Roscoe Beck & Brad Houser basses

I have the Roscoe Beck and can recommend it to anyone who wants a jack-of-all-trades instrument. Fit and finish on the RBV are as good as you'll get from Fender. The B is pretty solid; it's not the tightest I've felt, but it is one of the best-sounding I've heard. I usually leave the pickups set to single-coil mode, as I think the instrument sounds best this way, but if you're getting 60Hz hum or want a P or Stingray tone, the options are there. Overall, I'd describe the tone as "well-behaved". There's plenty of passive J growl, but even with the parallel mode, you won't get all of the crazy overtones and high-end ping that you might expect from an active J setup. It's heavy, but well-balanced and not too cumbersome to play when standing up.

The Houser I believe is less expensive and has a more interesting look. Pickup switching options are similar to the Beck, but whereas the Beck has a universal volume and a three position pickup selector, the Houser has one volume pot per pickup. I haven't personally played the Houser, though, so I can't offer any advice regarding quality control or actual tone.

 

I wish Fender would make a production clone of Roscoe's custom greenburst Stevens 24-fret 6-string with full Jazz spacing. Now that's a monster. Given the aircraft carrier-like dimensions, though, I'll bet they won't.

 

The Reverend Rumblefish basses are very cool. The 5's have a great B string, and they're all light, well-balanced, comfortable to play, and have tons of a nice, passive, growly tone. Their prices are very good, too.