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G&L L2000 for jazz & funk?

basss

basss

Supporting Member
Aug 27, 2001
3,543
1,306
NY
#1
I'm gassing for one of these and wondering how they sound with more mellow music. I've heard these basses always have an aggressive edge and am wondering if can cover the smoother stuff well. One of the bands I work with regularly does everything from straight ahead jazz to smooth jazz to disco to rock. Will it cover all of these genres without annoying the bandleader?
 
#2
I think the L2000 is a fine instrument, and you'll be ok. I have a Tribute, which isn't vastly different. This bass has a lot of tonal choices. Might not be my very first choice, but that's just because I have alot of options. If the L2000 were my only bass, I wound play it on the gig, and not think twice about it. There was a time when we didn't have a different bass for every genre (outside of the obvious fretless, 5 string, etc.) and we had to, as musicians first, figure out how to get what we needed from the instrument we had. I think musicianship grows when you are put in that situation. The L2000 will be fine. Unless the bandleader is a bass player, chances are that he/she wouldn't really appreciate the difference anyway. They will notice a lot quicker what notes you choose to play.
 
#3
You can knock a lot of the edge off a G&L by simply cracking the volume shut a bit, and rolling treble back a bit.
If you order a new one, ask for the "K" wiring option, and this will get you the choice of single coil on the coil taps.
 
#4
Agreed with Chef. The G&L L-2000 and L-2500 are not "always aggressive" unless they are "always" played with volume, bass and treble pots on full.

The control set is designed for nearly infinite variations of tone, but as with amplifiers, the player has to turn the knobs and flip the switches to get there.

IMHO in experience with my L-2500's, they'll handle just about any genre.
 
#5
The volume knob is definitely the big secret on these babies. Backing it off really takes the edge off of the sound, and you're still in the range of output that you would get from most basses.

I am a flats user pretty much all around and I tried chromes on mine for a while, but my favorite L2k strings were DR Lowriders.
 
#6
Chef said:
You can knock a lot of the edge off a G&L by simply cracking the volume shut a bit, and rolling treble back a bit.
If you order a new one, ask for the "K" wiring option, and this will get you the choice of single coil on the coil taps.
Click to expand...

Good advice here. Also, if you don't have the option of ordering one new, its pretty simple to retrofit an L2000 with a three position series/parallel/single switch. Even if you can't solder, any tech should be able to do it cheaply enough. It took me about 30 minutes, and I'm all thumbs.
 
#7
basss said:
I'm gassing for one of these and wondering how they sound with more mellow music. I've heard these basses always have an aggressive edge and am wondering if can cover the smoother stuff well. One of the bands I work with regularly does everything from straight ahead jazz to smooth jazz to disco to rock. Will it cover all of these genres without annoying the bandleader?
Click to expand...

I'll second what others have said. Even without frets, my L2000 gives a pretty aggressive Fender-on-steroids kind of sound. I calm mine down by taking the battery out and running only in passive mode and turning the treble on the amp down.

The neck PU by itself gives almost the splitting image of the P bass sound, but you can coax a clean sound out of the bridge PU. In parallel mode it's very nasally, but you can sort of EQ that out of it.

Whacking switches and turning knobs is just a day at the office with the L2000, but you can get some pretty decent sounds out of it for certain things.

If you were to do exclusively jazz, I probably wouldn't recommend it because it's a really agressive sounding thing (I'd recommend a Carvin instead).

LS
 
#8
I remember seeing several Jazz ensembles in the late 80's and early 90's with guys playing L-2000's and MM Sabres! As to whether or not it can handle funk, but the question is WHAT TYPE OF FUNK would needed to be answered first??!?! Are you looking for Mid-late 60's Jamerson/Jemmott, Mark Adams gritty funk, Bootsy effects laden synth funk, Bernard Edwards disco funk, Chuck Rainey Jazzy yet soulful funk, Cordell Masson spacey funk, George Porter gumbo drenched Second Line Funk, James Alexander's deep Memphis/Mississippi Funk, or Rocco Prestia's eighth note rapid fire funk?

It's a tool. IMHO you can pull of any genre with most any instrument. Bela Fleck pulls off Jazz with a banjo (hell, I saw a guy do jazz numbers with bagpipes), Skyy pulled off funk with Kazoos, you can do whatever you want with an L-2500!
 
#11
In line with what others have shared on this thread, I think that most of us who grew up with typical passive Fender basses are accustomed to throwing the volume knob to 11. Doing this on a G&L bass can leave anyone with the impressive that they are overly aggressive tone-wise.

Also, I performed the single coil mods on my L2500 and installed an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp because I wanted more immediate control over the mids. This turned out to be a great decision. I can quickly dial in a greater range of vintage tones since modding.
 
#15

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