For sale Yamaha BB-N5A

I can confirm on just how excellent these Basses are. I did numerous sessions for an Album over the Spring & Summer of ‘00 for an “Electronic Rock” Artist myself and a closet friend Brother/Brother team of Guitarist & Drummer (6 months ago the Guitarist was named one of Billboard Magazine’s “40 Under 40: Music’s Top Young Power Players Revealed” ) spent over a year with both Rearranging his electronic-heavy album to be more “Live Experience-friendly”, Recording & Live Gigging with (we also participated in what was billed as and as far as I know was the first Internet-only Music Festival... kind of like SXSW but with old-school Modem Noise.)

After all the live Instrumentation was miked up and sounds gotten, it was decided by the Producer, Guitarist (co–Producer) and myself that my then-Main Bass, a 6-String “Coffee Table” (neck-through with tons of flashy wood layers) didn’t have enough attack to cut thru not only a 3-piece live Rock Band but Tons of Keyboard, Electronic Drums, Percussion, Samples & Sampled Tracks as well. My Drummer was also a Bassist, owned the aforementioned Yamaha BB-N5A and let me use it for the album’s tracking, and it was punchy as hell compared to mine and indeed kicked me up in the tracks before anything more than on-the-day Rough Mixes.

In retrospect I see that it was the start of my “Mid-Bass Crisis”. which led me from a Six-string neck-through Bass to 97% Bolt-On Basses with simplified single body woods (or with an Exotic Top added to bring out frequencies or Tones from the Main Wood, or at most two woods of equal thickness)... basically, Custom/Modified Jazz or Spector “Euro Bolt-On” Basses that are still my “Main Players” over a decade or hard playing and far more trying of unique Basses... I just found “My Tone”.

I settled on them after 5 Years of trying every different kind of Basses, Woods, Pickups, and combinations of all three in different amounts that I could, until purchasing my first Spector in the Summer of ‘07 and scored my beauty of a Mike Lull Modern 5 later that Fall. And that My Collection of Spectors & Lulls has not only stayed the same but has increased over the next decade proved all my time in “Research Mode” was worth it in the end.

Cirosiss, I can confirm that the body of the Bass is Alder with a Figured Maple top. In fact, the only difference between this “step-down” model and the full-blown Nathan East “B.B. East” model was a Lightly Figured Top vs a 4-5A top, Rosewood vs an Ebony Fretboard, and Abalone Inlays vs MOP Block Inlays. No other differences: even the Pickups & Preamp with its awesome Midsvcontrol setup are the same between the two models! Considering the Signature was double the price of the full-blown Signature, for a good long while I regretted not offering right then and there to purchase it from my Drummer, or to purchase a new one when he most likely would had said “no” (he’s no dummy, and I believe still uses it to this day). This is why I never try and “Friday Morning Quarterback” all my gear choices and the bids/offers I put on them, successes or failures...​