FENDER JAZZ BASS COMPARISON — USA / MEXICO / JAPAN

[ikme]

Here is a comparison of 4 Fender Jazz Basses, no effects, same strings, clean sound.

video link:

 

Hope you enjoy it! Waiting for your comments.

[Ara Ajizian]

This is awesome! Very cool way to highlight the differences. That butterscotch ash model with the maple fretboard is my fav.

[thelurker]

Well played! IMHO, they all sound close enough that any model would do what you wanted, you might pick because one is less than 5% better at one thing than another. I noticed all the commenters saying any bass you played would sound good, I think of it as "It's not the crate, it's the man". - Manfred von Richthofen

[WRGKMC]

I couldn't judge a bass just by the sound. The amp setting may be right for one bass and suck for all the others. Then if you set the optimum tone for one of the others, it may suck for the one that sounded best the first time.

 

Playability is a bigger factor for me. You can have two completely identical instruments with each set up slightly different. The one may play like heaven and the other not only plays badly, but it sounds bad too. You have to be able to identify if its something that's easily remedies with a proper setup or weather there's inherent issues with the build. Neither of those can be identified just by listening. Feeling the vibrations with the body against your chest and in your hands is the only true way of knowing if an instruments acoustic tone is a winner. From there you can modify the pickups, amp, speakers etc to make it sound good.

[Craig Vecchione]

I'd be happy with any of them. Had a 2001 MIM at one time before I switched to a P-bass. It played fine and sounded fine.

 

Mostly I'd trade all but one of my basses for half that guy's talent.

 

 

[thelurker]

I couldn't judge a bass just by the sound. The amp setting may be right for one bass and suck for all the others. Then if you set the optimum tone for one of the others, it may suck for the one that sounded best the first time.

 

Playability is a bigger factor for me. You can have two completely identical instruments with each set up slightly different. The one may play like heaven and the other not only plays badly, but it sounds bad too. You have to be able to identify if its something that's easily remedies with a proper setup or weather there's inherent issues with the build. Neither of those can be identified just by listening. Feeling the vibrations with the body against your chest and in your hands is the only true way of knowing if an instruments acoustic tone is a winner. From there you can modify the pickups, amp, speakers etc to make it sound good.

 

If I had to guess, they were each set-up to his specifications, and comfortable to play for him. I wouldn't take it as bad tht one might take more time or effort to get there, it simply shows that the instruments had the range of adjustment to a reach the feel and tone that this obviously skilled player had, and that there ended up being very little difference between them because of that range. I once heard that the President of Fender, when asked which instrument he would buy, he said 'the MIM, because the people who made it just hadn't crossed the border to work in the USA plant'. Certainly an interesting take.

 

I wish he'd done a Squire in this test as well. XD