Jay Turser

[grunge_freak]

So my friend the other day who I hadn't seen in a while showed me one of his basses, a Jay Turser P bass which he had bought a while ago and put new pickups and new strings on, and I was amazed... it sounded good- really good. Has anyone else heard of these basses? If so what do you think of them?

 

[Spinal Tapper]

they're very affordable basses IIRC

 

[grunge_freak]

yeah his bass seemed to be about on par with the squier standard basses, though they run very slightly cheaper in price. probly because they don't carry the fender name.

 

[BobWestbrook]

I've owned three of them in the past, and for the money they're very good basses.

 

[brickerenator]

I own one.

Action is fairly good. 1 string has fret buzz.

Other than that, no complaints.

actually, my only complaint is that it kinda seems to lack character compared to my other bass. Now, that bass does have DiMarzios and is tuned to C standard, so that's probably most of it.

 

[grunge_freak]

I'm thinking of buying one of these Turser P's though, perhaps put some Duncan's or some kind of new pickup, set it up real nice and stuff cause it sounds great for the kind of music I play and you can't beat the price. But, I'm also looking at the Squier VM Jaguar... now that looks pretty sweet

 

[Phalex]

If they made "The Shark" body style in a bass guitar, I'd own one.

 

[edbass]

Is/was there really a "Jay Turser"?

I always assumed that it was a made up name for a Asian import, I've seen this old TB post;

i think poeple have talked about that
apparently from what i've heard he's an actual person who designed the musicman pickup, and sold it the design to leo fender
and after a no-compete period he's finally able to make his basses again..
man this is OLd post!

and I've laughed at the comedic Jay Turser/Sergio Valente thread here on talkbass in '01;

From what I heard Jay and his cousin, Sergio Valente were two art students who met at CCNY in the early 70's. They decided to start a band, even though neither had musical experience. The name of the band escapes me, but I recall it was the name of a marital aid in a Burroughs novel... anyway the band fizzled, Sergio went into fashion design and Jay got an apprenticeship with the world-reknowned luthier, Carlo Robelli.

After working under the master from May to October in 1977, Jay struck out on his own. One of his first designs in fact was the original MM Stingray, which he licensed to Leo Fender with a 20 year non-compete clause. His next design, the hydraulic pickup was not as well-received (couldn't qualify for the UL listing, no GCFI). This was followed by a series instruments meant to be played in odd time signatures. He gave up luthing and took a job at his dad's sponge factory.

Fast-forward 20 years. Jay now has the right to sell his first design and it's a big success. Imagine, a bass that looks like a Musicman...but costs much less!

You've apparently found a good one...it's not as hard as some people seem to think. They're decent basses, especially for the price. Just like Jay always wanted.

All jokes aside, they aren't crap... they're just inexpensive. There's nothing wrong with that.

Hope that helps.

...but a couple of weeks ago I was playing a fill-in gig and the guitarist was playing a Turser 335 knock off that seemed to be a decent piece. From 25' across the stage, and under stage lights, I thought it was a Gibson at first.
During a break, I mentioned that it was the only Turser I'd ever seen up close, and the guy who actually owned the guitar told me a story involving the real "Jay Turser" being an ex-Gibson employee who started building guitars by hand in CA in the 80's, and sold out to an importer but was actually responsible for designing the inexpensive imports available today.
Of course, his was one of the handbuilt guitars made by "Jay Turser" himself...

At the time I just wrote it off as a drunk's fairy tale, but does anybody know a real story behind the name "Jay Turser"?

 

[JMac- Wiskerface Designs]

Who ever Jay Turser is, His writing hand must be tired because every one of his guitars that I have seen has his name signed in a nice handwriten script on the headstock..........

All jokes aside the Jay turser basses I have seen don't look too bad, with a good set-up they'd probably be a sweet playing budget instrument.