NBD: 1984 Yamaha BB 3000

[Kinetic Bass]

Can someone with enough experience with different BB's models please clarify something.

In this video, (skip to 5:45)



Scott has a stock vintage BB3000, but the pickups are both blades, I only see the neck P pickup as a blade design on BB1024/2024 not on any BB3000 or BB2000.

Was there a transition year in the 80s' where they produced them with both blades on BB3000?

Or maybe they were wound the same only difference was some models had blade magnet vs poles in the neck.

Or maybe the previous owner of his bass swapped the pickups to newer ones.

Based on the tone he gets from it, can anyone narrow it down to which year and exact BB model pickups his bass sounds like?

 

[J Wilson]

Can someone with enough experience with different BB's models please clarify something.

In this video, (skip to 5:45)



Scott has a stock vintage BB3000, but the pickups are both blades, I only see the neck P pickup as a blade design on BB1024/2024 not on any BB3000 or BB2000.

Was there a transition year in the 80s' where they produced them with both blades on BB3000?

Or maybe they were wound the same only difference was some models had blade magnet vs poles in the neck.

Or maybe the previous owner of his bass swapped the pickups to newer ones.

Based on the tone he gets from it, can anyone narrow it down to which year and exact BB model pickups his bass sounds like?

To my knowledge, all production 3000s were the PBass pickup with a blade only at the bridge. Possibly Scott retrofitted something else.

I owned a BB400, 1200, 1600, 2000, 3000, and all three versions of the BB5000. In my experience, any of these 80's MIJ BB's with the PJ layout will sound very, very similar, that particular low-midrange grind and the perfect PJ balance that made these, to my mind, the best basses Yamaha ever made, right up through today. The last in the line were the 2000s BB414/415 and 614/615, the last with bespoke Yamaha pickups and the pickup rings, which I prefer the passive 414s and 614s.

With the current gen BBs, Yamaha rightly/finally figured out it's time to adopt standard Precision and Jazz routs so pickup swaps are now painless, even though they pair some nice in-house pickups with them. But somehow, I miss the visuals of the metal pickup rings, a design signature. Oh well.

I would add that should anyone be in the market for an 80's BB and find one in good shape that HAS NOT been chiseled out by idiots to install some other pickups, you better get on it. It is becoming harder and harder to find 'original, unrestored' 80's BBs.

These basses, along with the SG2000 and SA2000 guitars were, like the Ibanez George Benson, landmark axes that destroyed the idea that Japanese guitars were simply copies of Western classics. That time frame in the 80's where the explosion of new instruments from Japan and the world economies that allowed it to occur in Japan is a time we shall never see again, whether that era Yamaha, the 'Matsumoku Era' guitars and basses, and so many more.

 

[Kinetic Bass]

Where does the BB2024/1024 fall into this comparison in tone vs BB3000, because Scott's bass defiantly looks like it has somthing from the 1024/2024 pick up line, but then again his are gold and I mostly see 1024/2024 in silver.