Aria Pro 2 SB Special 2, MIJ 1982

[solo4652]

Got this bass last week.

It took me a whole day to strip it, de-crud it, remove years of fluff, grime and sticky stuff, check all the electrics, re-assemble it and do a decent set up. After playing it at home and at band practice, here are my impressions:

Good points;

Really nice woods. Quality alder (?) body, smooth maple neck and virtually unmarked rosewood board.
Loads of tone options with pickup blending, pickup phase switching and individual pickup tone/volume controls. Almost too many options! - I'll probably confuse myself in the hurly-burly of a gig.
Slim, easy-to-play neck. Easy-access truss-rod at heel.
Balances well - no neck-dive.
To my ears, it tends towards a more modern/middy tone but a bit of pickup switching gets it pretty close to warm/rich/P-tone. It's all there, somewhere.

Things that don't suit me, personally;

Narrow string spacing. I'm used to a wide, flat 44mm G&L nut-width, so perhaps I was expecting a bit much to play a 40mm nut-width. My hulking great paws are finding it too cramped.
Slightly odd tone-switching that takes a fair bit of learning and understanding. For me, it's made me realise I prefer something a little more simple and straightforward, especially in a gig environment.

So, in summary, this is a well-built instrument easily on a par with my MIJ Fender P for build-quality. It's light, nicely balanced, easy to play and has a wide range of tones on offer - at least as many as my G&L. It's a J size neck and that's where I'm struggling with it. I don't think it's quite right for me. It's made me realise I should keep looking for a G&L SB-1, L-1000, LB-100 or maybe a wide-necked Yamaha BB like a BB1200.

Steve

[Skybone]

Fantastic & underrated basses. I always loved the bridge design on them as well, slightly gutted when I saw the recent reissues that didn't have the classic Aria Pro SB bridges.

[Bassassin]

Beautiful - looks like you've done a great job of cleaning & tidying it. Persist with for a while it before you make a decision, however if you do decide to move it on, there are plenty of people here who'd be interested. Well, me at least!

Jon.

[tommorichards]

[quote name='solo4652' timestamp='1392202603' post='2365834'] I should keep looking for a G&L SB-1

Steve
[/quote]

Dam, im after one of those as well. good luck with the search