Ok everybody! Sorry this post is very late (more on that in a second), but here's the bass I bought with my summer savings: The Jazz Beast!!
The body is from a sunburst Fender Classic 60s Jazz bass, so it has a nitro finish.
I bought the body loaded, so it came with pickups, pots, a bridge, a neck plate, etc. The only element I replaced on the body was the neckplate, which I had switched out for a Fender classic "F" neckplate. I know that's usually reserved for American Fenders (and the Classic 60s Jazz is MIM but don't tell anyone), but since the neck was assembled in the US, I considered that close enough.
The body, pickups, and finish are very very nice (can't stress that enough), but I'd be lying if I didn't say the highlight of this bass, for me, is the neck.
The neck is a roasted birdseye maple Precision-width neck, with USACG's thickness option maxed out, a rosewood fingerboard with real clay dot inlays on the front and side, stainless steel frets, Fender Pure Vintage 70s tuners, and a brass nut.
Since the neck is roasted maple, there's no inherent need for a finish, so I had my luthier leave the back of the neck unfinished while applying an oil finish to the fingerboard to darken the rosewood.
Literally my only gripe with this bass was how long it took for me to receive it! I placed the order for the neck on June 17th of this year, and I didn't receive it until a couple weeks ago. Originally USACG said that it'd take around 8 weeks to finish the neck. Fast forward 9 weeks from me placing the order, and I'm left wondering where my neck is. I called USACG up (after calling every couple weeks to see how far along my neck had come), and they informed me that the headstock had cracked somewhere along the process so they had to start over. Well great. I appreciate that instead of sending me a repaired neck, they completely started over, but I found it very frustrating that they had no intention of telling me why my order was delayed. Anyway, I was supposed to receive my neck in the first couple weeks of August, and I ended up not getting it until almost the end of October.
If the neck wasn't so nice to play, I'd be kinda pissed. But since this thing plays better than any other bass I own I'll let it slide!
Here's a couple videos I made for it:
The top one is a video of me playing it in a simple musical setting and the bottom one is kinda an overview with a bunch of different shots of the bass and no playing footage. Lemme know what you think!
Edit: BTW I realize that I broke my own rule of no hotrodding, but this was a pretty simple build so I'll let myself off the hook hahaha.
