Guitar Thread - Page 37

Firstly, it sounds absolutely amazing. It was mentioned on TalkBass that you can get a really good Jaco sound out of these things, and that is definitely the case. Even just using a standard volume/tone setup with both pickups it sounds amazing. Much better than my old MIM Jazz V. I put on a set of Rotosound Monel Flatwounds and it is absolutely perfect for what I am looking for. After the Christmas shipping rush I may consider getting a set of Labella tapewounds, but even with the Rotosounds I am quite happy. The pickups are definitely an upgrade from the ones included in MIM Fenders (according to the Fender Japan site they are American Vintage single coils). They have the 60Hz hum when the volume is set such that only one pickup is being used but that is to be expected.

The soft case it came with is significantly heavier than any of the other softcases I've had, let alone the Fender ones, which are usually kinda thin (the USA Fender hard cases are amazing though. I have one for my Strat). I am going to get a hardcase for it though. Probably a tweed one to match the styling.

As far as construction quality, the people who claimed the Japanese domestic market Fenders are as good (or better in some cases) as the US ones are not kidding, this one is easily on par with the US Fenders I've played, and much better than most MIMs outside of the Classic series. I've yet to find a single flaw in it. The neck is amazing, exactly what I expected. Thinner and wider than my Precision but not thin in a way that cramps up my hand, which is what happens when I play Ibanez SR-style basses. They have a nice heavy tint on the neck, which is what I prefer when it comes to vintage-styled basses and guitars. The finish is quite nice though I still have managed to nick it with a screwdriver while adjusting the truss rod(though you would have to have it pointed to in order to see it) because of me being lazy and not taking the neck off to adjust the truss rod, but that isn't a big deal. I bought this to play, not look at. The neck pocket is nice and tight, on par with the one on my USA Strat and much tighter than either of my MIM Fenders. No shimming is required to get good action, also something that had to be done on both my MIMs, so that is nice too. Upon taking it apart and putting it back together I have yet to find anything wrong with it, or any flaws, and I am quite picky about this type of thing. Had it not been stamped Made In Japan on the heel of the neck I would have thought it was an American Fender. The body is made up of 3 pieces of alder. I didn't expect it to be any more than that. I've seen some MIM Fenders and Squiers have bodies made up of many more pieces (which I fine I suppose, but looks bad with this type of finish), but I wasn't worried about that to begin with. Hardware wise, it is fine. One of the tuners needs a bit of oil to get it rolling smoother but other than that they are great. They are not reversed like my Precision so I always mix the two up. It has a vintage style bridge, much like my 50s Precision, but this one seems like it is much heavier. The saddles never move, which is an issue I have with my Precision, so that is nice.

Getting used to fretless has taken a bit but I am getting the hang of it now after playing a whole ton of scales and using a tuner to learn positioning. I still once in a while play it like a fretted bass by accident but usually I catch myself. I'm finding it much easier to play than fretted though, all things considered. Not having to contend with fret noise from the strings hitting the frets and fret buzz makes it so I can focus on playing. There is a slight amount of buzz from the strings vibrating against the fretboard but that is standard for fretless and contributes to the sound. Some things are definitely easier. Weird Jaco-style false harmonics are easier for sure (by this I mean where you hold down a string at one position and lightly touch it at another. In "Portrait of Tracy" you have to hold down the second fret and make a harmonic at the 6th, and at the end hold down the 9th fret and create a harmonic at 13. That kind of thing). The challenge so far is making sure my finger doesn't shift such that it starts playing an out of tune note. That is something that will just take time. It is nice having a Jazz pickup setup as I like playing around where the bridge pickup is, and on a Precision there isn't really anywhere to anchor my thumb if I play around there.

Luckily the intonation was dead on so not much needed to be done for setup other than a quarter turn tightening of the truss rod and a slight lowering of the string saddles. I may tighten the truss rod a little more as there is still a slight bow in it since the neck has finally settled down after getting used to the climate here (cold and very dry). I was worried the cold temperatures the bass would experience in shipping would mess up the neck a bunch (perhaps warp it) but that hasn't been the case. It is dead on straight.

Now I will talk about my experiences with Ishibashi. They did a amazing job. It was certainly a non-standard online shopping experience but everything went super smooth. I emailed out my request for an estimate and got a response within two hours, and had my bass ordered in about 4. With the service, you deal with a person through the whole thing rather than using a cart system. They give you a full description of the instrument and everything. Because it is the busy season for overseas orders it took them a couple days to get it shipped, but once it shipped I got it in 3(!) business days (though it did travel over the weekend, so more like 5 actual days, but still that is insane).They shipped it late Thursday, I got it Tuesday. That's faster than most Canada-based orders, let alone American orders. ~9000 miles in 5 days, in which 2 it was in Vancouver for. As you will see in the pictures, the bass was packed to withstand basically anything. It was wrapped in I would guess about 30 square meters of bubble wrap across maybe 6-8 layers, including a layer that was one giant sheet folded over a few times, so. I do have a payment thing I need to get cleared up with them but other than that I have had no issues with them, and much better customer service than I get from most sites. They answered my questions insanely fast whenever I had them. I am using the bubble wrap to wrap by brother's Christmas gift. It will take him 10 minutes to unwrap it.

I would definitely buy from Ishibashi again, and most likely will in the future. The shipping fees (and duty, but there is nothing I can do about that. Would have been the same from the US) were a bit steep (shipping to Canada was about $120 using EMS) so for stuff available locally I would not recommend it in some cases, but for stuff only sold in Japan, it is easily worth it, especially since if you were to sell it you could easily recoup the costs. The U Box (used shop) is a must if you are going the import route. You can get basically anything Fender Japan on it if you are patient, including a lot of insanely cool special run instruments (They also have Edwards, which is ESP's domestic market brand, which is made at the same factory as ESP. You can get an Edwards that is identical to a $2000 ESP for about $1200. They also have a ton of insane domestic market brands that have really neat stuff. There are still a few remaining Jackson Stars guitars, which was Jackson's Japanese domestic brand before they closed the Japan factories. Those are as good as American Jacksons. At one point you could get custom Jackson Stars guitars that were absolutely stunning). My Jazz was about $250 off the full price by going through the U Box. Had I bought new it would have been over $1100 shipping and duty included. This way it was about $850 in total after exchange rates took their toll, of which half is being offset by me selling my 7 string Ibanez.

Here's some pictures. They're phone pictures so some of them are a bit blurry. I included some pictures of the shipping stuff for those curious. Also, the hilarious hand drawn signs on the box it was shipped in.

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