I have now owned my Lakland Skyline DJ4 (Lake Placid Blue) for about a year. I have practiced with it nearly every day and probably played about 10 gigs or so with it. So here is my honest review:
TLDR: Overall happy - it is my go to bass because I love the sound, but I have had significant quality issues and I think it is overpriced.
OK - for those who are interested in more details - let's start with what I like:
- From the moment I picked up I just loved the sound. For many years I played a Fender Jazz, made in Japan (circa 1994 or so), reissue of a 75' Jazz bass. I have tried a bunch of newer Jazz basses but not until the Lakland did I find something that sounded as good to my ears. I know a lot of people here on Talkbass say the older Lakland DJ4 models with the Aero pickups sound the best, but I gotta say, I think the Lakland/Hanson pickups are awesome - clear and articulate but still with so much life and growl. I considered a Fender Jazz Player bass which I did like, but it wasn't quite the same. I also tried the Fender American Performer bass, and I actually didn't like that sound at all - just too polite to my ears.
- Aesthetics: The Lake Placid Blue has some sparkle to it, and the inlays on the Indian Laurel Fretboard look great with the white binding. ON that note - I find the Indian Laurel fretboard to be great - looks good and feels good. The Player series Jazz basses were a bit 'meh' for me. I have to say the only thing I find close to the look are the Squire 40th Anniversary Gold edition basses which look amazing too.
- Light weight and nice shape body. I think my bass comes in at just under 9lbs, although I have heard that some of the newer ones can be quite heavy - YMMV.
- 21 frets. Ok this is minor but I like having the high E note as opposed to 20 fret standard on many jazz basses
So as far as what I don't like - it's not so much that I don't like anything in particular about the bass but rather I have had a number of quality issues that I have had to spend money on which is very frustrating for a $1500 bass. To be fair maybe some of these issues were unique to my bass but I can only talk about my own experience:
- Setup - out of the box it was just ok. There is all this talk about the frets being Pleked in Chicago but truth be told the action was just ok and I had significant buzz on the E string from the 7-12th frets even at reasonable action eight (2-2.5 mm). I ended up having some fret redress, and the luthier even replaced the nut to help. I mean it wasn't awful out of the box (no sharp edges or anything like that), but my Fender Precision Player bass was much better and easier to get low action with no fret buzz without having any additional work done.
- Squeaky tuners. They are Hipshot Ultra-lite tuners which is great but they were super squeaky when putting new strings on. The luthier I went too checked them out and said they were all gunked up and had to be cleaned and rebuilt. Perhaps this was just on my bass but again for the price on a new bass you would hope for this not to be the case.
- Electronics: multiple issues.
a. Very noisy from outside energy. I'm not talking about single-coil hum. With both pickups completely on if the tone knob wasn't fully on and I was near a light or another electrical source I would get significant hum/buzz noise. I compared to my 3 other basses and it was by far the worst. At the same time I noticed that my pots had a lot of scratchiness/static. I would even get static noise when slapping as the bottom of my hand touched the pickguard. So...I had a luthier do a full shielding/grounding job. He said there was just paint in there as a shield. He also said he pots were Alpha - I had them all replaced with CTS pots. Once that was all done, it is as quiet as my other basses.
b. Problems with neck pickup. Never figured out why but if I slapped off the neck I would get loud popping sounds (and no it wasn't the string touching the pole pieces or the frets on the neck). I reached out to Lakland on this, and as I was under warranty they did send me a new pickup and once replaced the problem went away. They were really great to deal with and I appreciated their customer service.
So - right now I certainly love the bass but if I had to do it again I probably wouldn't go for it, unless I could get it used for $1000 or less. Considering all the work I had done I would probably look at one of those Squire 40th anniversary models since I like the look and just modify it as needed (could even put in Lakland pickups...).
Well - hope this helps someone if they are considering this bass!
TLDR: Overall happy - it is my go to bass because I love the sound, but I have had significant quality issues and I think it is overpriced.
OK - for those who are interested in more details - let's start with what I like:
- From the moment I picked up I just loved the sound. For many years I played a Fender Jazz, made in Japan (circa 1994 or so), reissue of a 75' Jazz bass. I have tried a bunch of newer Jazz basses but not until the Lakland did I find something that sounded as good to my ears. I know a lot of people here on Talkbass say the older Lakland DJ4 models with the Aero pickups sound the best, but I gotta say, I think the Lakland/Hanson pickups are awesome - clear and articulate but still with so much life and growl. I considered a Fender Jazz Player bass which I did like, but it wasn't quite the same. I also tried the Fender American Performer bass, and I actually didn't like that sound at all - just too polite to my ears.
- Aesthetics: The Lake Placid Blue has some sparkle to it, and the inlays on the Indian Laurel Fretboard look great with the white binding. ON that note - I find the Indian Laurel fretboard to be great - looks good and feels good. The Player series Jazz basses were a bit 'meh' for me. I have to say the only thing I find close to the look are the Squire 40th Anniversary Gold edition basses which look amazing too.
- Light weight and nice shape body. I think my bass comes in at just under 9lbs, although I have heard that some of the newer ones can be quite heavy - YMMV.
- 21 frets. Ok this is minor but I like having the high E note as opposed to 20 fret standard on many jazz basses
So as far as what I don't like - it's not so much that I don't like anything in particular about the bass but rather I have had a number of quality issues that I have had to spend money on which is very frustrating for a $1500 bass. To be fair maybe some of these issues were unique to my bass but I can only talk about my own experience:
- Setup - out of the box it was just ok. There is all this talk about the frets being Pleked in Chicago but truth be told the action was just ok and I had significant buzz on the E string from the 7-12th frets even at reasonable action eight (2-2.5 mm). I ended up having some fret redress, and the luthier even replaced the nut to help. I mean it wasn't awful out of the box (no sharp edges or anything like that), but my Fender Precision Player bass was much better and easier to get low action with no fret buzz without having any additional work done.
- Squeaky tuners. They are Hipshot Ultra-lite tuners which is great but they were super squeaky when putting new strings on. The luthier I went too checked them out and said they were all gunked up and had to be cleaned and rebuilt. Perhaps this was just on my bass but again for the price on a new bass you would hope for this not to be the case.
- Electronics: multiple issues.
a. Very noisy from outside energy. I'm not talking about single-coil hum. With both pickups completely on if the tone knob wasn't fully on and I was near a light or another electrical source I would get significant hum/buzz noise. I compared to my 3 other basses and it was by far the worst. At the same time I noticed that my pots had a lot of scratchiness/static. I would even get static noise when slapping as the bottom of my hand touched the pickguard. So...I had a luthier do a full shielding/grounding job. He said there was just paint in there as a shield. He also said he pots were Alpha - I had them all replaced with CTS pots. Once that was all done, it is as quiet as my other basses.
b. Problems with neck pickup. Never figured out why but if I slapped off the neck I would get loud popping sounds (and no it wasn't the string touching the pole pieces or the frets on the neck). I reached out to Lakland on this, and as I was under warranty they did send me a new pickup and once replaced the problem went away. They were really great to deal with and I appreciated their customer service.
So - right now I certainly love the bass but if I had to do it again I probably wouldn't go for it, unless I could get it used for $1000 or less. Considering all the work I had done I would probably look at one of those Squire 40th anniversary models since I like the look and just modify it as needed (could even put in Lakland pickups...).
Well - hope this helps someone if they are considering this bass!
