The Fender Jazz Bass Club Part Seven!!!

Hoping to join today! Looking at a 2006 or 7 MIM, 3TS!

 

In

 

Glamour shot:

 

Show us your Fenders I'm in with my 66 Sunburst, 66 Olympic White, and 73 Black & Maple

 

Damn, that's a nice Trio you've got there!

 

I have two of this species, can I hang out here and act cool.....

 

I just order me a new Fender Standard Jazz in Alpine white and maple fretboard/neck. Should get it in a few days.

 

you can hang out, but you can't act cool

 

Gotta throw mine in again... Just threw some rs77 flatwounds on it and man does it rock!

 

ooo back in

 

Love that pickguard!

 

Just picked up yesterday. This is the image from CL. It's prettier upclose

I need a number!

 

Thanks!

That was done by the fine folks at Terrapin Guitars

 

Am I worthy to join?

I have a pic if someone can tell me how to paste it into the message.

 

You will have to post on more threads before you can post pictures. Its for spam bot protection... But when you are typing a reply, there is the option of taking a new picture, choosing a picture from your photo gallery or tweeting something (depends on what device you are using)

 

Upload it to photobucket, flickr, or something similar and post the image link.

 

Hello fellow club members! I was perusing the GC online site and they are showing a new model. It's a classic series 60's jazz in olympic white/tort. All of the specs are showing that it's the same as the classic lacquer series, including a nitro finished body/neck. The only difference I found was that it comes with a gig bag instead of the tweed case. The price on this model is showing $799, where the classic lacquer is $899. I checked the Fender site, and this particular model/color doesn't exist. Is it possibly a special run, or did GC put the wrong specs on their page?? I'm drooling at the possibility of a relatively inexpensive oly white nitro jazz. Hopefully someone can shed some light. Peace!

 

60's Jazz "Lacquer":



There seems to be scant reviews and info on these, so I'll give my first impressions. First, the neck is fairly thicker front to back than I recall the regular Classic 60's being, but its been a few years since I played one. This is a plus for me, coming over from precision basses. Beautiful two piece alder body with center seam and about 9lbs. Slab rosewood fingerboard. There are no holes on the pickguard for mounting hardware, unlike the roadworn and poly versions. The tint on the neck is also fairly darker than on the poly series. Funny enough, there is very little "tack" to the back of the neck...almost as if it was very lightly sanded at the factory with 0000 steel wool. The tuners don't "stick" and work well.

The nitro finish is applied thicker than on the AVRI and NAV nitro basses I've owned, but still is just as immediately susceptible to fine scratching if not handled with care. That's just the nature of nitro. The hard shell case these come with are not the US made G&G tweed cases, but "genuine Fender", made in Vietnam. To be totally honest, I like it much better than the G&G in that it is way lighter and is put together much better than the last three I've owned, which all had poorly locking locks, misaligned hinges and loose/bare threads. The hardware of the case itself isn't as "tough" as on the G&G, but they are well made and functional. I am VERY happy in that its an overall much lighter case than the G&G. It is real tweed with a faux leather handle.

The pickups themselves are decent, but I have a set of Fralin raised A/D pole stock wind pups on the way. The stock pups have great output, with slightly subdued highs, but that's probably more the craptastic strings that came with the bass, which are utterly lifeless, stiff and unbalanced, IMO. (DR nickel Lo-Riders en route from BSO). At the end of the day, it sounds like a jazz bass. The control cavity is immaculate featuring some of the cleanest wiring I've seen on a modern Fender to date, no "rats nest" here. I'm considering replacing the pots with sealed CTS EP885, as I prefer the torque of those over the stock CTS "open top" types, but these work as they should, with a balanced, smooth taper. One thing of note is that the control cavity has zero finish inside, just raw alder. As quiet as the bass is, I don't feel the need to subject myself to some over the top shielding fiasco. Typical single coil noise. Present but not excessive by any stretch. I'll see if this changes when I swap for the Fralins.

Another nice thing is the insanely tight neck pocket. It was a slow and careful process just getting the neck off to adjust the relief to my liking. I thought American Standard had a tight neck pocket, but I couldn't even tuck a corner of loose leaf paper into anywhere at the pocket, which is a plus for some, but again, makes removing the neck a little tedious if one doesn't want to damage the nitro at that area.

Overall, its a damn nice bass. I'll post my thoughts after I install the Fralins and rock it a full volume in a band setting. Looking forward to getting back from my trip to put it through its paces.