80s Vigier Passion

[ped]

I know there are some other Vigier fans out there so here's a nice one
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332368499528

The seller says the truss rod works well, which is great. Even though it doesn't have one...

[alyctes]

So either he doesn't know what he's got, or he's telling porkies. Hmm.

[kumimajava]

I played this bass a few days ago - it's based at Heartman Vintage Guitars (a branch of Ikebe-gakki, hence the watermark) in Shibuya.

No idea where they got the 80% frets remaining figure from - they are almost completely flat, and almost crownless. The guy in the shop had no idea how the tone controls worked. He said: "well, it's old, so the controls don't quite work like on a modern one. But it sounds nice, doesn't it?" (yes, it actually does sound great )

There's a crack in the clearcoat near the neck joint, which is not pictured on any of the shots - but looked structurally ok (just a finish crack).

Neck is in decent shape - though it was not "nearly flat", as ped says they usually should be on the Series II's. There was around the same amount of relief as on a Series III I saw few weeks ago.

Prior to turning up at Heartman, the bass was sold by a recycle shop in Yokohama (in January, for about half the current asking price), which I sadly didn't have the time to visit before someone nabbed it.

Anyways, if anyone on this forum would be actually curious about this specimen - let me know, happy to drop by Heartman's again on your behalf.

[Hellzero]

You can find them over here for around 1.000 to 1.500 Euros / GBP. So it's not cheap at all considering the import duties. The preamp is a 10 pre-defined parametric EQ with 3 positions gain plus volume, tone and pickup selector : it is fine if you like the sound à la Alembic.

Here is the link to the user manual : http://www.vigierguitars.net/france/bmanuals/bfvp4m.htm

And yes these are terrific basses, but before buying check the neck as there is absolutely no trussrod on these early birds...

Edited September 5, 2017 by Hellzero

[ped]

[quote name='Hellzero' timestamp='1504593176' post='3365823']
You can find them over here for around 1.000 to 1.500 Euros / GBP. So it's not cheap at all considering the import duties. The preamp is a 10 pre-defined parametric EQ with 3 positions gain plus volume, tone and pickup selector : it is fine if you like the sound à la Alembic.

Here is the link to the user manual : [url="http://www.vigierguitars.net/france/bmanuals/bfvp4m.htm"]http://www.vigiergui...uals/bfvp4m.htm[/url]

And yes these are terrific basses, but before buying check the neck as there is absolutely no trussrod on these early birds...
[/quote]

No, definitely not cheap - a really good one might be around this price but as you say import duty would be about £400 on top. Maybe we should wait until Brexit negotiations have finished!

FYI the pre-amp in this model is slightly different from the later programmable one. You have a pickup selector switch with a volume behind it, then a small switch with a 15db cut or boost of the frequency selected on the knob behind that, which goes from something like 80hz to 5200khz, then a tone control which sweeps right up into a treble boost around 8khz.

A similar and better condition one with a walnut body sold here for £1500 recently http://basschat.co.uk/topic/309105-sold-vigier-passion-2-1989-model/page__p__3340324__hl__vigier__fromsearch__1#entry3340324