The Coolest Fender Jazz of the 1980s?! The Collector Series
In today's video, Ian Allison checks out some of his favourite guitar stores and asks the question: "what’s the best bass guitar in the store?" Featuring a Rickenbacker, an Alembic, a Warwick Lee Sklar Signature model and one of the coolest Fender Jazz Basses of the 1980s, this video is sure to provide you with some solid eye (and ear) candy! And if you haven’t entered our ‘Win A Bass Build A School’ giveaway yet, this is your chance to WIN one of these great basses (we’re giving away nearly $50,000 of awesome bass gear) and help us raise money for kids in under-resourced nations.
Anyone who has ever visited a guitar store will know that it can be a test of endurance (for your eardrums if nothing else). But there’s nothing like seeing the vast array of bass gear you can actually get your hands on and check out for yourself. In today’s new video, Ian Allison did just that. Having visited Twin Town Guitars in Minneapolis and Willie’s American Guitars in St Paul, here’s his list of the hottest bass gear on offer.
Fender Player Plus Jazz Bass V
Words almost – but not quite – fail us when we are required to describe the awesomeness of this 5-string Jazz Bass. The entry level Player Series was launched in 2018 and we’re told it’s grown to be one of the best-selling in Fender’s history. What’s the secret? Perhaps the Tequila Sunrise finish of this Jazz Bass V is the answer, or maybe it’s just its solidity and quality in combination. This is one righteous Jazz Bass.Warwick Artist Series Lee Sklar SignatureWarwick basses have an indefinable something that has attracted the world’s finest bassists. Perhaps the trademarked ‘Sound of Wood’ is the answer, or in this case maybe it’s a one-off custom switch requested by session great Lee Sklar. “I call it my producer’s switch,”says Lee in a clip from the Beneath The Bassline documentary. “If I’m on a session and the producer asks me to get a different sound, I make sure he sees me flip this switch and then I just change my hand position a bit. There are no wires or anything that go to this switch, but it saved me a lot of grief in the studio.”
Fender Squier Classic Vibe Bass VI
Fender’s vintage guitars represent a significant investment for anyone. As such, the company offers lower-cost instruments via its Squier Classic Vibe series, which delivers a compelling blend of looks, feel and tone. With certain aspects of specs and build filtered down directly from the original run from 1961 to 1975, the Classic Vibe Bass VI (yes, bass not baritone) features a 30-inch scale length, nickel-plated hardware and a tint gloss neck finish. Incidentally, it uses standard tuning (EADGBE) one octave lower than a guitar.
1973 Rickenbacker 4001
We’ve made a list of reasons why the Rickenbacker bass is so important to history. It goes like this: Paul McCartney, Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Chris Squire and Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister. Sure, the Rickenbacker 4001 sounds a bit eccentric, but it’s a stone-cold classic. It’s fair to say that the body shape is pretty outrageous too, with its cresting ‘wave’ cutaways, neck-through-body design and a 33.5-inch scale length, but the fact that it still looks cool today, proves that style is the key to the success of any bass.
1982 Fender Collectors Edition Jazz Bass
Evidence of how popular the Jazz Bass has always been came in the early ‘80s when Fender launched the Collector’s Edition. Features include a set of original single-coil pickups, gold hardware, a maple fingerboard with black dot inlays, a gold-plated brass bridge and a gold finish. In the immortal words of Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel, “This is the top of the heap right here.”
