Your thoughts on the Yamaha BB605?

[jimmykicker]

I've got a 605. Black with gold hardware. I've owned a lot of basses over the last few years and this is still my "go-to" bass. It's capable of use on virtually any kind of music style which is awesome since I play in a wedding band I need that flexibility. It's like most anything Yamaha in that you get great quality regardless of what you pay for it. I personally like the electronics in it, but then again I've never owned a bass that cost much more than $500 so maybe ignorance is bliss on that. I played an Ibanez the other day with Bartolinis in it though and I must say I was impressed! That might be a nice upgrade. I'd have to say out of the 7 basses I own that if I could only keep one it would be this one without question....

 

[kozans]

Hi guys,

I'm a music producer and a guitarist. I have a BB605 since years for demoing purposes. I was thinking about making some upgrades to it instead of buying a new bass, and I've come across this conversation from 10 year ago Your thoughts sound encouraging. As a layman to bass geek stuff, could I ask which upgrade should I go for first? The pups or preamp? Or both? Thanks in advance if anyone would still catch this one

 

[RBC64]

I think all of your questions and comparisons have been answered so I will just say I absolutely Love mine.

 

[DDawg]

I really like the BB605 preamp, especially for the semi-parametric mid control, which gives it a lot of versatility. The pickups aren't bad, maybe a little thin, but they are pretty noisy, so I would consider swapping them for some split or double coils. I've kept the original pickups in mine, but I replaced the volume and blend controls (which aren't really part of the preamp) with separate push-pull volumes with series-parallel switching and a switchable bridge capacitor (like a Rickenbacker) which adds some more options to beef it up a little more. It's one of my favorite 5 strings even though it was the cheapest, good quality, light and comfortable with a large array of tones, even totally stock. I usually use lighter gauge strings and tune it up a step to C#-F#-B-E-A, but it has a Hipshot detuner so I can still hit the low B.

 

[Larry Thomas]

The tone will certainly be more even string to string. BB605s are very well made, but Yamaha certainly skimped on the electronics to meet their price point.

The Yamaha BB605 will stack up even or better against any $1000 bass on the market and many that cost much more. Just saying.