, the American Professional Classic is a fantastic sounding P. I've also ordered (January sales are very "DANGER WILL ROBINSON!") the small 300W Ampeg Venture head unit for some Ampeg 'clank'. Never had an Ampeg of any kind before, so should be interesting with my MarkBass or TC 12" cabs. (Or have I opened myself to yet more shopping of the Ampeg Cab variety?!)

Is your bridge actually falling, or slipping slightly? That can be due to the feet of the bridge not being 'fitted' properly - this is usually fixed by taping a piece of sandpaper to the front and physically running the bridge feet up and down it, so that the feet are matched to the curvature of the front plate. Traditionally, the bridge should be angled very slightly, so the top of the bridge is slightly 'pulling' away from the tuners. You may have to adjust it several times during initial tuning when re-stringing, as it will naturally move as the tension increases.

Fender have definitely been streamlining their production in recent years, especially in terms of necks - All of the mainstream necks from Squiers to Fender Ultra II now have skunk stripes on the back and top end truss rod access, and nearly all now have a 9.5" radius. Gone are the days of 2016-20 where you paid more for a better quality neck with a recessed MM-style truss-rod adjustment wheel in an Elite series bass. Although, my new American Professional Classic Precision has a very nice neck, it is still of the skunk-stripe variety, which used to be reserved for the cheaper Mexican models. It must be an easier and cheaper process to put the truss rods in from the back, then plugging the hole instead of inserting the rod from the top side before the fingerboard is glued and clamped on.

Some of the JHS Vintage range are very good and excellent value, but watch out for the weight. Some of the P's & J's can be mightily heavy.

That's very beautiful, Kiwi... 🤩

Only problem is I'm now looking at Ampeg Venture head units! 🫣

I bought one of the 40th Jazzes from @Sean in the Summer for a pupil, so if the Precision is anything like the same quality, it'll be a very nice sounding, good quality bass.

It is interesting, isn't it? Along with being 'mass produced' also comes that ratio of good ones, average ones and bad ones. I never see most of my old basses again either - I hope that's because they were all very nice examples that played and sounded fantastic. I guess they all found good homes, or several more good homes since my careful stewardship. Also, as I travel around the country picking up various basses for sale, I realise that there are a lot of Bass Players around who don't visit these hallowed pages. But yes, as for your list, maybe they are a little less 'mass' produced than we think. Fender maybe sells 1000 Indonesian Standards for every 100 Player series sales, and maybe those 100 Players equate to 50 American Professional sales, so how many American Deluxe/Elite/Ultras do they sell compared to those 1000 Indonesian Standard basses? 10? Obviously they must sell in much larger numbers than suggested above in order to feed that behemoth of a business, but it starts to give you an idea.

So many of you will have seen my thread on here entitled, "Do I reeeally need a Precision..?" Well, I ordered this on December 22nd and finally went down to The Bass Gallery in Camden today to get it. Thankfully, with a lot of people still on Christmas holidays, London was relatively quiet and traffic free. I plumped for the new American Professional Classic as it was sonically quite similar to my previous American Professional I, but considerably cheaper than the American Professional II, which doesn't sound anywhere near as good. From the videos I studied, the new Classic with its Pure Vintage series derived 'Coastline' 60s pickups has a very clear upper register and a subtly warm bottom end. I also really like the 'modern C' neck profile, which is very slim [fingers to thumb] for a Precision and the usual modern 9.5" radius/1.625" nut, which is almost like a '63 neck, minus a little thickness. So after driving all day (went to Bridgewater in Somerset too!), I've only had a little play, and first order of business as always is to get those awful stock Fender strings off and put some nice fresh 40-95 Elixirs on instead. Much better. After a brief setup, it's a very nice sounding bass. Very easy to play and sounds really smooth and full at the bottom end. Just what I was looking for - a mix of modern and classic. Being as this new series is supposedly the replacement to the long serving American Performer basses (and all the previous incarnations, such as American Special, Highway One, etc), the quality has been upped by a huge amount, bringing these much closer to the Am Pro II. This particular bass is flawless and everything lines up perfectly. The bridge is the same as the ones on the Vintage/Original/Vintage II basses, (which I've never had any issues with on my American Original Jazz in seven years), and the Gotoh Lollipop Tuners & high quality metal Domed Control Knobs are lovely to use too. More to come when I give it a good playing tomorrow...

This. Exactly.

Damn, I should've been on Batch 2, LOL!

Sorry to hear that, Michael. Fingers crossed it may turn up over the weekend. They seem to deliver via Royal Mail, and the local city Parcel Van, as opposed to the Postman. The Royal Mail tracker is also very delayed in showing you any useful information. It usually changes from "We're expecting your parcel" to "Out For Delivery Today" the very morning it's coming out to you for final delivery.

As MacDaddy mentioned, a lot of it really is in the fingers and how you phrase/articulate. If there is a signature sound for me, it always involves very clean strings, boosted highs and lows with mids in the middle. The singist/guitarist I've worked with for 35 years says I have the best live bass sound he's ever heard. High praise indeed. Audience members often come up to chat and comment that they could hear every bass note clearly, like it's some kind of revelation, so hopefully I'm doing something right! It doesn't seem to matter which bass I'm using - a Status, my GB Spitfire, my 30 year old MusicMan, or one of various active/passive Jazzes. I always sound like me. I'll be interested whether I still sound like me when the new Precision finally arrives...

Comparing it to the American Elite was never going to be a fair comparison, as the Elite is the very best of the Fender American Deluxe lineage with an 18V preamp onboard and one of the best Jazz neck profiles around. But I have compared it to a prototype Nitro Okoume Jazz with roasted maple neck/fingerboard that Silky999 built, which has Fender Pure Vintage 66 pickups in it, and it's not far behind. Obviously the cheap Fazley pickups aren't going to be as rich sounding as the Fender ones, but it has a nice Jazz bass scooped sound and it's very nice to play. Not particularly heavy either, being as the body is ash.

Well, it's now all set up and the only thing I have to complain about is the strings. They're supposedly D'addario sets, but they were pretty lifeless and the E was a dud with a nasty overtone. No problem! I bought a couple of Warwick Red Label 35-95 sets in the Black Friday sales for £8 each, so I've put those on it, and it sings. The pickups (whatever they are) produce a deep and toneful bottom end, and a clear, but in no way nasty top end. It's a low and fast funk machine now. This will make someone a fine bass. Total spend, £71.