Belka

Last year I bought an Xotic after reading some of the good feedback on here. I originally was after a 5 string but I saw this bass being advertised in Japan second hand at a very low price (around £1300 - it had been bought a few weeks earlier on Reverb for about £1600, and then obviously returned to the same store). I just loved the finish, which seems to be a special run of a few six string only basses they did for a Japanese store. Obviously I had to also factor in shipping and import duties, so in the end it probably cost me about £1900, which is still not bad considering it's practically in mint condition (it's a 2020 model). The fit and finish are extremely good, and it sounds great - it's a slightly more hi-fi twist on a '70s Jazz. I can get extremely low action on it, and it's generally very comfortable to play for a six string, with a nice neck profile. The parts are all high quality, and the preamp is very nice; subtle, but very musical. Set flat, it sounds more or less the same as it does in passive mode, which is what a good preamp should do in my opinion. The only negative I can mention, which has been stated here already, is the weight. This one comes in a around 5.3kg/11.8lbs, so it's a heavyweight. I think the ash they use is medium weight rather than the really heavy northern ash, but it's a very big bass with heavy parts, so of course it's going to weigh a lot. I can manage two hour gigs on it with a decent wide strap though. No neck dive at all, obviously.

I think you're right. I mean, the pickup/bridge misalignment is not forgivable at this price point, but complaining about a vintage style bridge, truss rod access at the body end and neck dive being defects isn't really fair, they're features of pretty much any vintage styled Jazz, and you'll get them on custom shop instruments costing three times this much. I see this bass has an ebony fretboard and Gotoh tuners, so it's not as if Fender is using cheap parts. Shame they couldn't get this right. The whole gold foil thing would probably have worked better as a short scale Mustang/Musicmaster bass rather than a Jazz , especially with their narrower spring spacing and the current interest in short scales. It is quite an entertaining video though, although it does annoy me sometimes when he tests out tones that noone would ever really use (whenever he reviews an active bass, he does a sound test with the active eq all the way off - I mean, does anyone use that kind of setting?)

Here's mine. This is the pedalboard of someone who doesn't really care much for effects. Funnily enough, the two I like most (the delay and phaser) get the least use in my band's sets. The others all get used to get the right tones for songs, and the Cali is always on.

I did the tour of the Fodera shop just before I ordered one in 2015. I still have it and it's my absolute favourite bass of all time. They are great people and a great company and contrary to what people think, no one there is getting rich. Their custom basses are all different and you really have to know what you want before ordering to avoid making an expensive mistake. Having said that though the Seymour Duncan dual coils they typically use do have a tone all their own which puts them all in a similarish ballpark tonewise. Aside from the one I ordered I also bought another second hand. Although I initially loved it, over time I realised that the tone of that particular bass just didn't work for me so I ended up selling it. Neither of the basses I own(ed) had the extended B headstock and personally I don't think it can much difference to the tightness of the B string. I think Mike Pope was the first to have a bass with that feature. He's a great player and a very creative guy so if it works for him...

I'd bet his name is actually Kevin and he used to (still does?) play a fretless Wal.

The tuners and the bridge are also non-original. They're Fender, but they've come off a CBS bass, not a 1961.

Bought a nice P bass from Diego. Everything went very smoothly - he kept me informed, sent the tracking details, and packed the bass very carefully so it was in excellent condition when it arrived. Deal with confidence with Diego.

I bought a pedal from Stew recently. Very smooth and pleasant transaction. Excellent comms, item exactly as described and all working (he tested it before handing it over to me) and he even threw in a power lead. Deal with confidence with Stew!

Meat Oaf

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Totally agree. The TV logo Jazz basses generally have low output and produce a more hollow, woody, thumpy tone. They sound good with flats and a pick, and to be fair some people might prefer that tone. The early '60s and late '70s basses have seemed to me a lot fuller sounding and alive though. Of course there are exceptions, there are some TV logo Jazzes that sound a lot fuller and some lifeless pre-CBS and late '70s ones. Just my observations/opinions, YMMV etc.

Actually, the nicest sounding Precision I ever played was a '71. I was just pointing out that I think the later '70s Fenders are very much unfairly maligned on their QC issues when in reality, apart from their weight, there's nothing worse QC wise about them, and in my experience (of course others' will differ) the woodworking/fit has seemed marginally better.

I've always found that the TV logo Fenders seemed to have worse QC than the '76-'83 'smaller' TV ones. The woodworking/fit is much rougher on the earlier-mid '70s ones. '77-'78 seemed to be when they started to improve QC, and to my ears they sound better (especially the Jazzes - the late '70s ones had a slightly higher output, similar in resistance to early '60s basses). I think the reason why people perceive the early '70s basses as better is a) they're closer chronologically to the pre-CBS period and b) the weight. They're certainly a lot heavier than the earlier ones.

After watching that disgusting display of TECHNIQUE FOR TECHNIQUE'S SAKE and TOTAL LACK OF GROOVE OR FEEL I was violently, physically sick. My next reaction was to smash in my computer monitor like a suburban dad witnessing the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy. Has he not heard that LESS IS MORE? I guarantee that if he was asked to play Mustang Sally it would be nothing but an indulgent display of tapping and double-thumbing.

Does it have the three or four bolt neck attachment? I'd presume four given the lack of a bullet truss rod adjuster. Those tuners were used up until '75 and have not been reissued by any company. I'd guess that it's either a '74/'75 bass with a newer decal on the headstock, or perhaps more interesting, some kind of special order; perhaps a customer really didn't want a three bolt neck attachment back in '77 and Fender found an earlier neck for them. As other have said. a good look at the body, etc., would probably help

Ultimately Wal can do what they want and they certainly don't owe anyone an affordable bass, but to my mind it would be good for them and their customers if they could do something similar to what Fodera did around 10 years ago; employ new young luthiers and train them up, try to expand production but slowly, gradually bringing the 4 year wait down to something like 18 months, and introduce a standard line, say a 4 string mark 1 and a 5 string mark 2 with non-customizable specs (perhaps without laminate tops), and sell them for around 50%-66% of a custom, but still made in the UK by the same people. Hopefully this would help the business's long term future without diluting the brand as at present once Paul decides to retire it's not clear what the future would be.

I think that wood also plays a role of course. For pre-CBS, the Brazilian rosewood is a lot denser than the Indian which is used on repros. Also, outside of Musikraft and the Fender custom shop, no-one will make a 7.25 radius laminate rosewood maple neck -they all tend to be slab. I don't think quality alder or maple is hard to come by, although ash is getting rare. Also, regarding '70s Fenders, everyone wants light weight these days, but Northern/heavy ash was probably a key ingredient to that tone which no-one would want to touch these days. I have heard that the wire and magnets used today differ in composition from the stuff used in the '60s/'70s/'80s, even though it's described the same way (alnico 5, heavy formvar, etc.). But modern builders wind their pickups hotter. 60-64 or so, as well as 76-82 Jazz bass pickups were typically wound at around 8-8.5k. 65-75 are lower, around 6-6.5k. Most modern 'repro' J pickups are typically around 9-11k. Also, the 'vintage' heavy formvar wire so many people talk about was NEVER used on Jazz basses - only Precisions, and even then only up to a certain year in the early '60s. So when you see Jazz bass pickups with heavy formvar wire wound to 11.5k described as vintage....nah.

I may be wrong but I don't think many vintage instruments are appreciating that much in value. They're certainly keeping pace with inflation, so they're probably a better bet than keeping money in the bank, but the heady days of the '90s and early 2000s are long gone, and I don't think the amount of disposable incomes are going up, especially among the younger demographic. I know of at least two players in the 55-70 demographic (neither of whom are lawyers/stockbrokers) with huge and valuable vintage guitar bass/collections, but I've not met any 40-55 year old musicians with any collection of vintage instruments. As for younger people, forget about it. In my working life I've met many stockbrokers, lawyers, and a few dentists, doctors. I've never known any with vaults filled with pre-CBS Fenders or Alembics/Foderas on the walls. Perhaps there was a moment back in the '80s/'90s when a few ex-hippy turned corporate overlords did have such collections, but I suspect it's not much of thing any more. I also think the idea of masses of vintage instruments going to Japan for huge prices is outdated - I heard that a lot of the ones that did go there a few decades ago are now returning to the states.

I agree with you. Especially with regard to Jazz basses. The repro Precisions tend to be closer to the originals, but every vintage style modern Jazz I've tried has not sounded that close to the actual vintage ones. For some reason this seems to be more the case with '70s style instruments. Personally I think the main factor is modern manufacturers getting the pickups wrong - they wind them far too hot these days compared to the originals.

I used to like rosewood and ebony, and still do like ebony for fretless, but for fretted I seem to favour harder rosewoods (Amazon, Brazilian), and maple and pau ferro. To me they just seem to give the sound more grit and cut through a bit better.

That would be definitely worth buying at that price if only for parting out - it's a '70s neck but I'm almost certain the tuners are early pre-CBS and would probably be worth at least £500.

I think by the mid '70s pretty much all the basses were ash - not sure I've ever seen an alder 'S' series bass, although they may well exist.

I may be wrong but I reckon your bass must have come from the factory in natural. There is absolutely no trace of any paint at all on the body which suggests it was never a solid colour that was stripped. You can see in the neck pocket where the stick it was mounted on was positioned as it doesn't have any of the poly coating on. I'd say your friend is wrong. Also, it's quite a nice looking piece of ash. I think they kept those for the natural finishes as used the 3/4 piece bodies with obvious join lines for the solid colours.