G&L Club Part 7

[MrB64]

NBD! The JB MFD came today! First impressions are very favorable. The first thing that struck we when I picked it up for the first time was the weight.
Very light. It is swamp ash and was listed at 9 lbs., but it feels lighter than that to me. So much lighter than my alder JB. It didn't take much in the area of setup. Just string height and pickup height. I emailed Memo about this and he answered very quickly and said this: "Normally we set the pickup height to 3/32" from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string with the last fret fretted. As for string height, we also measure at the 17th fret E and A string is 6/64"(3/32") the D and G strings are set to 5/64." So that's what I went with.

It plays wonderfully. I haven't played it with the guys yet, but I think it'll be great. It's not very noisy at all, I don't know if I should be surprised or not. There is a little bit of noise when I back off the volume of one pickup but nothing like with alnicos. Nice build quality, as all I've ever had with my Fullerton G&Ls (this is my third Fullerton). The finish is beautiful, playing with a maple fretboard is nice after playing on rosewood for quite awhile.

.

 

[wateroftyne]

Hi everyone! I'm unexpectedly joining the club... I picked this beauty from 1998 up over the weekend. It's the one that appeared in that year's catalogue. It's stunning. Medium weight, very resonant... looking forward to gigging it tomorrow night.

 

[Lucky Chuck]

What a beauty!

 

[jfh2424]

Hello.

I got a new M2000 from G&L at the end of February. BTO. Never been touched by anyone than me.

This morning, it went dead. I opened it up, batteries were already dead. They are using Member's Mark 9V batteries, clearly rubbish.

I never leave it plugged in either, so it got drained just through playing.

The purpose of this post is not to slam G&L, but to let you know that you may want to change batteries soon after you take possession of your new G&L M2000, because as we all know, there's no passive option, so when the batteries go dead...that's it.

Have a good day!

Hi gang, just following up on my post from April. So, after the post above, I put in new batteries and...a month and a half later, the new Duracell batteries were dead. It was clearly not a battery issue.

I contacted the dealer. I contacted G&L. G&L found a somewhat local G&L dealer who agreed to have his luthier look at it. I picked it up it today. Turns out that there was a wiring issue that was draining the batteries, as some of you suspected. It is now resolved. (I guess we will really know in about a month and a half, if these new batteries are not drained!).

So the negative part is that I took me almost 2 hours to drive to the shop and back to drop it off, and the same thing to get it back. Gas isn't cheap and G&L did not want me to take it to any other place, so...I did it. The good part is that the bass is now fixed and that it was under warranty, no cost to me. Especially pleasing for me is that G&L were very easy to communicate to about this. I've had my issues in the past with them concerning brand new BTO basses and how they went about dealing with them, but this time it was super cool, friendly and they responded pretty much instantly.

I think it's important to note when things don't go well. It's equally important to note when things go well! So here I am, noting that things went very well. I've thanked them personally, but I also wanted to thank them here on this thread. Thanks, G&L! I appreciate it.

 

[Iridescentone]

Hi everyone! I'm unexpectedly joining the club... I picked this beauty from 1998 up over the weekend. It's the one that appeared in that year's catalogue. It's stunning. Medium weight, very resonant... looking forward to gigging it tomorrow night.

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Yikes that's a beauty. To each their own, but for my money the nicest G&L's were always the ones with factory upgrades. I can see why that one landed in the catalog, they used their very best woods on it. They used to have three levels of "figured maple" top upgrades back then, starting at $250, then $500, then $750. Yeah, G&L has always been proud of their upgrades!

Also that b/e neck is exhibition-grade, way beyond their typical b/e necks.** Just wow. Has me wondering if maybe they spec'd that one just for the catalog?

Looking closer at the body sides (and to some extent, the body rear) the flamage seems to run right up into the 'natural' binding, which would seem to indicate a solid maple body (?) instead of the usual figured top on an alder body. If so that would be something pretty special.

Great score, grats!

** (nerd factoid; As I understand it, 2001 was the last year that G&L used solid maple b/e necks, before switching to lam'd b/e boards)

 

[FearNoEvil65]

NBD! The JB MFD came today! First impressions are very favorable. The first thing that struck we when I picked it up for the first time was the weight.
Very light. It is swamp ash and was listed at 9 lbs., but it feels lighter than that to me. So much lighter than my alder JB. It didn't take much in the area of setup. Just string height and pickup height. I emailed Memo about this and he answered very quickly and said this: "Normally we set the pickup height to 3/32" from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string with the last fret fretted. As for string height, we also measure at the 17th fret E and A string is 6/64"(3/32") the D and G strings are set to 5/64." So that's what I went with.

It plays wonderfully. I haven't played it with the guys yet, but I think it'll be great. It's not very noisy at all, I don't know if I should be surprised or not. There is a little bit of noise when I back off the volume of one pickup but nothing like with alnicos. Nice build quality, as all I've ever had with my Fullerton G&Ls (this is my third Fullerton). The finish is beautiful, playing with a maple fretboard is nice after playing on rosewood for quite awhile.

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This looks like your same bass, from the G&L page on facebook. Sweet! I think I saw that one listed on Sweetwater? at 9lbs it's the lightest MFD, JB I've seen. Congrats again.

 

[MrB64]

This looks like your same bass, from the G&L page on facebook. Sweet! I think I saw that one listed on Sweetwater? at 9lbs it's the lightest MFD, JB I've seen. Congrats again.
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Thank you! Yeah I got mine from Sweetwater, it was actually an open box deal, so saved a couple hundred. I can't see a mark on it, the only thing that was "off" was that it was missing the saddle screw wrench. No biggie since I already have two. Memo said it's a 2mm wrench, I may go grab one or not. Yeah the weight blows my mind. My alder JB is a tank, SO heavy. Weird since my alder L2K is lighter too. Anyhoo, if G&L has solved that JB weight problem good on them!

 

[MrB64]

Would anyone in here happen to know if Fender Jazz pickguards fit on G&L Fullerton Deluxe JBs?

 

[axxtion]

Marty Bell paint job.

 

[Jack]

Two tributes from me, although it has to be said they hold their own in the company of my more expensive basses. The L2000 is probably second-place for the number of gigs I've done on a bass as one band I was in insisted on playing half a step down and as they gigged so often it was worth it to set a bass up for this full time. Now when they do a once-a-year reunion gig I just use a pitch shifter. The SB-2 I bought because I wanted somethingto take the pressure of my very sentimental Fender MIA P bass that I've had for over 20 years and I have started to worry about. I specifically wanted a G&L tribute because I think so highly of the L2000.

 

[MrB64]

Two tributes from me, although it has to be said they hold their own in the company of my more expensive basses. The L2000 is probably second-place for the number of gigs I've done on a bass as one band I was in insisted on playing half a step down and as they gigged so often it was worth it to set a bass up for this full time. Now when they do a once-a-year reunion gig I just use a pitch shifter. The SB-2 I bought because I wanted somethingto take the pressure of my very sentimental Fender MIA P bass that I've had for over 20 years and I have started to worry about. I specifically wanted a G&L tribute because I think so highly of the L2000.

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I have a tribby sb-2 as well. That's my P if I ever want one for something.

 

[rok51]

All my G&L basses are Tribbys. L2000, SB-2, JB-2 and a Kiloton. I love them all.

Kim

 

[Nedmundo]

Would anyone in here happen to know if Fender Jazz pickguards fit on G&L Fullerton Deluxe JBs?

Yep, they do. I used a Fender Black Sparkle guard for awhile on my G&L JB, then moved it to my 2003 Fender. Fits fine on both. And my Fender's original guard fits fine on the JB. My JB is from 2010, so it's not a Fullerton Deluxe, but I can't imagine they would be different. Then again, G&L.

Since we're discussing the G&L JB, and we've recently had posts involving the awesome JB MFD--WHEN ARE WE GETTING A FREAKING JB-5 MFD?! Much want.

 

[80jazz]

Since we're discussing the G&L JB, and we've recently had posts involving the awesome JB MFD--WHEN ARE WE GETTING A FREAKING JB-5 MFD?! Much want.

I am also for this. I will order a fretless if this happens.

 

[vbass_2000]

I really regret selling my USA SB-2. I'm thinking that I need to get another. Does anybody know how the tribute SB-2 stacks up to a US made SB-2? Is the tribute as punchy as the US model? I always thought that the US SB-2 was rather aggressive and I want to make sure the Tribute has an equal amount of grunt. Thanks

 

[Jack]

I really regret selling my USA SB-2. I'm thinking that I need to get another. Does anybody know how the tribute SB-2 stacks up to a US made SB-2? Is the tribute as punchy as the US model? I always thought that the US SB-2 was rather aggressive and I want to make sure the Tribute has an equal amount of grunt. Thanks

I am not the expert that some here are, but don't they use the same pickups?

 

[BruceG68]

I'm not sure if you can get the MFD pickups in the tribute series.Anybody in the know care to comment on this.

 

[gtirard]

I'm not sure if you can get the MFD pickups in the tribute series.Anybody in the know care to comment on this.

AFAIK the tribute series have exactly the same electronics as the regular instruments, including the MFD pickups.

 

[rok51]

The Tribute SB-2 indeed uses the MFD pickups. Mine certainly can sound very aggressive, especially if I dime the split pickups—yet it mellows out nicely as the neck pickup approaches its middle position on the volume control. I will admit to initially being disappointed that the bass only had two volume controls and no tone control…then I started experimenting and discovered just how the interaction of the neck and bridge pickups yields a wide variety of different sounds…and I honestly like the effect more than I like a traditional tone control…never would have guessed! One thing that I did to make my life easier was to put both pickups on a stacked potentiometer and then added a master volume control. Since the desired tone is achieved by varying the relative volume of the two pickups, any time I needed to adjust my volume on the fly meant twiddling with both volume controls, hoping that I wound up with the same split between them…not sure I felt that lucky! Now I adjust the relative balance between the two pickups and just one twist of the master allows me to alter my volume on the fly…a much improved mod for me.

Kim

 

[Lucky Chuck]

The Tribute SB-2 indeed uses the MFD pickups. Mine certainly can sound very aggressive, especially if I dime the split pickups—yet it mellows out nicely as the neck pickup approaches its middle position on the volume control. I will admit to initially being disappointed that the bass only had two volume controls and no tone control…then I started experimenting and discovered just how the interaction of the neck and bridge pickups yields a wide variety of different sounds…and I honestly like the effect more than I like a traditional tone control…never would have guessed! One thing that I did to make my life easier was to put both pickups on a stacked potentiometer and then added a master volume control. Since the desired tone is achieved by varying the relative volume of the two pickups, any time I needed to adjust my volume on the fly meant twiddling with both volume controls, hoping that I wound up with the same split between them…not sure I felt that lucky! Now I adjust the relative balance between the two pickups and just one twist of the master allows me to alter my volume on the fly…a much improved mod for me.

Kim

I like the idea but I'm wondering if introducing the master volume control into the circuit changed the overall tone in any way. Like, does having it in the circuit give a different tone with both pickups maxed then you would get without the master wired in?

Some folks suggest that even just having that extra circuitry of the master vol knob wired into the circuit, even if dimed, changes the tone. Did you notice that?