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New American Artist Flea Signature?


NJE

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According to what I believe is a trustworthy source on social media, this is the new Flea American Artist series active bass. As lots of us commented a while ago, it’s the signature bass we thought fender should have released.

No news on preamp and pickup but is looking good.

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As a stingray owner and as someone who struggles immensely with Jazz width necks, this has very little interest for me personally, but I thought it would be nice to share. I actually think it looks quite smart after being quite uninspired by it initially.

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56 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

So it's essentially a Stingray masquerading as a Jazz Bass.  Oh, and two too many knobs.

Two too many knobs? It's supposedly like a Stingray - one knob for volume and two for active EQ. It's as simple as you can get for an active bass.

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You can’t blame Fender for putting this out there. I’m not a RHCP but this is something different for Fender.  Yes it has a MM pickup but that’s why it’s a more worthy signature model than Flea’s Jazz. I’m not sure why Ernie Ball didn’t offer him something (maybe they did) but Fender were smart to get him as an artist. 

 

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Does make me laugh, I wonder what Sterling Ball thinks. Flea moves from EBMM to Modulus and gets them to essentially make him a Stingray (well, Cutlass), and them moves to Fender and gets them to essentially make him a Stingray. IME Fender make great basses (all two of them) but often pretty crap active circuits, certainly compared to those that go into Stingrays and Moduli. Interesting to see how this lands.....

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4 minutes ago, bubinga5 said:

I really like this. At least Fender are doing something different. But Fender are damned if they do and damned if they don't.  

It's really nothing different in the true sense - it's still just a pink Jazz (50+ years old), with a different/Stingray-cloned pickup option.  I do wonder whether people are in love with the shape or that it might sound like a Stingray (that pickup could just be a P-bass one under the cover), because there's nothing radically new about it - Sandberg have been doing similar stuff for yonks.  The guitar business is all so incestuous; limited designs and everyone copying everyone else.  In reality, no one is producing anything that's really unique and for that reason it's disappointing.

When was the last time anyone really saw a production instrument, that bucked Fender or Gibson designs, that was new and truly head turning?  Kubicki Ex-Factor?  Maybe a Spector NS2.  Something by Status?  Steinberg?

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8 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

When was the last time anyone really saw a production instrument, that bucked Fender or Gibson designs, that was new and truly head turning?  Kubicki Ex-Factor?  Maybe a Spector NS2.  Something by Status?  Steinberg?


Yep. The Spector NS2, designed by Ned Steinberger..
Warwick have built their entire company off the back of it and Ibanez etc have taken aspects of the design to adapt into their own instruments too...

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13 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

It's really nothing different in the true sense - it's still just a pink Jazz (50+ years old), with a different/Stingray-cloned pickup option.  I do wonder whether people are in love with the shape or that it might sound like a Stingray (that pickup could just be a P-bass one under the cover), because there's nothing radically new about it - Sandberg have been doing similar stuff for yonks.  The guitar business is all so incestuous; limited designs and everyone copying everyone else.  In reality, no one is producing anything that's really unique and for that reason it's disappointing.

When was the last time anyone really saw a production instrument, that bucked Fender or Gibson designs, that was new and truly head turning?  Kubicki Ex-Factor?  Maybe a Spector NS2.  Something by Status?  Steinberg?

+1

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I'm not normally too comfortable with sig models, but I do love Jazz basses and this looks like it could really provide something different tonewise to Fender's current models.

Ideally I'd like to see an MiM or even a Squier version so it would be more economically viable to upgrade the pickup and preamp to something as close to a genuine ray as possible.

Edited by Cato
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10 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

That’s nice how much are they?

I don't think we're 100% sure that Fender are going to put them into production yet, let alone which price range it would fall in to.

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12 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

That’s nice how much are they?

It is an American artist series apparently, so judging by the other two Jazz basses (Geddy and Adam Clayton) I would guess around £1900 in the shops.

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