My quest for a low cost (ok, cheap!) bass has led me to this cool Yamaha TRBX174EW. Been looking for bass I can keep out and ready for use when ever I need it and use at gigs which I rather not take my Fodera or Roscoe basses. After reading reviews and looking through all the low cost basses available, choose the TRBX.
Yamaha has always been known for good quality even with their low cost line of instruments. Well got it today and so far happy with my purchase. This model features a mahogany body and a really thin but beautiful Mango Wood veneer top. The headstock also sports a Mango Wood veneer. It features a PJ pickup setup and is a passive bass. I have read complaints about the J pickup being low in output, but sounds fine on mine. Pretty equal to the P bass pickup. The controls are volume/volume/tone. The black knobs are plastic and a bit cheap looking. So ordered some black metal replacement knobs. The bridge is a standard vintage type.
The bolt-on neck is 24 fret and is a one piece maple with a sonokeling (in the rosewood family) fretboard. The fretwork isn't too bad. The edges of a couple of the frets could have been filed down better, but not blaring bad. The tuners are some sort of enclosed type, little weird looking from the back. Obviously very low cost tuners, but as long as they keep the bass in tune, I don't care. One thing to note, the headstock is not a tilt back type. There is a string retainer bar on the front to pull the strings down over the nut. I mention this because most basses in this price range that have tilted headstocks, the headstock is glued onto the neck. The TRBX is completely one piece from top to bottom. The nut is just a hair wider then a Jazz bass, and the neck has a nice chunky profile which I like. The back of the neck has a natural finish.
Out of box the setup wasn't too bad. Action was a little high for my taste. Got the action fairly low with minimal fret buzz. The neck relief was perfect. The weight is probably a bit under 9 lbs. The tone is pretty punchy with both pickups up full. Has a great P bass tone when soloing the neck P pickup. It came with round wound strings that did not sound to bad. But after 10 minutes of playing my fingers were dirty from the strings! So nixed them and put on a fresh set of D'Addario XL170s.
Ok here is the best part....Guitar Center just put it on sale for $179!! How can you beat that!
As you can see, it is a good looking bass....
Yamaha has always been known for good quality even with their low cost line of instruments. Well got it today and so far happy with my purchase. This model features a mahogany body and a really thin but beautiful Mango Wood veneer top. The headstock also sports a Mango Wood veneer. It features a PJ pickup setup and is a passive bass. I have read complaints about the J pickup being low in output, but sounds fine on mine. Pretty equal to the P bass pickup. The controls are volume/volume/tone. The black knobs are plastic and a bit cheap looking. So ordered some black metal replacement knobs. The bridge is a standard vintage type.
The bolt-on neck is 24 fret and is a one piece maple with a sonokeling (in the rosewood family) fretboard. The fretwork isn't too bad. The edges of a couple of the frets could have been filed down better, but not blaring bad. The tuners are some sort of enclosed type, little weird looking from the back. Obviously very low cost tuners, but as long as they keep the bass in tune, I don't care. One thing to note, the headstock is not a tilt back type. There is a string retainer bar on the front to pull the strings down over the nut. I mention this because most basses in this price range that have tilted headstocks, the headstock is glued onto the neck. The TRBX is completely one piece from top to bottom. The nut is just a hair wider then a Jazz bass, and the neck has a nice chunky profile which I like. The back of the neck has a natural finish.
Out of box the setup wasn't too bad. Action was a little high for my taste. Got the action fairly low with minimal fret buzz. The neck relief was perfect. The weight is probably a bit under 9 lbs. The tone is pretty punchy with both pickups up full. Has a great P bass tone when soloing the neck P pickup. It came with round wound strings that did not sound to bad. But after 10 minutes of playing my fingers were dirty from the strings! So nixed them and put on a fresh set of D'Addario XL170s.
Ok here is the best part....Guitar Center just put it on sale for $179!! How can you beat that!
As you can see, it is a good looking bass....
