Plek pro - is it worth $299?

[Koshchei]

I'm looking into buying an Am Pro II P bass from Sweetwater and they are offering Plek pro for $299. Is it worth it?

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lol no. If the instrument isn't properly set up to play at purchase, it's not worth purchasing. Why would you pay an extra 15% profit margin for something that they should be providing at no charge? And if the instrument is already fine, then why pay a sunk cost fallacy surcharge? In all circumstances, it's a bad deal aimed at people with more money than brains.

 

[bdplaid]

From what I've seen on recent MIA basses, it could vary from excellent to barely acceptable. It is a step up from that on the MIM instruments, which could be horrible to good.

You're already paying 2 grand, what's another 300 bucks to get it as perfect as it could be?

As I've said many times, any bass over $1k should have good to excellent fretwork, and absolutely one $2k or over should be stellar. It's just not that big a deal to get frets right, yet manufacturers really skimp on this. Yet many, especially Fenders, do not. The most fret-problematic basses I ever owned, and subsequently sold, were a Fender AmPro Jazz, a G&L Jazz and a Stingray Special. You know those aren't cheap basses. The G&L actually had to go back to the factory. I tried to salvage each of these with pro-luthier-level fret levelling, and there were still problems.

Interestingly, most of my cheaper basses are fine. I have a CV Squier Jazz with not-perfect fretwork that required attention, but swear to God it is on par with every American Fender I've owned.

I'm a firm believer in that one should get what one pays for, and in my book, that's good fretwork at any level of price.

My Sandbergs, PLEKed of course, are the best playing basses I own. Including those with hand-levelled frets.

 

[Deleted member 394512]

I can tell you that I switched from Fenders to Laklands years ago and all Laklands are PLEK’d. The necks played better than and of my Fenders out of the box.

When I bought my last Lakie, I was told no PLEK on 44-94's. I think they give a quicky PLEK to Skylines only.

Regarding the PLEK process, I get nervous about the machine measuring the neck with tension and then cut frets with strings off. Seems like the neck should be made straight and then leveled. Like on a bench by hand. I am sure utilizing that machine during the bass build would yield great results and save labor though.

Anyway, I stand by not PLEKing any new bass that costs 2K. Maybe down the road if needed. I had a new PLEK bass that needed more fretwork in a year. If I paid for the first one it would have been a waste of money.

 

[Grinderman]

(Never been PLEK'd)

I have no idea what I might be missing. I still &#^% off manually.

 

[Jim C]

IMO, you Plek or file frets only if it needs it.
Ironically I just bought a new Squier CV P bass and my sales guy told me he sold more Plek upgrades than anyone at Sweetwater last year.
So far this bass is an excellent player and needs no fret work or truss rod adjustment. I just lowered the action a little and love it.

 

[tindrum]

I'd say no. I got a plek on a bass from them and asked for low action. It came with the action at 7/64" and still had fret rattle.

Lowered the action to my preferred 5/64 bass to 4/64 treble taper and it buzzed like crazy regardless of whether it had a flat neck or up to like. 014 relief.

Hated it so much I returned the bass and lost $300 on it because I had paid for the plek.

Just bring it to a good luthier and have them do a fret level for $200 or less.

Agree with the others- the plek is great when it has a customized touch from a human doing the finish work that will work with you on precise setup specs and show you the plek mapping of the neck and all that.

This BIG TIME. An excellent tech can make the frets perfectly level and set the bass up to play perfectly for less than $300.

 

[C Stone]

If the new basses QC is inferior and the bass won’t take a set-up just return it.

 

[BlueTalon]

I would like to A/B test two exact same basses one PLEK one no-PLEK.
My guess is that if they were high quality instruments to begin with there wouldn't be too much of a difference.
I have a Lakland that was PLEK'ed by Lakland as part of the build process. I doubt that they added $300 to the price for doing so???

They probably added something closer to $150 or $200 to the final price. That's an expensive machine for which they must pay a licensing fee, and they're not a non-profit organization.

 

[bdplaid]

My question is, if you spend 2K+ on something like a Fender AmPro, don't like the frets (their quality is hit or miss, after all), and send back the bass, how many times are you going to do that until you find one you like? Once? A hundred?

It seems to me that in the absence of companies like Sandberg who actually do fretwork on new basses going out the door, getting fretwork done once on a bass of unknown quality is reasonable, whether the work is done by hand or by PLEK. Either way, you're out a couple of hundred over the price of the instrument. Having the frets levelled from the start ensures you start from a good place, not a place needing repair.

This is why when I go looking for an expensive bass, I also look at what the manufacturer does regarding final setup. Fender may have decent people doing their setup, but in no way are they doing anything to the frets.

If you've never played a bass with leveled frets, you don't know what you're talking about in this discussion. You owe it to yourself to have your bass properly set up with a fret level. You'll be shocked.

Check this out:

 

[blr2]

My question is, if you spend 2K+ on something like a Fender AmPro, don't like the frets (their quality is hit or miss, after all), and send back the bass, how many times are you going to do that until you find one you like? Once? A hundred?

The problem is that a PLEK doesn't guarantee you anything for two reasons:
1. If the fretboard is not perfectly leveled, leveling frets doesn't do much. You can compensate somewhat, but the only proper fix is defretting, leveling the board and refretting. A new bass with a problem like this should be returned.
2. A PLEK job is as good as the person who profiles the neck and sets up the machine.

So, just having a PLEK job performed on a new neck doesn't guarantee it will be a great player.
The sad truth is that the QC of Fender (and other big names for that matter) nowadays is such that, I wouldn't buy an instrument unseen. I much rather would visit a store in my area or some drive time away and check the instrument.

 

[Grinderman]

A PLEK machine can achieve a tolerance of 1/1000 of a millimeter or 1 micron. How much practical difference--translated to how a guitar or bass plays in human hands--would 1 micron in either direction versus 6 microns in a fret-level job make anyway?

One thing I'm sure of here is that it's a good thing most of us don't have hairy fingertips.

A 6 μm diameter carbon filament next to a 50 μm diameter human hair.

 

[Chrisk-K]

Sweetwater will soon offer Plek Pro for fretless basses as well.

 

[Kubicki Fan]

Sweetwater will soon offer Plek Pro for fretless basses as well.

$299 for PLEK,
$399 for PLEK PRO®

 

[fretno]

A PLEK machine can level a fretboard so maybe

 

[Kubicki Fan]

A PLEK machine can achieve a tolerance of 1/1000 of a millimeter or 1 micron. How much practical difference--translated to how a guitar or bass plays in human hands--would 1 micron in either direction versus 6 microns in a fret-level job make anyway?

One thing I'm sure of here is that it's a good thing most of us don't have hairy fingertips.

A 6 μm diameter carbon filament next to a 50 μm diameter human hair.

I wonder by how much a fret protrudes that has not been installed properly...
Anyway, a mallet would be a better tool.

 

[blr2]

A PLEK machine can level a fretboard so maybe

It can if it's fretless. For a fretted instrument the ideal solution would be to PLEK twice, once before and once after installing the frets. This, with a properly cut nut and optimal setup will make a bass as good as it could be in terms of playability.

 

[Jhass]

I have several high end guitars and basses but my Sandberg, delivered with a factory Plek setup, is easily the best playing of the lot, so on that basis I’d recommend it.

Same experience with Sandberg: by far the best-playing bass I’ve owned. But that doesn’t mean the tech at Sweetwater will do as good a job using the PLEK machine as the people at the Sandberg factory did. I like Sweetwater, but given their sales volume, I wonder if their PLEK technicians are taking the time to do a careful job.

 

[Jhass]

No. Plekking is great but it usually needs a human touch afterwards in consultation with the player. Sweetwater isn’t going to give you that last part.

^ Agree

 

[Grinderman]

It can if it's fretless. For a fretted instrument the ideal solution would be to PLEK twice, once before and once after installing the frets. This, with a properly cut nut and optimal setup will make a bass as good as it could be in terms of playability.

The PLEK cuts nut slots too--which you probably know.

The point: It seems to me, that if there's anything PLEK machines do dramatically better than anything else, in terms of speed and precision versus even a highly skilled tech or luthier, it would be slotting new nuts perfectly. Manually shaping and perfectly slotting new nuts, done well, is relatively time and labor-intensive. The catch or counterpoint is the costs of purchasing, setting up, maintaining, and operating a PLEK machine.

 

[blr2]

The PLEK cuts nut slots too--which you probably know.

The point: It seems to me, that if there's anything PLEK machines do dramatically better than anything else, in terms of speed and precision versus even a highly skilled tech or luthier, it would be slotting new nuts perfectly. Manually shaping and perfectly slotting new nuts, done well, is relatively time and labor-intensive. The catch or counterpoint is the costs of purchasing, setting up, maintaining, and operating a PLEK machine.

A feeler gauge, a set of quality nut files (expensive, but worth it), and approx. 10 minutes is all it takes me to cut a nut. Shame it has to be done at all on expensive instruments, though. Not to talk that there is this beautiful thing called "Just-a-nut", sadly for Warwick users only.