Fender Squire Jaguar Bass et al

[kawai2g4b]

In addition to that, Washburn built a few headless, Status-designed carbon-fiber neck-thru basses in the late 80's that typically go for $500US.  I played a couple before and I really liked them...but by then I had gotten on my Kawai bass kick, one of which happens to have a bolt on carbon fiber neck.

I definitely support the MM SUB choice.  Its a great, affordable bass that does sound good with the stock pickups and the Carvin should translate it well. 

I can say that the MM will be quite the different beast from the Jaguar.  I would suggest throwing thicker strings on the Jaguar in the meantime to help adjust to the string tension that he will find on the MM, especially if he plays aggressive fingerstyle.

Here is the Washburn Status bass

[rnolan]

Mmm that Washburne looks very nice (and I'm a guitar player  >:D ), good advice kawai2g4b, thanks for that, if we go for thicker strings on the Jag it will help his transition to the SUB and I suspect help with the lack of very low definition on the Jag (a bit).  SUBs coming this week, stay tuned.  If any of you come across a MDRT MB-1 in good nick let me know, that's where I want to take him .... eventually....
BTW the Carvin is doing very well so far (particularly for the price point), I like his Fender Rumble 30 though, (this is a really good entry level bass amp, IMHO, punches well above its weight and sounds great micked up), but the Carvin (well I tweaked it a bit) has "a nice ""sound"" pedigree", my take so far. next test is at volume....and hopefully with the SUB  :whoohoo!:

[BrokeDownSouth]

Yeah, I'm officially on the lookout for a Washburn status now.

[rnolan]

Started a new topic just for the SUB ray5, this bass sets up so well (although the truss rod adjust is very tight, I had to take the neck off to get at it well enough to get it to budge).

[kawai2g4b]

Hey, Richard.  I have to ask, were you ever able to load thicker strings onto the Squier Jaguar?  I just so happened to stumble upon a $60 Kingston short scale J bass copy with 1 pickup (Its almost like a Fender Music Master but with a bigger body).  After I brought it back, I screwed on a Fender-style bridge to overcome the original bridge's lack of string grooves on the saddles.

I bring this up because I had mentioned earlier about the necessity of placing thicker strings on short scale basses due to the floppiness of normal 45 sets.  I threw GHS short scale 50's on it and now I can play aggressively while enjoying a fuller fundamental tone.  You may also want to throw a set of Ground-wounds on there.  I would have thrown them on my bass had it not had the up-bow which I am trying to prevent from happening again.

Aside from that, how is your buddy taking to the Music Man and the Jaguar?  Does he favor one over the other at the moment?

[rnolan]

Had a look for some thicker short scale strings, given the popularity of the short scales you'd think there'd be a few offerings, but alas not so far, DR seem to only do the one set.  Moot point though for Matt, he plays the sub now and the Jag is the spare.  Served it's purpose well though, longer scales are harder to start, I'm quite blown out by his progress, and the sub sounds so good.
I'll tell him about the GHS 50's that sounds like the perfect gauge, though I'm not a fan of ground wounds (but who knows, he may be if he tries them?) or even worse flat wounds, loose all the nice tops...

A bass player in another band I was in bought a Mexican Fender Jazz, sounded lovely, almost like a piano (ala the OX Entwistle), then he got me to put a set of flat wounds on it (I offered to set it up for him), Fu$$ed it completely, sounded dead although he liked it (easy to play), oh I'll just turn the treb up.. sorry doesn't work like that..

So your up bow, is the truss rod not working ? (had more than my fill of that over time...)

[kawai2g4b]

No, it worked, had to turn it a bit quite a bit more than what is considered normal. I am wary about screwing with the truss rods too much on a pre-70s Japanese instrument as, guyatone and Kingston aside, are normally inoperable or fragile. I managed to get some natural relief and let it be.  I think the previous owner just didn't want to fudge with it. Just needed a couple tweaks.

Good to hear he is diggin' the MM!  And for flat wounds, you are only going to get an old school sound on passive basses.  I threw some on my ice pick bright Kawai F2B Alembic clones and it balanced the tone out, a lot more full but still with treble afforded by the construction and preamp. To sum up, I like the way flatwounds work with bright active basses. Same goes for my Ibamez ATK.  Especially into a tube head.  Given that, my normal preference is for round wounds.

[rnolan]

The sub truss rod was very tight, scared me a little so I went loosen then tighten and it worked out well.  I know what you mean about pre 70's Japanese guitars, my 3rd ever guitar is a Jap Anson strat, bought it new 40 years ago, the truss rod never worked, eventually I routed it out, it was a 1/2" wide box U piece of aluminium with a rod down the centre but no curve, just straight, don't know why they bothered putting it in the neck.  Now it's got the thinest neck ever, and a 1/2" wide sugar maple inlay where the truss rod was... I think I posted some pictures of it IIRC.

[Peterdauff]

If you can use a 4 string bass - I highly recommend the Fender Geddy Lee Jazz model. The maple neck is so comfortable - very thin - with good action. The pickups are 62 reissue.

I know that this bass plays great sounds wonderful - and it is a passive bass - but do not let that deter you - it is a steal. Besides you can always make it active with one of those pop-in active preamps on the market - aka J-Retro, Audere.

This model new sells for about 800 - used between 500 and 650. Be careful - the tone is catching.

[rnolan]

Hey Peterdauff, wow you've resurrected a very old thread (2014), brings back memories.  Along the way I started playing bass a bit so bought an Alembic SC Brown.  The Fender Geddy Lee Jazz looks like a nice bass, albeit long scale (being a guitarist short scale suits me better).  I've always liked the Jazz necks, nice and skinny.  I'm not a fan of the block inlays though, they just look wrong an a guitar (to me).  Here in Australia the Fender Geddy Lee Jazz are a bit over $2000.