OK, so, the box looked good. A trip safely made, judging from the outside. Hadda walk by it several times at work...
Got home, did my miles with the dog, and opened her up.
This is no slam on the seller if he reads this, but...I hate packing peanuts! Pull the gig bag outta the box, spend 15 minutes picking up static-ee, clingy peanuts...Arg
Pull it outta the gig back, and take her to the bench. Looks decent enough. Pretty well sweated on tho! So, pull out some cleaner and a soft rag, and clean it up. Pretty bass. Lotsa sweat and dirt come off, especially the pickguard cleans up visibly, a lot.
Neck's a little bowed...no worries, pull out my "straight blade; ground narrower" screwdriver that lets me tweak Fenders without pulling the guard, and tweak. I'm not sure it's ever been messed with before. Turns easy, but a chunk of old dry grease pops off the adjuster. With about a 1/4 turn, neck's flat. Nice.
Hmmm...strings aren't quite centered on the neck. Whether this was a jolt from transit or whatever, it's easily remedied by yanking the neck the other direction...a little too easy; the neck bolts were all a tad loose...as were the strap buttons. Both problems easily cured.
Action's a little low for me at first pluck tho, get out the mini straight blade. Also, string height was not set to follow the radius of the fingerboard: outsides high, insides low. Got a 4mm allen wrench to use as a feeler guage under the strings, set them all the same. Last thing: I like to have the set screws on vol/tone knobs pointing at me when they're all the way open. Gives me a quick visual reference to where they are. Now, off to the walkabout.
I like the lil bitty vintage fretwire this comes with. Just like my 51 PRI.
Plug her in and...man, the rounds on there are dead! Can't tell what she sounds like...That's ok, I have bags of takeoffs that I've soaked in de-natured alcohol. Off with the old (and into the alcohol) and on with the re-freshed.
Sounds like a decent P bass, but the first thing I'm noticing is that "this bass wants the action lower." Couldn't tell you why, but it just didn't feel right with my standard setup of strings 4mm off the board. Dropped it to 3.5, then 3; then to 2.5...I bet it could go lower. I dunno why, but I can play this one, set this low, without it sounding like nothing but strings ricocheting off the f/b with my strongly biased DB right hand technique. Action is nice and even over the length of the neck.
The neck is what I'd hoped for! 1 3/4 wide, but not baseball bat depth. It's not as "blade-like" as the early G&L 1 3/4" necks were...they were pretty shallow; and I love those. This one's inbetween shallow and deep, and feels great. Fretwork is great as evidenced not only by the ability to get the action mega-low, but the fret ends are all nicely beveld and finshed.
Tone: man, roll the tone knob shut one this (which I don't often do) and this one gets really, really dark!
Side by side with my alder/maple 72P, this one has more-but sweeter and softer-highs, and a less pronounced mid-range P hit.
Side by side with my Reverend P/J (with the J rolled shut) is very similar; that familiar P tone, but softer, and maybe richer and air-ier than the 72.
It's gonna be fun to take to work Friday!
