Fender Classic Series 70s Jazz Bass Demoed By Exhausted Gearwire Staffer
The economy's in the pooper, and to make ends meet, GW Staffer Owen O'Malley has taken a second job babysitting strangers' Second Life avatars. The job keeps him all night, but at least it pays terribly. And did we mention it's hell on his demoing ability? Regardless, he doesn't let his exhaustion keep him from taking the Mexican-made Fender Classic Series 70s Jazz Bass for a spin.
Note to Owen: when you start babbling about Nessie being in league with the Wallace clan, it's time to get some sleep.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. This is the Fender Classic Series ‘70s Jazz Bass. It is a Mexican-made Jazz Bass. It’s one of the newest offerings from Fender’s Mexican plant, their Mexican line, it retails for a little under $700, and it’s a pretty cool bass. It’s basically the Mexican Standard Bass with a different neck, an upgraded neck and upgraded pickups. Well, different pickups; upgraded may be a little bit of a subjective term in this case, but the neck is, you know, the most obvious difference between this, the Classic ‘70s and the Mexican Standard. As you can see, it’s the sort of ‘70s style bound fretboard with the block inlays on a 20-fret neck, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20.
It has a rosewood fretboard. It comes in this black finish. It’s also available in three-tone sunburst. Now, the neck profile is a lot thicker in my opinion or feels a lot thicker than the Mexican Standard Basses. I know it’s listed on web sites as being an ultra-slim neck; that’s not the case, and I’m not the only bassist who’s picked up this bass and said the same thing. It’s the first thing that you’ll notice when you pick up this bass is the really, let’s call it, generous C-shaped neck, which can be a good thing when you get used to it. It’s actually it’s kind of a comfortable neck. It’s definitely took some of getting used to for me but that said, it is a pretty decent playing bass. The setup from the factory wasn’t the best but it does come up with the tools that you need to make any minor adjustments, and there’s only minor adjustments that it takes to get it to play pretty well, and it’s the frets are pretty well dressed on this, so it does end up playing well.
Now, the other upgrade is the pickups. These are vintage AlNiCo pickups. What that means is that they have a slightly higher output and they’re slightly brighter than the standard Fender Jazz single coils. Let’s see, I’ve got the tone control dimed right now...
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
...and both pickups are on full here. It’s your basic Jazz Bass tone layout, you know, two master volumes are, you know, each pickup has its own volume and then the master tone. If we dialed back the tone and dialed back the neck pickup...
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
...some pretty cool, a little really throaty, you know, funk tones. As you can hear, it’s not the best shielded control cavity. It’s pretty noisy actually when it comes to the 60-cycle hum. If we favor then the neck pickup here, in fact let’s solo the neck pickup...,
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
...you get a pretty cool, you know, that woody slap tone.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
Now, you get the idea.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
Yeah. So, I mean it’s a fun bass to play for sure. The pickups may be a little bit too harsh for some. It’s not, you know, an exact vintage tone. It’s little bit more of an approximation of that sort of vintage ‘70s tone but it gets the idea, and I think it is definitely, in my opinion, it’s a better bass than the Mexican Standards of the same year, 2008, and it’s, you know, it’s a lot of fun. There you go. That’s basically it. It’s the Fender Classic Series ‘70s Jazz Bass with the [SPEAKING IN A SORT OF SCOTTISH ACCENT] rosewood fretboard, as they say in Scotland. You've been watching Gearwire.Com. I am a very tired Owen O'Malley.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING LINES ON THE FENDER CLASSIC SERIES ‘70S JAZZ BASS]
Nice piece of b-ass
Great review and cool bass, it looks awesome, nice tone too but I agree with Mr. O'malley, too harsh for me, I'll go with the Jaguar for now, it's more focused on the mids. Thanks for the review.
P.S. Do you think you can get your hands on a Warwick?
Warwick?
Mwah ha ha. Good idea. I'll see what I can do.
70's Jazz
I liked your delivery, and the video quality was nice. Good job. That said, you missed the most significant aspect of this bass - the 70's Jazz pickup spacing. The bridge pickup is 1/4" closer to the bridge than the 60's spacing. It's not a huge difference physically, but it is largely responsible for the classic and much desired 70's slap tone of Larry Graham, Marcus Miller, and others. Fender initially did this because they didn't like how the back pickup stuck out from the pickup cover, but it turned out that it gave the bass a brighter tone - which worked out great for slap funk.
Also, you point out that the bass is not well shielded - taking your hands off the instrument while soloing the back pickup. In case you're not aware of this, all single coil pickups will hum when soloed, it's the nature of the beast. I'm sure you noticed the hum was gone when both pickups were up full. I only mention it because it was represented as a flaw in the instrument... they all do that - that's what single coil pickups do.
Hope you don't take my comments as being bitchy, I do this for a living too, just trying to be helpful.
Thanks for your input.
Wasn't aware of the spacing specs, thanks for the info.
About single-coil hum, however: I have certainly noticed a difference between different single-coil basses I've played in the past twelve years I've been playing -- and I'm talking solely about Fender Jazzes, and in the same rehearsal space (same power source). I'm well-aware (and sad to acknowledge) that 60-cycle hum can't be eliminated in passive basses, but there are basses that are noisier than others; "boutique" bass luthiers like Roger Sadowsky and Mike Lull utilize shielding foil or paint for this very reason. I don't think I said anything that would indicate that a passive bass should be silent, but to say that this bass is particularly noisy is, I think, both a legitimate and accurate assessment.
At any rate, I thank you for your constructive criticism, and for checking us out.
nice bass man" it looks
nice bass man" it looks interesting,, i'll try one of those,, keep on rockin..
'70s JB is great, how about '60s Classic Series JB
Hi, there!
After reading and watching stuff on Fender '70 Classic Series JB I think Fender Classic Series Jazzes are better than Fender Mexican Standards (commonly told as "crap"). Is that right? So how about Fender Classic Series '60s JB? Is it quality comparable to '70s JB? And how about Squier Classic Vibe JB? Sorry for asking such question here. I can't find these informations on your website.
BTW, it's better to hear an opinion of just one person about all of three guitars.
Fender Classic Series 60's Jazz Bass
Hi, As I need a passive bass to record Reggae stuff, I'm looking at the
60's JB. I mean to put Fender light gauge flatwounds on there. As I'm
going to be using the neck p/u with a bit of tone control roll-off -
will I get a buzz from my computer monitor? Maybe fitting the old
metal ash tray thingy would help? BTW I heard that these 60's ones
have a very comfortable neck, anyone know more?
Cheers!
Hey Owen
Yes hey Owen sure something told you that you are an idiot.
i might buy it, but would like a 2nd opinion
i think im going to get that bass, it looks realy cool and from what i can hear sounds cool too. been on a p and j bass before, but i think im going to get this j bass. i want a bass that i can play a large veriaty of music on, from playing RHCP funky slap songs, to more heavy music like metellica or iron maiden, and then to post-punk like joy division. so i was just wondering if anyone agrees, or can conferm that this will be a good bass for playing all different sorts of music? :)
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