I've played with one of these, seafoam green, and quite honestly, it plays as well as my American Deluxe. Very interesting bass, looks cool, sounds great. If I didn't have mine now, I'd jump on one of these at half the price I paid for mine.
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Fender Deluxe PJ Bass
- Thread starter LAST_C
- Start date
Played both of these (black and seafoam) at a GC today, and I was quite impressed with the tone, the overall fit/finish, jazz neck (which I personally prefer), although the green one I tried weighed about 10 lbs, the black one was more like 9. One thing I immediately noticed, was that the overall volume went from about 75% to 100% in the last 1/16 of an inch, and the overall output was very strong for both pickups, for a passive bass I was surprised with the amount of output. As others have commented that the bass was "brite", I would agree. Both pots are treble/bass, with no center detente, so fully dimed they were very trebly, more than I would like on a P-style bass. But again, very strong output. I kept looking for a battery compartment out back, and there was none. I think the neck is very much like the Geddy. And that's the only neck on Fenders that I can personally stand. Binding looks very well done. I think this is a very good bass if you could get it on sale. I don't know if I would spend $900 on a new one (the only new basses I buy these days are custom builds). But I would not hesitate to recommend anyone looking for a solid jazz-necked P-shaped P/J to check these out.
I know I'll get flamed for this but does it have that big @ss rout job that goes from the p pickup to the control cavity? Usually tapping on the pickguard will let you know...
I took advantage of the sale and picked this one up.
Just played one of those yesterday at Guitar Center and holy smokes did I love it. At first I thought it was a modded bass that GC was selling second hand, but when I got home, I found out that it's actually a line of Fender basses.
As soon as I picked it up, I noticed how light it was compared to the other P's and basses I picked up. The neck was super fast and the action was just how I like it. I love the block inlays on the neck, not as nice and thin as a Geddy, but nice. The pickups are a little too bright for me but if I decide to buy it one day, they can always be swapped out.
I didn't get to see the surf green in person, but black with a tort pickguard and maple block neck is really sexy. I actually can't get the bass out of my mind right now. I'm trying not to let GAS take over!
I think they made a seafoam one last year that was active, but this newest version is passive. Controls are just VVT.
I played one of these yesterday. one of the nicest playing and sounding fenders I've layed hands on. the guitar center even had the neck and action set up right.
I'm seriously tempted!
I'm seriously tempted!
Strong praise!
MF will give you 15% off over the phone. Going to try to get GC to match this. We will see...
congrats! sunbeams are my favorite rounds these days. that bass is haunting me. I have a '62 reissue and even with that at home I'm still thinking about that bass.
This is my first set, I have read a lot of good things about them here so I took a chance. They seem well balanced and comfortable so far. Good balance of clarity and tension.
I found a very, very small flathead screwdriver to adjust the saddles with, got the action and truss tweaked, plays like a dream! GC has a dude that can fix guitars in house now, but they still don't bother to set anything up. Shame, it only took about 5 minutes to get a vast improvement.
Well, I went to Guitar Center today to do two things:
1) Try out the Gibson SG Standard Bass
2) Try out some 5-string basses
I didn't spend much time doing either of those things because I saw one of these new butters sitting right in front of me. I recalled reading this thread earlier in the day about this model, so I picked it up and started playing.
Now, I'm a total novice, but I was stunned at how awesome this bass was! For reference, I compared it to a host of American P basses and J basses, and it sounded like it had a lot more sustain and an overall richer tone than any of them. When someone earlier in this thread said it was the nicest Fender they had picked up, they weren't kidding!
Aside from it being a killer surf green, the black-binded-black-boxed aesthetic was a turn off for me. I couldn't put it down though. I was so excited to hear the noise coming from it. I played it a lot better than the MIJ Jazz I own.
And so... I bought it. I was in the market for a higher tier of bass - I was thinking of the Gibson SG bass or perhaps a G&L L/M-2500, but this thing was calling my name.
Here are some pics of the thing safely home:
Also, since this is my first bass with the P-style split pickup, I want to know if this weird angle of the pickup is normal or if something is borked. I see that it can be adjusted by screws, but this bend kind of seems odd and extreme - what do you guys think?
1) Try out the Gibson SG Standard Bass
2) Try out some 5-string basses
I didn't spend much time doing either of those things because I saw one of these new butters sitting right in front of me. I recalled reading this thread earlier in the day about this model, so I picked it up and started playing.
Now, I'm a total novice, but I was stunned at how awesome this bass was! For reference, I compared it to a host of American P basses and J basses, and it sounded like it had a lot more sustain and an overall richer tone than any of them. When someone earlier in this thread said it was the nicest Fender they had picked up, they weren't kidding!
Aside from it being a killer surf green, the black-binded-black-boxed aesthetic was a turn off for me. I couldn't put it down though. I was so excited to hear the noise coming from it. I played it a lot better than the MIJ Jazz I own.
And so... I bought it. I was in the market for a higher tier of bass - I was thinking of the Gibson SG bass or perhaps a G&L L/M-2500, but this thing was calling my name.
Here are some pics of the thing safely home:
Also, since this is my first bass with the P-style split pickup, I want to know if this weird angle of the pickup is normal or if something is borked. I see that it can be adjusted by screws, but this bend kind of seems odd and extreme - what do you guys think?
rest easy, nothing wrong with those pickups. that's actually one of the advantages of the Split P design, you can set the pickups to match the fingerboard radius.
