Weirdest Fender ever?

[Ben Jamin]

Looks like Fender CS are doing a limited run of an Adrian Younge signature bass, which has got to be one of the quirkiest designs I've seen for a while! 

 

Seems like it would be a bunch of fun to play, and clearly works for Adrian! But definitely a niche instrument!

 

Jazz body with 50% fretted, 50% fretless jazz neck

Precision middle pick-up

Curtis Novak bisonic neck pick-up

Built-in fuzz and tremolo effects

 

https://www.fendercustomshop.com/basses/jazz-bass/limited-edition-masterbuilt-adrian-younge-jazz-bass/

 

[uncle psychosis]

Well thats bonkers. 

 

I wouldn't buy one, but I always do enjoy when a signature instrument is a genuine "built for this one person" effort so I can appreciate it. 

[Eldon Tyrell]

Price - $14,500

[Happy Jack]

36 minutes ago, Eldon Tyrell said:

Price - $14,500

 

I'll take three please, and can you gift-wrap two of them for me?

[Eldon Tyrell]

5 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

 

I'll take three please, and can you gift-wrap two of them for me?

sure and do you want fries with that?

[mxm]

Same pick up as in the equally weird Fender Abuelo ?

[Cato]

I like that a lot.

 

I wonder if they might do a limited lower specced MiM or USA production run if this generates enough interest.

[Happy Jack]

Yup, bringing the price down to $12,500 would be a game-changer.

[Newfoundfreedom]

Who?

[MichaelDean]

I love the look of these. I'd want all of the frets though please. 

[simonlittle]

I’d love to know how many of these they end up actually selling. 

[wateroftyne]

I would like to buy them all, and smash them into tiny pieces.

 

[basshead56]

Fender Marketing dept. pitch meeting, Corona:

 

"So, any revolutionary new bass ideas guys? We are being called lazy online due to a lack of anything other than re-hashing our two core models for the last 65 odd years."

 

"Have we done an active PJ this year?'

"We have?!" "Oh, ok."

 

"How about something, something Vintage?" "Oh ok."

 

"Hmm, too early for another Ultra..."

 

"How about some signature Jazzes BUT they are for indie female players?!"

"Oh, we've done that too... ok...'

 

"Ok no wrong answers here, anything goes, let's go!!!"

 

Crickets

 

One guy: "How about a bass that can only be used for scoring a Tarantino soundtrack and not much else?"

 

"Go on..."

 

"Right, a Jazz, probably. But it's a...

 

"Stick a P pickup in there"

 

"Ok, a Jazz with a P pickup, but also let's make it godless, heinous and semi-fretless"

 

"Ok guys we're on fire here, what else?"

 

"Give it a weird paint job, a semi-expensive neck 'bucker and wonky effects, slap a Custom Shop logo on it and charge $15k for it..."

 

... ... * Single senior executive clapping slowly, before entire board room joins in one by one leading to a standing ovation! *

 

"We'll bring out a MIM or Jap version, followed by a Squier Paranormal line in 6 months and charge $2k" (then discontinue it in 18 months)

 

"We've sorted the company's earning for the next two years guys, well done!"

 

 

Edited August 31 by basshead56

[Cato]

8 hours ago, MichaelDean said:

I love the look of these. I'd want all of the frets though please. 

 

Yep  I'm not sure what kind of technique you need to make good use of the half fretless thing, but I definitely don't have it.

 

[Mrbigstuff]

9 hours ago, simonlittle said:

I’d love to know how many of these they end up actually selling. 

I doubt many at all. A bass designed to fit one man’s extremely niche requirements, and its ugly as sin on top of that! Hopefully they’re made to order.

[kwmlondon]

Well. I’m glad a big player like Fender can still make something that would shame a boutique builder in terms of nuttiness. I would take a whole day to travel to a store to try that slab of fruit cake lunacy!

 

The price makes me feel much better about my own meagre, frugal purchases. 

[Ben Jamin]

Really like the pick-guard as a mix of '52 P-bass and Marcus Miller Jazz!

I could see it doing pretty well as a body/pick-up concept in a MIM model if they committed to either fretted/fretless and put a passive tone circuit in there instead, with a more regular set of finishes. Those pick-ups would work great for a warm fretless tone.

 

But then that would just make it another boring Fender?

Another thought, is there a good reason why we don't see more effects in basses? There are plenty of 9V or 18V active basses that only power a 3-band EQ. It'd be cool to see something like a compressor and SansAmp in a body, which everyone could find useful. Maybe even a tuner? Could even be clever with an XLR output and phantom power?

 

[AndyTravis]

That looks ace to me.

 

1. fretted or fretless…never both.

2. £14k? Feff…no.

 

I reckon you could do something like that for about £300 in bits.

[kwmlondon]

4 hours ago, Ben Jamin said:

Really like the pick-guard as a mix of '52 P-bass and Marcus Miller Jazz!

I could see it doing pretty well as a body/pick-up concept in a MIM model if they committed to either fretted/fretless and put a passive tone circuit in there instead, with a more regular set of finishes. Those pick-ups would work great for a warm fretless tone.

 

But then that would just make it another boring Fender?

Another thought, is there a good reason why we don't see more effects in basses? There are plenty of 9V or 18V active basses that only power a 3-band EQ. It'd be cool to see something like a compressor and SansAmp in a body, which everyone could find useful. Maybe even a tuner? Could even be clever with an XLR output and phantom power?

 

I think it’s just that it’d limit the appeal of the instrument - the chances of a bass having the exact distortion I want are very low… but that all changes with modelling because you can have whatever you want. I think we’ll see more of these in the future.

[jd56hawk]

At first, I thought it said $4,500, but damn!

I mean, I can understand $12,500 or even $13,500, but $14,500?

Edited August 31 by jd56hawk

[Stub Mandrel]

Seems to combine the worst of Gibson and Rickenbacker onto a Fender body.

[rwillett]

For $14,500 I'll take my rather nice Jazz and pull half the frets out with my teeth.

 

My kids (now 18 and 16) have loads of sparkly painting stuff left over from when they were five, I've got some PVA glue and I'll pour a mm or two all over it. Both my daughters went through a very pink sparkly stage at 5-6 years old, so we have kgs of the stuff left over for something or other. This is that something. 

 

I'll do it dirt cheap at around $10k and I'm cutting my own throat at that price. 

 

 

[Jack]

Poor Fender. Hated for being stale, hated for doing something unique. 

[razor5cl]

16 hours ago, Cato said:

 

Yep  I'm not sure what kind of technique you need to make good use of the half fretless thing, but I definitely don't have it.

 

 

You need to play like Cronos from Venom - make a total bloody racket and mainly use that fretless upper register for slides and making various ungodly noises 

 

 

[Rodders]

I maintain the 6 string/s made for Tye Zamora is the "weirdest" Fender, doesn't remotely resemble anything else they've ever produced.