I don't do many of these "New Bass Days" because I go through so many, but this one really has knocked my socks off.
I won't make you wade through a wall of text for a pic, so here's she is...
Over the past few years I've gone through several of these Fender Elite Jazz basses, but always ended up selling them for one reason or another. Some were too heavy, others didn't seem to sound quite right. However, they always seem to feel great and the necks were wonderful to play on.
(IMHO, even though people seem to go nuts over the ebony boards, the ones with the maple boards were always much better than the ebony in terms of neck feel, fretwork and playability. Maybe I'm just a maple guy at heart
)
Most of my basses are fairly "modern" - a Skjold Gen 5 and a Sadowsky Modern 5 are my main players, so for the past few months I've been saving a couple grand to have a good quality, more "traditional" jazz 5 string to add to the arsenal.
My list of possible basses included Maruszczyk, a Mayones Jabba 5, a few Sadowsky Metros, a couple of really beautiful M Basses, the Ibanez ANB205 (still on my to-do list!), some nice Japanese basses like STR and Atelier Z and Bacchus... I had absolutely no intention of getting another Fender.
Low and behold, last weekend I decided to check into Guitar Center here in Nashville and see if they had anything new in. This beauty I have now was hanging on the wall on clearance, so I thought what the heck, and plugged her in.
All of the Elite's I've owned sounded very good, but this one simply blew me away. I sometimes wonder if this one might have accidentally been built in the Custom Shop and labeled "Elite" by mistake. There is an absolutely killer Marcus Miller tone in this bass - and just about any other to-die-for jazz style tone that you can think of. Plus, the action and trussrod are setup perfectly. When's the last time you played something at GC that didn't need even the slightest adjustment?
But I held off... made myself put it back on the rack and go home to think about it.
The next day I went back to GC with my trusty fishing scale and checked the weight on it. It was 9 lbs, 14 ozs... the first Elite that I've owned that was actually under 10 lbs.
I purchased it on the spot and immediately went home to order a black pickguard from WD Music.
It came in yesterday and I couldn't believe how sexy it now looks. Here's some more pics...
Just for comparison, here she is with the original pickguard...
At GC during the purchase:
I won't make you wade through a wall of text for a pic, so here's she is...
Over the past few years I've gone through several of these Fender Elite Jazz basses, but always ended up selling them for one reason or another. Some were too heavy, others didn't seem to sound quite right. However, they always seem to feel great and the necks were wonderful to play on.
(IMHO, even though people seem to go nuts over the ebony boards, the ones with the maple boards were always much better than the ebony in terms of neck feel, fretwork and playability. Maybe I'm just a maple guy at heart
)Most of my basses are fairly "modern" - a Skjold Gen 5 and a Sadowsky Modern 5 are my main players, so for the past few months I've been saving a couple grand to have a good quality, more "traditional" jazz 5 string to add to the arsenal.
My list of possible basses included Maruszczyk, a Mayones Jabba 5, a few Sadowsky Metros, a couple of really beautiful M Basses, the Ibanez ANB205 (still on my to-do list!), some nice Japanese basses like STR and Atelier Z and Bacchus... I had absolutely no intention of getting another Fender.
Low and behold, last weekend I decided to check into Guitar Center here in Nashville and see if they had anything new in. This beauty I have now was hanging on the wall on clearance, so I thought what the heck, and plugged her in.
All of the Elite's I've owned sounded very good, but this one simply blew me away. I sometimes wonder if this one might have accidentally been built in the Custom Shop and labeled "Elite" by mistake. There is an absolutely killer Marcus Miller tone in this bass - and just about any other to-die-for jazz style tone that you can think of. Plus, the action and trussrod are setup perfectly. When's the last time you played something at GC that didn't need even the slightest adjustment?
But I held off... made myself put it back on the rack and go home to think about it.
The next day I went back to GC with my trusty fishing scale and checked the weight on it. It was 9 lbs, 14 ozs... the first Elite that I've owned that was actually under 10 lbs.
I purchased it on the spot and immediately went home to order a black pickguard from WD Music.
It came in yesterday and I couldn't believe how sexy it now looks. Here's some more pics...
Just for comparison, here she is with the original pickguard...
At GC during the purchase:
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I do that a lot too though, so I get it.