Fender Suhr-era 90's (1996) American Deluxe Basses

That’s a beauty!!

 

I have a USA fretless I love, rewired passive. Also had a fretted and have the usa pickups in another bass. They are some of my favorites and I really like the smaller body and extra fret. I go passive on most of my basses, by choice, so do not have a solid opinion about the preamp. I hear the Mex versions are different, but do not have any experience.

 

John Suhr did some really great things at Fender during his stint. I gigged a really nice example for quite a while a few years back.


Fit and finish was great. Neck was perfection. The vintage Shoreline Gold was amazing.

I liked the pickups enough that I actually tried to locate a set for my parts bass. Couldn’t track them down, and ended up getting my first set of Delano JMVC’s as a look alike. But, the Delano’s ended up being far superior, and have since become my #1 Jazz Bass pickup.

The preamp was not great. I replaced it with a Sadowsky preamp, which is a far better preamp for my purposes.

I initially thought the downsized body would be cool, but ended up deciding I prefer the full size Jazz Bass body from a balance perspective.

I sold the bass to partially fund my Sadowsky NYC build; which BTW sports those original Delano pickups installed at Roger’s shop. That’s how much I like those pickups.

FWIW, IME.

 

Here is the 1997 5 string version. I don't know what Fender called this finish. It's transparent blue/green. 100% stock. I sold it a few years back to fund a Carvin build. I loved the tone, but the B string always sounded dead.

 

I owned a beautiful red '97 5 string. Wood grain in the middle fading to solid red on the out edges (much like the blue one above).

I loved how it looked and played. I could not STAND the baked in scooped tone of the electronics. I tried everything to boost the mids. Nothing worked. I finally sold it because of that.

 

Some folks are 'ga-ga' over the so-called big slug pickups. Sure they sound great, but are they the cat's pajamas? Maybe. Either way, these are cool basses that represent that era of Fender (post 'boner') quite well.

 

They were to me as a teenager when I played a few basses with them.

I would still like to find one (preferably in one of the less common colors, but good luck).

 

I also had Delanos in a jazz and I absolutely loved them

 

I think I bought this from you? Or at least, at some point, this one ended up in my hands. The finish and the "Always dead B string" at least stand out in my memory. Many strings tried, even took the pickups to a friend of mine that winds pickups and nothing seemed wrong. It was just a complete dud. I remember is being a touch heavy-ish (at least going off memory, which could be way wrong, this had to been 10+ years ago now), but the neck was pretty alright feeling.

 

Wish I still had mine. The first year was built with an ash body and a thin maple veneer top. I don't think that did anything other than make the instrument pretty, but it definitely was pretty. I have no idea why I sold that bass.

 

I lied. Just found photos of mine. The grain is different.

 

They are very popular with the gospel bassists. The pickups and preamp are more like a boutique sound (sadowsky, lull, pensa, etc) than the standard fender fare. John suhr is a top fender clone maker aka sadowsky now so it’s essentially his early stuff before he struck out on his own. Great value for the money.

 

That’s a gorgeous instrument.

Just thought I would comment on your experience with the B string. String through body bridges are tough on the strings, and I find they particularly kill B strings almost right out of the gate. The cause is metallurgical damage to the hardened steel core resulting from the severe bend at the saddle.

While on that topic, I have had excellent results with the HipShot Fender-spec bridges. They are just practically perfect, allowing outstanding setups. They have the holes for string through, even though I wouldn’t be caught dead using that. I’ve got one on my Parts Bass 5; and like it very much. Fantastic bridge.

 

Are all the Suhr era Jazz basses downsized?

 

What time frame was Suhr with Fender? Thanks guys.

 

What are these Delano style pickups comparable to? What makes them sound good? I’ve never tried them, but they look cool.

 

The American Deluxe basses were.

I want to say somewhere around 1995-1999, but I would not be surprised if someone here had more accurate information (I seem to remember his pickups being gone by 2001).