Passive 5 strings, what are your favourites?

[Pinball]

There are lots of cracking passive 4 stringers like Sandbergs, Fenders, and G&L's but when it comes to 5 stringers I am more drawn to active ibanez's G&L's, Stingrays etc. I do see a few nice Fender Jazz's and precisions but not much else. Am I missing out on something?

What are people playing?

[Al Krow]

Happy to get the (pin) ball rolling for you  

Here's mine - Yamaha BB 1025, which I'm loving:

And here's a nice little review from @CameronJ who took the trouble of letting me have his thoughts on his BB1025'X' (i.e. with pickguard) version a while back, before I bought mine.

My experience has been great so far. 

How does it feel to play? Well neck profile, string spacing, action and the actual finish of the neck all come into play here and these are the first things that attracted me to the BB, before I even plugged in. I got to try one out almost by accident at the Yamaha Music Store in central London and comparing it to the other bass models on the wall (TRBs, Attitudes etc) this one immediately felt so good. Very easy to play. For me, the BB ticks all the boxes comfort-wise. The body is fairly big (especially in comparison to my Ibanez) but I don't find it uncomfortable at all. In some ways I actually find it more comfortable than my Ibanez because the body shape is more rounded at the edges.

Now, the sound. I don't think YouTube demos can really do this bass justice. This is my first ever passive bass and I was surprised to discover that it has a hotter output than any of my active basses. There is definitely some magic in those blade pickups! Obviously tone is so subjective but this thing definitely recreates "the sound in my head". To give you an idea of what I mean, I was lusting after a precision before buying this and now my lust is pretty much satisfied. The P-pickup definitely hits the mark for me, but with seemingly more grunt. I've read elsewhere that in basses with a P/J pickup arrangement the Jazz pickup at the bridge is often regarded as poor on its own, only useful for blending with the P pickup for a more defined sound. That really isn't the case with this J pickup. Again, like the P, it has more balls than a typical single-coil in this position so is actually quite useful musically on its own.

The thing to be aware of about the controls is that instead of a pickup blend knob you've got a pickup selector SWITCH. I've got basses with blend knobs and basses with selector switches but my first ever bass was a Yamaha with a switch so I guess it feels like home to me. Some people prefer to have the specificity of a sweepable knob but to be honest I really enjoy the ease of having 3 distinct sounds available to me so quickly. The tone knob is so useable across its entire range and that's all I need for additional tone shaping. I never thought I'd say that...I used to be an active-3-band-EQ kinda guy but this bass may well have turned me into a passive convert!

These are my personal opinions so take them with a pinch of salt but I love this bass!

Edited March 31, 2018 by Al Krow

[dannybuoy]

BB1025X  

BB1025X  

BB1025X  

BB1025X  

BB1025X 

[CameronJ]

Yep. I still stand by every word of that review. It’s very hard to beat a BB!

[Graham]

I'm still very taken with my Lakland DJ5

Though, I think you were saying before you prefer a 34" scale?

[Paul S]

No contest, my new Maruszczyk Jake 5 custom shop.

[Happy Jack]

For me it's all about scale length. I'm not happy with a 34" low B, and yes, I do know that good ones do exist. It's just that I haven't really found one.

Now 35" low B is a whole nuther thang, and it immediately means that Mike Lull, Lakland and MTD are all in the frame.

My main squeeze?

http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/h4ppyjack/library/Basses CURRENT/Mike Lull T5 2014 CURRENT

 

[Pinball]

Hmm plenty of class machines to choose from there.....yes any of those please

[chris_b]

My passive Mike Lull PJ5 is a fantastic instrument.

[Grahambythesea]

The Gibson EB5 seemed to become like Marmite, but mine knocks spots off the Fender Jazz V I used to have. Passive but powerful - pull pots change the pickups from humbuckers to single coils.

 

[alembic1989]

16 minutes ago, Grahambythesea said:

The Gibson EB5 seemed to become like Marmite, but mine knocks spots off the Fender Jazz V I used to have. Passive but powerful - pull pots change the pickups from humbuckers to single coils.

 

Fabulous basses...great tones, very underrated.

[Woodinblack]

I sold my EB5 as I couldn't get on with the string spacing, but it sounded fantastic.

[colleya]

I took a chance on a Maruszczyk Jake 5p on the for sale boards on here a couple of years ago. Haven't wanted anything else since. 

If I'd had the choice I'd probably have gone for the haussel pups instead of the delano but it plays beautifully.

[FDC484950]

All Warwick 5’s with a pull up on the volume pot are in effect passive. Looking at the wiring diagram it is true passive too as it goes direct to the jack, bypassing the preamp, and their pickups are passive. I use it a lot as it is a less sizzly tone without the preamp and single coils/coil-rapped MM’s are quieter. Those Yamaha BB basses are hard to beat, though.

[Al Krow]

43 minutes ago, FDC484950 said:

All Warwick 5’s with a pull up on the volume pot are in effect passive. Looking at the wiring diagram it is true passive too as it goes direct to the jack, bypassing the preamp, and their pickups are passive. I use it a lot as it is a less sizzly tone without the preamp and single coils/coil-rapped MM’s are quieter. Those Yamaha BB basses are hard to beat, though.

@Pinball - ok "Ref." is it definitely 'off-side' to include active 5 string basses that have a passive mode toggle? In which case we can include pretty much every decent 5 string bass going(!) and the title becomes "5 Strings - what are your favourites?". I'll just give Ibanez and Sandberg a quick mention, too, if we're doing that! 

Edited April 1, 2018 by Al Krow

[ead]

I've only ever owned one, a Squier VM P5.  Nice bass and I wish I was better at 5ers, meaning really spent more time practicing on them.  I'm pretty welder to 4 string basses in reality.

[CameronJ]

11 minutes ago, ead said:

I've only ever owned one, a Squier VM P5.  Nice bass and I wish I was better at 5ers, meaning really spent more time practicing on them.  I'm pretty welder to 4 string basses in reality.

Ah, these are quite rare to find these days. Heard good things!

[Painy]

13 hours ago, Grahambythesea said:

The Gibson EB5 seemed to become like Marmite, but mine knocks spots off the Fender Jazz V I used to have. Passive but powerful - pull pots change the pickups from humbuckers to single coils.

 

Got mine strung with flats at the moment for a bit of contrast with my other basses and it sounds lovely.

All 3 of my gigging basses are 5 string passives - the other 2 being a Fender modern player Jazz (which like the Gibson is loaded with a pair of coil-tappable humbuckers) and my main bass which is a Squier VM P5. 

I love the Squier - it just suits me perfectly despite being one of the cheapest basses I've ever owned - and it is my clear number one overall. I do have to concede though that the Gibson has the better low B.

 

[ead]

10 hours ago, CameronJ said:

Ah, these are quite rare to find these days. Heard good things!

It was a nice bass, sat well on a strap and the neck was nice to get up and down.  The pickup wasn't my favourite thing and as you can probably see I stuck a Seymour Duncan SPB3 in which worked very well, once I realised that, to my ears, these high output pickups work nicely in P bass form with the tone rolled down about 30%

[naxos10]

I had a Spector Legend 5 string which is an excellent bass, well built good sounding and not that expensive.

[Woodinblack]

9 hours ago, Painy said:

. I love the Squier - it just suits me perfectly despite being one of the cheapest basses I've ever owned - and it is my clear number one overall. I do have to concede though that the Gibson has the better low B.

 

My squier 4 sounds nice, although the Gibson did sound better and it was cheaper (new) than the squier!

[NickD]

My Jake!

I kinda bought is as backup for my Elwood L5, figuring that a J type and a P type would cover everything. Wrong, the P type has everything covered by itself. The Elwood is lighter, a pleasure to play and weighs nothing. It has a lovely range of tones from the preamp, but for all its simplicity the passive Jake blows it away. I had them wire it volume, pan and tone as that's what I prefer, and it's just perfect. The output from those Delanos is monstrous too. Occasionally, usually in practice, I miss the 24 frets and easy top end access of it's brother, but it's always my first choice.

[NancyJohnson]

I had two Laklands; a DJ5 and a whatever passed for the Jazz bass version back then (now it's a 55-60).  I owned the DJ5 but the 55-60 was a loaner.  They were both pretty stunning, but that said my Mike Lull beats these by a country mile.

Edited April 2, 2018 by NancyJohnson

[Pinball]

Fantastic, lots of choices to think of there....now all I need is the momney to buy them

[Happy Jack]

13 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I had two Laklands; a DJ5 and a whatever passed for the Jazz bass version back then (now it's a 55-60).  I owned the DJ5 but the 55-60 was a loaner.  They were both pretty stunning, but that said my Mike Lull beats these by a country mile.

If only the body was the right way around!