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Vintage G&L L-1000: Thoughts?

#22
Insomnia led me to the front porch for a cigarette where I find a box...I literally just unboxed this at 4:30 A M

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2013 American Special Precision...near mint, plastic on guard, and original strings
 
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#26
I'm always nervous about 3 bolt necks, especially if it looks as though the tilt function has been used.
Leo's worst design is that 3 bolt tilt thing. I've had two where the wood in the body has gotten chewed up enough so that the wood can no longer support a tight rigid connection, and just moderate pressure can move the neck back and forth, ruining everything. How many old Fenders have a bevy of toothpicks stuffed in the the screw holes???
There is a good reason that you haven't seen many three bolt necks on basses from the last 40-ish years.
 
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#29
My 83' L2k has the 3 bolt neck, zero problems all these years, Ive literally never had to touch the neck tilt, so maybe it was superfluous. In fact no problems of any kind in all these years, a tank in every sense of the word, and heavier than the average P, but not excessively. The L1k is the P bass done right IMO, Leo put everything he learned into G&L, and it shows.
 
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#33
Kawai2g4b said:
Honestly, assuming good structural integrity and truss rod operation, if you choose to pay to have a trusted luthier do a setup for you then you are still coming out ahead in terms of how good of a deal you will be getting for this bass.

Also, if it hasn’t been mentioned already for you here in the thread, these basses have treble cut and bass cut knobs. The bass cut knobs can coax out some relatively unique tones that many other passive basses can’t achieve.

I say get the bass.
Click to expand...
…especially when combined with the three-way switch. I’ve found that single-coil setting with some bass cut and the volume at about 75% gets pretty close to a P-sound.
 
#38
I had one L1000 during the first eighties. Excellent bass, from a luthiery point of view. Two things: pickup output was... enormous and it had sort of a dead spot on the G 5th fret. But once you knew the beast you also knew how to tame it... I ended up installing at the bridge an active Magnetics "Les Paul" shaped (bass) pickup with relevant ring. I don't remember how I did it, but somehow I could only select either the passive original pu or the new active one.
 
#39
I've always liked these basses. I remember first hearing one (played well) in the early '80's, and loved the sound. Last night, I heard a bassist rocking one of these at the MidState fair in Paso Robles and he sounded great, with a fat tone, smooth but with a smidgen of hair, and punchy articulation that hit hard alongside the bass drum (note that the FOH engineer did an excellent job with the entire band). Interesting act - Afghanistan vet singing about his experience, coming from an outlaw-country vibe with Steve Earle storyteller chops...and a good cover of "Copperhead Road."
 
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#40
They are tremendous basses and to say it'd be a good beginner bass is a huge understatement. I have a very early 1980 L-1000 that looks exactly what you have there, except the early CAR finishes were soft and chipped like crazy. It has a perfect neck radius imo. It's a fantastic playing and sounding bass. I would gig with it more except I just prefer the maple fingerboards on my Telecasters.
 

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