Just picked up my first American Precision bass.
Stole it.
It was already discounted ridiculously, but I was also able to use a 25% off coupon, resulting in my paying $400 for it new. The store clerks were in cahoots with me since I've bought a number of guitars (including my Geddy Lee Jazz bass) and my daughter's Stradivarius trumpet there, as well as lots of gear. They put it in back for me a couple weeks ago and told me about the upcoming 25% off sale, so I showed up Wednesday during my daughter's trumpet lesson and picked 'er up. The manager was quite upset. Said the store was taking a huge beating on it.
Serves them right for ordering such an ugly one. I'm sure that's why it was discounted to being with. Probably sat there a long time with nobody willing to buy it. And it had a bit of fret buzz, but that went away as soon as I tuned it and did very minor adjustment to it.
The color is called "Daphne Blue". I'm sure it's probably quite rare because it's a distinctively non-masculine and non-bass color.
My wife asked me how I liked it when I tried it out the other night for a couple of hours and I told her that as long as I don't look at it, it's really a very good instrument. Told her that playing it is kinda like what the Harley guys say about riding a Honda, which I won't repeat here as it's distinctively off-color. The punchline being "Feels pretty good until one of your friends sees you."
The Geddy Lee bass is a Korean-made instrument, which is considered inferior to the American-made ones, but superior to the others. (Mexican? Chinese?). I'm very hard-pressed to find any differences in quality, though. Both instruments play well. The only differences are that the Jazz, being a much heavier instrument, has a deeper sound, absolutely sick sustain compared to any other bass I have, and is less prone to feedback, the P-bass feels like the neck is more "friendly" on the lower frets (likely a bit narrower), but the same on the higher frets, and I do prefer the pickups on the jazz, mostly because the lower pickup is a great thumb rest when hitting the strings where I prefer to hit them (very low to get a lot of punch and get rid of some of the fatness).
Overall, I do prefer the sound of the Jazz and especially like how handy the lower pickup is for a thumb rest. However, it's *heavy* and I can't figure out how a little guy like Geddy Lee can heft one of those for hours nightly. I'm sure a better strap would help. I can play the Precision a lot longer just because it's lighter, although I'm slightly more clumsy with it because of the pickup positioning.
I think this brings my total of basses up to about 9.
When my wife mentioned I could probably double my money on it on eBay (I like it enough I'm not parting with it), I did mention to her that if I do kick the bucket, PLEASE sell my musical instruments and most other stuff on eBay first. I can't stand to think of someone from Boogerville buying my beloved GL Jazz for $50 and using it to play <shudder> country music on his front porch.
