Fender JP-90

I owned one way back there. It sounded kind of dinky-like when you slapped but sat in the mix really well playing fingerstyle, especially with both pickups on. Mine had a good, straight neck but had four or five dead spots. A couple of them went straight to the harmonic pretty much.

I think there was some special magnet thing going on with the pickups. Somebody else could mention that.

 

I have one. These are awesome sounding basses imo and can be bought fairly cheaply these days as some could not get over the pickguard shape. Great price for a MIA Fender bass.
It's a great player, and is better sounding than either of my MIM Fender basses (a P and a Jazz). It has a Jazz neck and is pretty light (under 8 lbs easily). Neck, pickups are pretty much what you'd expect on a MIA Fender bass- I don't have any dead spots on mine, no problem with the pickups. Actually, I slap a lot and mine sounds great, better than my Jazz or P Bass (MIM).
Now a few warnings:-
1) Some do have suspect necks so if you look at one, make sure you check out the truss rod and that it isn't maxed out. There are two types of necks on the JP-90s. Earlier ones had the truss rod adjustment at the heel of the bass -you could adjust the truss rod without removing the neck but at the risk of damaging the finish on the body-tricky but possible. The later ones have the truss rod adjustment on the headstock.
I believe the earlier ones were a little bit more stable, not 100% sure on that, but I remember asking someone which neck was less problematic.
2) The pickguard - it is one ply and you see quite a few with a broken pickguard at around the jack input. (gets pulled, yanks the pickguard - you get the idea).
There are replacement pickguards currently on ebay that are 3 ply so you may want to keep one handy. I still have the original on mine, no problems.
3) The body finish is very thin so it can be easily dented or chipped.

There is a JP-90 group here btw-lots of good info on this thread.

http://www.talkbass.com/threads/fender-jp-90-club.872622/

If you can get the bass cheaply, (I got mine for around $250 ) then it's a heck of a value, but if it's much more than that, I would probably consider a bass that has a lot of what the JP-90 offers, it's MIJ but a pretty good player and a more recent model- a Fender Aerodyne.

Here's a link to video that should give you a good idea of how the JP-90 sounds like:


My 3 Fenders:-