BB2000

Doing an initial setup as recommended by Willis should be a good starting point: [url="http://www.garywillis.com/pages/bass/bassmanual/setupmanual.html"]http://www.garywillis.com/pages/bass/bassm...etupmanual.html[/url]

Leo was just serving his apprenticeship really, until he started making real instruments at G&L.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='734332' date='Feb 3 2010, 06:39 PM']Swamp ash was originally used because it was cheap and plentiful, not because people liked the sound of it. Fender was set up for mass production from the first moment, tone was secondary and this tends to get forgotten amongst all the vintage hype. Fender had the production values similar to many far eastern factories today. That some of the basses sound good is probably a happy accident due more to good engineering than materials choice.[/quote] True, but it became expensive in the 70s and so they moved to the cheaper closed grain ash. You could probably debate what people thought sounded 'good' back in the 50s. I suspect sounding like an acoustic bass was the original aim. But since they were first with mass produced instruments the Fender sound has obviously became the sound that people expect from an electric bass.

Edit - removed post before the Fender heads break down my door.